Discuss about the types of Markets

A market is a set of all present and potential buyers. We can classify the market according to the nature, objectives, behaviour of the market, which are discussed below.

1. Consumer markets:
This market is constituted by the consumer who buys goods and services for their ultimate consumption. They do not process it to produce another goods and services or resell it to another customer. Their buying behaviour is mostly emotional and they are not well informed about goods and services. Producer or marketer requires to getting a clear sense about their target customers. Most of the product’s strength depends on developing a superior product and packaging and backing it with continuous advertising and reliable service. Consumer marketers decide on the features, quality level, distribution coverage and promotional activities that will help their product or service to achieve the best position in the market.

2. Business markets:
This market is constitute by the business men or professionals who buys goods and services to produce another goods and services or resell it to another customer. They are well - trained and well – informed professional buyers who have the skill to evaluate the competitive offerings.

The business buyer purchase products to make profit. Their buying behavior is purely rational. Business marketers must demonstrate how their products will help business customer to achieve their profit goals. In this market advertise has very small role, but stronger role is played by sales force, price and company’s reputation for reliability and quality.

3. Global markets:
The Company selling their goods and services in the global market place and face additional decision and challenges. Marketer must be decide which countries to enters, how to enter each country, how to adapt their product and service features to each countries, how to price their product in different countries. In the global market, marketer must have to take other decisions, such as how to adapt their communication to fit the cultural practices of each country. These decisions must be made on different legal system, different styles of negotiation, different type of requirements for buying, owning and disposing of property and so on.

4. Non - profit and governmental markets:
Companies selling their goods to non - profit organizations such as churches, Universities, Education boards, charitable organizations or government agencies. In this market, company must be careful to set price for their goods, because these organizations have limited purchasing power. Lower prices can be affect the features and quality of the goods. In this market, different types of formalities are needed to make sales.

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Marketing Short Notes on- 'Customer loyalty'

Customer loyalty is all about attracting the right customer, getting them to buy, buy often, buy in higher quantities and bring one even more customers. However, that focus is not how one builds customer loyalty. 

One builds loyalty by- 

1. Keeping touch with customers using email marketing, thank you cards and more. 

2. Treating your team well so they treat your customers well. 

3. Showing that you care and remembering what they like and don’t like. 

4. You build it by rewarding them for choosing you over your competitors. 

5. You build it by truly giving a damn about them and figuring out how to make them more success, happy and joyful. 

In short, one builds customer loyalty by treating people how they want to be treated.

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Define Window dressing. How Window dressing works?

Definition of Window dressing
Window dressing is a term that describes the act of making a company's performance, particularly its financial statements, look more attractive than what it is in actual.

A strategy used by mutual fund and portfolio managers near the year or quarter end to improve the appearance of the portfolio/fund performance before presenting it to clients or shareholders. To window dress, the fund manager will sell stocks with large losses and purchase high flying stocks near the end of the quarter. These securities are then reported as part of the fund's holdings.

How It Works/Example:
Let's assume Company XYZ wants to look attractive to potential acquirers. It might do some window dressing by announcing much higher sales projections, obtaining and holding a lot of cash, or making other announcements that are

likely to raise the stock price, even if only for a short time. The objective is to make a favorable impression on potential acquirers.

Companies are not the only ones to engage in window dressing. Mutual funds do it as well, often by cutting their losses and buying high-fliers (sometimes that are not even in the fund's investment sector) near the end of a reporting period.

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Define Millionaire Deposit Scheme (MDS) with its feature and benefits

Definition of Millionaire Deposit Scheme (MDS)

Millionaire Deposit Scheme (MDS) Account is a time specified monthly deposit scheme for clients where the deposited money will become one million on maturity.

