Basic Marketing
This presentation is to compare marketing strategies for passenger rail travel and cereal crops. Starting with passenger rail travel and it can easily be said that congested motorways prove only one thing that rail travel is the future of travel in UK. According to the latest researches, in twenty years time present day motorways and roadways will not be able to cope with the number of cars which are going to be on the road for that time. We can clearly see these signs in present day London where Mayor Ken Livingston has won a landmark case in court for putting charges on all the drivers who will drive in the central London area. As a marketer of rail travel this is the best time to sell this idea among people from all walks of life. In marketing it can clearly be said that marketing is not a concept, which can be applied to all the subjects in the same form or condition, which give rise to the theory that it is not a viable idea to put all eggs in the same basket. It can be said that to do marketing for the passenger rail travel or cereal crops we have to use three basics of marketing and these basics are segmentation, marketing and positioning. In a specific market, these can be used in different proportions but these all have to be used in one way or the other.
Before using all these concepts in our marketing strategy, we should know briefly what these concepts are. First a brief look at segmentation. Segmentation is a process where a market is divided into small or manageable segments or parts according to their different characteristics. It is known that marketing is divided in two basic groups, which are organizational marketing and consumer marketing. Passenger rail travel is part of consumer marketing because in this type, a marketer is in direct contact with masses and he has to understand all types of consumers, their preferences, their likes and dislikes. It is not the case with cereal crops because big super market chains firstly use cereal crops. They do the packaging and further marketing in terms of their own brands is done .It can be divided into organic and in genetically modified food and idea of buying organic food is a very popular one these days. Marketing for cereal crops is mainly organizational marketing e.g. Tescos and Sainsbury are two major super market chains, farmers have to sell their crop to these super market chains in order to reach the individual consumers. In terms of passenger rail travel we can use the type consumer marketing but in cereal crop marketing, marketing can either be done as consumer marketing or organizational marketing. In both of these types of marketing we have to find the right marketing mix. Segmenting consumer markets can be a tricky business in a sense that in theory every consumer can be different from other and a marketer has to take care of this difficult business. There are ways, in which segmentation can be done,
And these types are
To get the desired results we have to use a mix of all this segmentation results. Train travel is becoming a universal thing day by day so if we look at the present day UK market we can safely say that a multivariable segmentation policy is the only one, which can succeed here.
In terms of cereal crop marketing, we should look at segmenting organizational markets. There are three organizational characteristics, which we can use in the marketing of cereal crops and these characteristics are
Now we come to the targeting part of marketing, targeting can be differentiated into three main parts, which are as follows:
In passenger rail travel it is very difficult to use concentrated targeting because it is not economically viable, although it can be used in some specific conditions. We can use the example where trains carry military personnel to the borders to fight but in present day conditions it is highly unlikely.
Undifferentiated marketing is also not an option because we cannot treat all passengers in the same way we have to distinguish them according to their requirement for luxury and their willingness to pay. So we will use the differentiated targeting to provide special attention to the group, which wants it and which is economically viable. Encouraging students to travel by train is one example where discounts can affect a big share of this market and especially when most of the students are always short of cash.
In terms of targeting of cereal crops, it should be concentrated and concentrated on one specific organization, if there is demand for a specific type of wheat by Tescos, marketing strategy must concentrate to identify that demand and fulfill it in the most efficient way possible.
Now we come to the positioning part of rail travel, in positioning of rail travel it can be said that it means thinking about product in terms of competitive space it occupies in its market, defined in terms of attributes that matter to the target market.
There are three stages in the positioning of a product, which in this case is passenger rail travel. These three products are as follows:
Stage 1:
In this stage the main thing to do is to is to carry out detailed market research in order to establish what attributes are important to the market or it’s any given segment and their order of preference. Once again example of first class travel can be considered, which will affect the segment of market that wants luxury travel and all the facilities that goes with it.
Stage 2:
Having identified the important attributes, we shall now consider short-listing our product list. Passengers can ask for safety, reliability, and value for money etc. so we have to pick the most important one from all the attributes.
Stage 3:
In this stage we have to find the ideal level of each of these attribute and how a customer relates attributes of one product to that of other.
If we think about cereal crop marketing, positioning strategy is not very different from the one for consumer marketing in rail travel. We have to go through all three stages and then it is possible for a marketer to assemble a successful marketing campaign.
By Sikander Hayat
For The University Of Lincoln
Last Updated on 23 Nov 2002