MARKETING MIX AND RELATIONSHIP

The company applied all the products of marketing mix-product,price,place and promotion,because the company believes all the elements of marketing mix are very important for a business to compete and succeed.

Customer relationship can be define as a way or technique used by a company to build and maintain a database and satisfying their customers and having the right people interacting with customers to maintain and keep your data base growing is key in overall customer satisfaction. Understanding who the customer is and the type of interaction the customer best responds to can be the difference between satisfied and dissatisfied customers.

Consumers has been cared for by satisfying their wish and trying to respond to their complains positively.

Emails,telephone,faxes are parts of the ways in which technology has helped in improving customer relationship.

PEOPLE AS COMPETITIVE TOOL

To me customer service is the part of an organisation that sees to complain and commendation of the customers.A good customer care department must make sure it meet if not exceed the customers expectations.
Customer service is an important tool of retaining and gaining customer
The first thing NBC do is that they maintain a good relationship among their workers,not only that they also motivate,attract,train and retain the best qualify workers,which will increase excellent external marketing.
Employees will improve their performances when they are trained and motivate in that direction.Moreso,when the company has already inform them about the mission or target of the company,the employee feel that the company is counting on them and they will want to justify the confidence the company has on them.

NICELY AVAILABLE

The marketing channel of NBC's products is through direct selling.They sell their products directly to the retailers who then sell it to the consumers.
The distribuition is through packing the products into NBC's selling trucks,which is then move from one geographical location to the other.
EXTERNAL ACCESSIBILITY
NBC has some trategic locations(depot) in each states of Nigeria where consumers can have accsess to their product without going to their production plant.
NBC also use a colour that distinguishes their products from competing products and no other company is allowed to use NBC'S logo for their products.
INTERNAL ACCESSIBILITY
NBC had made provision for both old and new customer,by assigning some of their official to take of customers who wants to have access to the products in the plants,there are some maps and handbook that also serves as a guide to customers.

AT ANY COST

Pricing is an important part of marketing which must not be handled with levity.For a profit making organisation,setting price plays a key role in determing how succesful the company will be.
The price of NBC's products are affected by many factors which will be discuss in details.The first factor is the cost of production,for the company to make a reasonable gain,the company has to consider this factor when selecting price.A company is tempted to increase the price of the product if there is demand for its products and vice versa.Another factor that is really affecting the pricing of my company's product is the price of competitors,a company will want to gain a competitive advantage in term of price,so raising the price will adversely affect the sales of the company.The other factors that has affect and still affecting pricing incude,quality of products,skill level of the company etc.
The pinciple of pricing the company uses is the current profit maximization,which means to increase the current profit,taking into account revenue and expenditure.The pricing strategy the company applies is the competitive pricing,where in the company uses the the competitors retail price as the bench mark of deciding the price of their products.
For most of NBC's customers price of their products is directly propotional to their income and they tend to purchase the company's products because they believe the quality is up to their standard.

I WAS HIT

Using my friend as case study in my explanation of product adoption(NBC products).
According to him,he said he first heard about NBC products on an advertisement programme on the television,that is where the awareness first come from,but he doesnt have sufficient information on the product.Then he decided to gather more information on thses product from public relation manager.Based on the information he heard he tries to evaluate the product,whether NBC products are beneficial.He then went further by giving NBC product a trial to determine its usfulness.After giving the product a trial,he decided to adopt NBC's products.

PROMOTIONAL MIX OF NBC
-Advertisement:The company engage in series advertisement through the media the create awareness to the public
-Personal Selling:The company also do personal selling for building strong relationship between the consumers and the company.It is a medium of getting contact with the consumers which allows feedbacks and adjustments.Usually the company uses its labour force to this personal selling.
-Sales Promotion:The aim of NBC's sales promotion is to give short term incentives to consumers so as encourage them to purchase NBC's products.During the sales promotion period they use different types of format,which include,coupons,dancing competition,dramatizes offer etc
-Public Relation:The public relation department of NBC is doing a good job in maintaing the good image of the company.They maintain a cordial relationship with the public,they headoff unfavourable rumour or stories etc
-Direct Marketing:The company do direct communication with their customers to obtain immediate responce.The company do this by using telephone,emails,fax etc

THIS IS SOMETHING I LOVE

The product in question is coca cola,the core level of a bottle of coca cola is the benefit i derived when i consume this product.It queches thirsty and it also serves as refreshment.For the actual level coca cola doesnt have an actual products because once you have drink it you can reuse it again.The augmented aspect of this product is that it has a large quantity and there are complain offices where customers can lodge their complain,incase there is problem with the products.The actual products is that the content taste better and the price is affordable