Features and Benefits:
1. Tenor: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 year’s term;
 

2. Deposit on monthly installment basis;
 

3. Attractive rate of interest;
 

4. Account can be opened at any working day of the month;
 

5. Monthly installment can be deposited through a standing debit instruction from the designated CD/SB Account;
 

6. Monthly installment can be deposited in advance;
 

7. An account can be transferred from one branch to another branch of the bank;
 

8. Credit facility for maximum of 2 years can be availed at any time during the period of the scheme;
 

9. Allowed to open more than one MDS Account for different amount at any branch of the Bank;

But these features and benefits can be varied bank to bank.

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Explain the four pillars of Marketing concept

The marketing concept or consumer oriented concept holds that the key to achieving its organizational goals consist of the company being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering and communicating customer value to its chosen target market. Marketing concept rests on four pillars. These are discussed below.

Target market:
First company segmented total market according to some effective basis. Then they choose a target market, which market is more profitable and at the same time it is easy to serve. Company do best when they choose their target market carefully and prepare effective marketing programs.

Customer needs:
A company can define its target market but fall to correctly understand the customers’ needs. Understanding customer needs and wants is not always simple. Some customers have needs which they are not fully conscious, or they can not articulate these needs, or they use some words that require some interpretations. So, it is essential to find out the actual needs and wants of the customers.

Integrated marketing:
When all the company’s department’s works together to serve the customer’s interest, the result is integrated marketing. Integrated marketing takes place on two levels. First, the various marketing functions - sales force, advertising, customer service, product management, and marketing research - must together. Second, marketing must be embraced by the other departments; they must also have to think about customer.

Profitability:
The ultimate purpose of the marketing concept is to help organizations to achieve their objectives. In the case of private firms, the major objective is to earn profit. In the case of non - profit or public organizations, it is surviving and attracting enough funds to perform useful work.

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Explain the states of Demand and related Marketing tasks

Different types of demand are existed in the market for different type of products and services, which are discuss below. Marketer observed the demand in the market and take necessary action to change the nature of demand or adjust it with the help of different type of marketing tools and techniques.

1. Negative demand:
A market is in state of negative demand if a major part of the market (customer) dislikes the product, and may even pay a price to avoid it. Such as vaccination, dental work, air travel etc.

The marketing task is to analyze why the market dislikes the product and whether a marketing program consisting of product redesign, lower prices and more positive promotion can change beliefs and attitudes.

2. No demand:
Target customers may be unaware of or not interested in the product. College students may not be interested in foreign language course. A new service holder may not be interest to take a life insurance policy.

The marketing task is to find ways to connect the benefits of the product with the person’s natural needs and interests.

3. Latent demand:
Many customers may have a strong need that cannot be satisfied by any existing product. There is a strong latent demand for harmless cigarettes and more fuel efficient cars.

The marketing task is to measure the size of the potential market and take necessary research program and develop products and services to satisfy the demand if that are profitable.

4. Declining demand:
Every organization, sooner or later, face declining demand for one or more of its products. Such as, demand for gramophone, radio, black and white television etc.

The marketer must analyze the cause of the decline and determine whether demand can be restimulated by new target markets, by changing product features, by price reduction or by more efficient and effective communication.

5. Irregular demand:
Many organizations face demand that varies on a seasonal, daily, or even hourly basis, causing problems of idle or overworked capacity. Such as road transport city buses are idle during off - peak hours and insufficient during peak hours.

The marketing task is to find ways to alter the pattern of demand through flexible pricing, promotion and other incentives.

6. Full demand:
Organizations often face full demand when they are pleased with their volume of business. Such as, mobile phone companies faces full demand situation in Bangladesh.

The marketing task is to maintain the current level of demand, so that they can face the changing customer preferences and increasing competition. The organization must maintain or improve its quality and continually measure customer satisfaction.

7. Overfull demand:
Some organization face a full demand level that is higher then they can expect or capable or want to handle. At present in Bangladesh L .P. gas companies enjoying overfull demand.

The marketing task is to finding ways to reduce demand temporarily or permanently. In this situation marketers generally take the steps to raising price and reduce promotional activities and services.

8. Unwholesome demand:
Unwholesome demand is the demand of that products and services which are harmful to the society. Organizations give their time, money, resource, effort and energy to discourage the consumption of these type of products and services. Such as unselling campaigns have been conducted against cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, X - rated movies, large families etc.

