Item 1: Marketing Strategy Planning
The process of marketing strategy planning involves creating the best opportunities and formulating a plan that provides superior value for target customers thus providing a competitive advantage for the firm. Marketers cannot directly control the environment, but they can influence it. This can be achieved by scanning the environment continually by the marketers and by looking for potential threats and opportunities. Managers in marketing need to understand the competitive environment. There are key issues that need to be considered when understanding the environment. These issues include: analyzing the competitor, this requires an approach that is organized so as to evaluate the weaknesses and the strengths of the marketing strategy of the competitor.
Item 2: Conducting of Competitor Analysis in Marketing
Marketers can do this by gathering information about the competitor from external and internal sources. Another issue is rivalry offered by the competitor. Successful marketers should attract competition and should anticipate a future rivalry from competitors. Competitor Matrix is also an issue for consideration. A marketer should design a table that compares the weaknesses and the strengths of a company and those of a competitive rival. Also, a marketer should have a marketing mix that is better than that of a competitor, most preferred to by customers and cannot be easily copied.
Item 3: Understanding how environments affect consumer behavior
Marketing strategies change during recess. Most consumers spend less on products that are not so important thus managers in marketing need adopt strategies that reduce the impact of a recession. Buying processes for customers are affected by interest rates and inflation. High inflation times can cause interest rates to go high thus experiencing a buying power decline in most industries or companies. Competition can arise from nowhere and anywhere. This competition can affect exchange rates thus affecting global trades in turn. The political environment is a way through which societies command their governments along with the government’s attitude towards business. A political atmosphere involves regional economic groupings and nationalism. Nationalism emphasizes in the interest of the company placing the interest of the country before anything else. Nationalism can be a limiting factor in the international markets by blocking market activities and through reducing sales. Regional economic groupings have grown in importance in recent times. A regional economic grouping has seen European markets unified through the European Union. The National American trade agreement (NAFTA) has built co-operations for trade in the North America region.
Item 4: Understanding of cultural and social environments
Marketers still encounter among European countries difficulties despite the fact that Europe is becoming a large unified market. According to Adero, marketers need to keep in mind that through a website prospects from different parts of the world can be attracted. Also, marketers need to know that websites alone are not enough to turn these attracted prospects into customers if cultural differences and nationalism are ignored. The cultural and social environments affect the way people live and behave.
Item 5: The Gross Domestic Product Discussion
Most of the populations in the world, about two-thirds, used to live in the rural areas around 50 years ago, but now about half of the world’s population lives in the urban areas. The populations in the world are changing regionally as well. Populations are moving from regions of fewer opportunities to regions of greater opportunities. Drastic changes will arise in populations since the total world population is on its rise. These changes will affect the needs and purchase patterns in the world. For a market to exist, the populations (consumers) need to have money. Gross domestic product (GDP) and the Gross national income (GNI) are the valid measurements that are used to measure the national income. In areas where per capita is low, competition and considerable potential may exist.