PRODUCT MIX AND PRODUCT LINE OF NIGERIA BOTTLING COMPANY
Since product line is the total number of related products offered to the public,then the product line of NBC is NINETEEN,they include classic coke,diet coke,vanilla,orange,lemon etc.
The product mix are coca cola,fanta schweps,juice and eva water.
PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE
A typical product life cycle is the stage a company or its products moves from one stage to the other-introduction stage,growth stage,maturity stage and the decline stage.Presently the company had moved past the introduction stage and the growth stage,its at its full maturity stage and this is because different features are used by the company to ensure differentiation of the company's product.Aside from this the company had reduced the price of their product in order to gain advantage from their competitors and the company engage in advertisement to maintain the brand name.



















BRANDING
Nigeria Botling Company engages in distinct branding,i.e each product stand alone.This is so because has a lot of product inhis fold,and not all the product will accepted by consumer i.e each product stand alone and the fail or failure of such product doesnt affect the entire market of the company.
Apart from this branding allows the consumer to differenciate between NBC products and related products,its also give problems to pyracy because its not easy to reproduce the company logo.
PACKAGING
NBC's products are package in such a way that protection for shock,vibration and theft,the packaging also contain vital information on the content and use of the particular product e.g the nurtitional function.Promotional materials are also placed on the packaging,to attract potencial consumer attention and to have a positive impact upon the purchasing decision.Which had really helped to increase the sales level of the product.

TARGETING STRATEGY

Taking Nigeria Bottling Company as a case study,the market segmentation is undiffrenciated market segment.
The targeting strategy the company is applying is the selective specialization,and they decided to use this stategy because the company engage in the production of diffrent product which fit into different segment.
But the only difference is the awareness programme,diffrent advertisement or promotion are used for difrent products.

THIS IS WHAT I AM

Consumers tend to buy goods for diffrent reasons,which differ from one person to another.In order to explain a little of what i understand on this topic,i will choose one of my friends,whom i am close to,as a case study on this subject.

PERSONAL FACTOR
My friend usually purchase things on two basic reasons,the first,is that he buys things that appeal to him.So far he is contenteded with the products he never change his mind even if i advice him not to because of some genuine reason he will never listen.
The second resson is that
SOCIAL FACTOR
My friend also purchase goods on what he feels his culture support,not only that he also tend to immitite his mentol on whatever the man buys because he feels the man always do the right thing.
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR
He also buys things inorder to gain a specific purpose e.g the books when he wants to sit for exams,he also buys gift for his girlfriend to show how he loves and cares for he .

MASLOW HIERACHY OF NEED

HOW PERSONAL,SOCIAL AND PSYCOLOGICAL FACTOR AFFECT LIMITED DECISION PROCESS
Using my friend as a case study,personal reason for buying goods has little or no effect on limited decision process,this is so because a consumer will buy products he or she feels his appealing to him,gathering information plays a little role in this case.Because no matter the information you give a consumer on this product,if it doesn't appeal or unique to him he will never buy.The decision lies in him.

Like the personal reason,information also plays a minor role in social factor,because the consumer decision to purchase a particular is influced by leader,mentor etc,and consumers believe that what this people do are always right.So they tend to buy more.

Psycological factor plays a great role in limited decision process because,information is greatly needed in the case.Psycological factor,is the consumer reason for satisfying a goal,a reasonable consumer will never engage in limited decision process because if at the end of the day,the information was wrong they wont be able to achieve their goal for buying those products.

HOW PERSONALITY WAS INFLUENCED BY MARKETING MEASURES IN EACH PHASE
Using my friend as a case study again,he usually engage in routine marketing because this is what he is use to buying,he makes little information on this product because he believes he everything about this product.
But in limited decision making,my friend always purchase products in this case because he hardly has time,he is a busy type.So he do engage in limited decision making.
He does'nt involve himself in extensive decision making making because he believes that he must know whatever he wants to spend his money on,except for some situations which he does'nt have choice.

HOW SITUATIONAL FACTORS ALTERED LIMITED BUYING DECISION
There are only two situational factor that affect my friends limited buying decision,the availability of time is the first factor that affect the buying decision of my friend.If the time of the day is late or the time spam is very short,the buyer has no choice than to buy the products.The other factor is the amountof buyer present,my friend believes that all the buyer cannot be wrong,so he is tempted to purchase such product.The mood he is another factor that determine whether he buys or not.