The marketing task is to use negative messages and information ( harmful sides of the products and services ) in promotional activities, increase the price and reduce the availability of that products and services.

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Marketing Short Notes on 'strategic business unit'

A strategic business unit (SBU) is an organizational subunit that acts like an independent business in many major respects, including the formulation of its own strategic plans and its own marketing strategy. An SBU may share its parent organization’s corporate identity or develop its own brand identity, depending on the degrees of freedom allowed to the management of the division.

A one-fit-all strategic approach would be inadequate in large, diversified organizations and multinational companies. Dividing the corporation’s operations into SBUs increases efficiency and market focus and efficiently organizes the business portfolio of a broadly diversified company.

SBUs are found to be a viable form of organizational sectioning because they ensure that products and product lines are given specialized focus, as if they were developed and marketed by an independent company. Products with smaller sales volumes and profit margins than a corporation’s top performers would still be nurtured and promoted by its SBU. The division would focus on a market sector that may be small in comparison but still constitutes a profitable market niche.

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Marketing Short Notes on 'Consumerism'

Consumerism is the belief that personal wellbeing and happiness depends to a very large extent on the level of personal consumption, particularly on the purchase of material goods. The idea is not simply that wellbeing depends upon a standard of living above some threshold, but that at the center of happiness is consumption and material possessions. A consumerist society is one in which people devote a great deal of time, energy, resources and thought to “consuming”. The general view of life in a consumerist society is consumption is good, and more consumption is even better.

Consumerism --the consumption of goods and services in excess of one’s basic needs, usually in greater and greater quantities --is not a new phenomenon, and early examples of consumerism can be traced back to the fist human civilizations. A significant consumerist tide hit Europe and North America in the mid-18th Century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the transformation of Western Europe’s and North America’s economies.

The mechanization of a number of processes such as farming freed a certain percentage of the workforce from farming, fuelled both the Industrial Revolution and population growth. As industrialization created the conditions for mass production and mass consumption, for the first time in history, immense quantities of manufactured goods were suddenly available at outstandingly low prices, and thus made available to nearly everyone.

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Marketing Short Notes on 'Customer satisfaction'

Customer satisfaction is defined as a customer’s overall evaluation of the performance of an offering to date. This overall satisfaction has a strong positive effect on customer loyalty intentions across a wide range of product and service categories.

The satisfaction judgment is related to all the experiences made with a certain business concerning its given products, the sales process, and the after- sale service. Whether the customer is satisfied after purchase also depends on the offer’s performance in relation to the customer’s expectation. Customers form their expectation from past buying experience, friends’ and associates’ advice, and marketers’ and competitors’ information and promises.
Factors which determine the extent of expectations are: customer needs, total customer value and total customer cost. It is mentioned by researchers who study customer choice that choosing a product or service is only one of the stages customers go through.

There is general agreement that: Satisfaction is a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product’s perceived performance (or outcome) in relation to his or her expectations. Based on this review, customer satisfaction is defined as the result of a cognitive and effective evaluation, where some comparison standard is compared to the actually perceived performance. If the perceived performance is less than expected, customers will be dissatisfied. On the other hand, if the perceived performance exceeds expectations, customers will be satisfied. Otherwise, if the perceived expectations are met with performance, customers are in an indifferent or neutral stage.

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Meaning of Unit banking

The banking system in different countries varies substantially from one another. Broadly speaking, however, there are two important types of banking systems, viz., unit banking and branch banking.

‘Unit banking’ means a system of banking under which banking services are provided by a single banking organization. Such a bank has a single office or place of work. It has its own governing body or board of directors. 

‘Unit banking’ functions independently and is not controlled by any other individual, firm or body corporate. It also does not control any other bank. Such banks can become member of the clearing house and also of the Banker’s Association. Unit banking system originated and grew in the U.S.A. Different unit banks in the U.S.A. are linked with each other and with other financial centers in the country through “correspondent banks.”

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