MARKETING ENVIROMENT

Marketing enviroment refers to the factors that affects marketing directly and or indirecly.They include the macro enviroment,the micro enviroment and the internal enviroment.

Using Nigeria Bottling Company(NBC) as a case study,on how enviromental factor affect the production of the products of NBC.


HOW MACRO ENVIROMENT AFFECT THE PRODUCTION OF NBC
Considering the macro enviromental factor,it is no doubt that govermental factor is really affecting the sales of the company products.The goverment policy on taxation is really affecting the company price on their products as they need to transfer the burden to consumer which is presently affecting the company's sales.Aside from this the goverment policy on enviromental protection and pollution is seriously gulpping a lot of money from the company,the goverment policy on employment law or welfare package are also part of the macro enviromental factor that is affecting the company.

Inflation,disposable income and cost of energy are another factor that is seriously affecting the sales level of the company.In a sense that their is low purchase of products in any company that is plagued with inflation.The company is also spending a lot of money on energy as their is little electricity supply in Nigeria,which in turn give rise to an increse the the prices of the company's products.

The rate at which innovation is moving the industry is really affecting the company because the competition is really becoming intense and is adversely affecting the company saling level.The company is also spending a lot of money on research so as to be relevant in the market.

Social factor is another strong macro enviromental factor that is really affecting the company.Friends,neighbour,family change the concept of people which inversely affect the position of the company.

HOW MICRO ENVIROMENT AFFECTS THE PRODUCTION OF NBC
The first micro enviromental factor that affect the production of NBC is the supplier,they increase the price of the raw materials they supply to NBC for their production,not only that there are delays in some cases which is seriously affecting operation process of the company.
Consumers are another factor,because they tend to consume more during festive period,so there is increase in the production level dring this period,but there is shortage demand of this products during cold or harmatan season,so the company has to reduce the the production or supply of their products during this period.

COMPETITIVE POSITION
Nigeria Bottling Company is the marker leader,among the companies producing soft drinks in Nigeria.The company always dictate the pass and other follows and the good image the company has is another factor that is making it to be the leader.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Consumer believe that their products has the best quality.The prices of their products is affordable when compare to the quality and they spent a lot on advertisement,which allows more consumers to be aware of their products.

MARKETING ?

Marketing can be said to be a strategy and tactics used by marketer to identify,create and maintain a cordial relationship with consumers that result into value for both the marketer and the consumer.
Dissecting the above defination,marketing is the effort and decision made by marketer to gain the knowledge of customers and competitors.It compels the markers to be innovative inorder to compete in the market and making sure that customers return to puchase their products again and there is satisfaction from both the marketer(for his effort and resources in the business)and the customer for the money he or she spent on purchasing the products.

The significance of marketing in our lives cannot be understimated,marketing compels producers to make sure they know what the consumers need,it also force the marketers to continously improve on the products the consumers need.Marketing create a competitive enviroment where markers will lower the prices of their products inorder to gain a competitive advantage with their competitors.Marketing allows efficient distribution and accesss to the products the consumers regarless of their geographical area.Indirectly,marketing contribute to increasing the labour force of a country,through excess demand that leads to expansion of products.

Basically,marketing had long been in existences,but most of the marketing term are grouped under the subject of economics(price,consumer behaviour etc).The subject of marketing started in the early 1900's,the period was tagged discover period,that was when words like price,advertisement etc were borrowed from economics.

After the period of discovery came the era of conceptualization i.e the period when marketing concept and terms were defined.

Integration period is the period when postulation of marketing principles took place.

Between the year 1930-1940,was the period when marketing continued to develop,hypothetical and new approaches were introduced into the marketing field.This period was called "developmental stage".

After the developmental stage comes period of reappraisal,it is the period when the concept of traditional marketing was re-appraise in term of new need for marketting knowledge.This period takes place between 1940-1950.

Between 1950-1960 was the time when the tradition approaches were replaced by emphasis on managerial decisions,societal marketing and quantitative marketing.

Thereafter,the concept of managerialism,holism,enviromentalism,system and internationals were introduced into the marketing world.This period was named Period of diffrenciation and this period took place between 1960-1970.

From 1970 up to date is the period when social issues and marketing became more important,the influence of marketing on the society become the centre of focus.

HELLO

As a marketing student at the Finnish Business College,Helsinki,Finland.I will like to share and learn marketing at large from profesionals,practitionals and students like myself.I hope our relationship on this blog will go a long way bringing new dimension to the marketing world globally.
I will welcome any comment or constructive criticism on any subject i publish on this blog.
You are wellcome to my marketing world.