Commerce Question Bank – 30 Important Short Questions With Answers on “Marketing Management”

30 Important Short Questions with Answers on “Marketing Management” for Commerce Students:

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1. What is marketing?

Marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is, “meeting needs profitably”. Marketing is typically seen as the task of creating, promoting and delivering goods and services to consumers and business.

Marketing people are involved in marketing in 10 types of entities: goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information and ideas. Thus, marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.

2. (a) Give the characteristics of modern concept of marketing.

(b) What does sociological model of consumer behaviour explain?

(a) Modern marketing adopts the systematic approach to marketing. Such an approach provides a good basis for orderly and integrated analysis and planning of all business activities relating to product, pricing, promotion and distribution.

(b) It explains that the major part of man’s economic consumption is not a result of his basic needs or instincts but, is outcome of social influences. His behaviour is determined by intimate group as well as social class

3. Write a shore note on marketing environment.

The marketing environment consists of the task environment and the broad environment.

The task environment includes the immediate actors involved in producing, distributing and promot­ing the offering. The main actors are the company, suppliers, distributors, dealers and the target customers.

Included in the supplier group are material suppliers and service suppliers such a market­ing research agencies, advertising agencies, banking and insurance companies, transportation and telecommunication companies. Included with distributors and dealers are agents, brokers, manufac­turers, representatives and others who facilitate finding and selling to customers.

The broad environment consists of six components: demographic environment, economic environ­ment, material environment, technological environment, politico-legal environment and socio-cultural environment.

4. What is the requirement of marketers in the demographic environment?

In the demographic environment, marketers must be aware of worldwide population growth; changing mixes of age, ethnic composition and educational levels; the rise of non-traditional families; large geographic shifts in population; and the move to micro marketing and away from mass marketing.

5. What is quantitative market research?

Qualitative market research is largely concerned with researching the size of markets (volume and value of sales) and the measurable characteristics of customer groups. A lot of quantitative information can be found free of charge in trade and industry journals, through professional bodies and from competitor literature and there are a number of relatively inexpensive reports published in many industrial sectors

6. What is qualitative market research?

Qualitative market research is about researching customer attitudes and feelings and their reactions to designs and proposals. Qualitative research comes from your customers either through producing a questionnaire, by conducting some interviews over the telephone or through getting a group of people together for a focus group.

7. What are the factors that influence consumer behaviour?

Consumer behaviour is influenced by four factors: cultural (culture, subculture and social class); social (reference groups, family, and social roles and statuses); personal (age, stage in the life cycle, occupation, economic circumstances, life-style personality and self-concept): and psychological (motivation, perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes).

8. Describe the events, which constitute the typical buying process.

The typical buying process consists of the following sequence of events: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behaviour. The marketers’, job is to understand the buyer’s behaviour at each stage. The attitudes of others, unanticipated situational factors and perceived risk may all affect the decision to buy.

9. What is buyer centre?

The buyer centre is the decision-making unit of a buying organization. It consists of initiators, users, influencers, deciders, approvers, buyers and gate-keepers. To influence these parties, marketers must be aware of environment, organizational, interpersonal and individual factors.

10. What are buy phases of the buying process?

The buying process consists of eight stages called buy phases:

1. Problem recognition

2. General need description

3. Product specification

4. Supplier search

5. Proposal solicitation

6. Supplier selection

7. Order-routine specification, and

8. Performance review.

11. Write a short note on single segment concentrated marketing

Through concentrated marketing, the firm gains a strong knowledge of the segment’s concentration needs and achieves a strong market presence. Furthermore, the firm enjoys operating economies through specializing its production, distribution and promotion.

If it captures segment leadership, the firm can earn a high return on its investment. For example, Volkswagen concentrates on the small-car market and Porsche on the sports car market.

However, concentrated marketing involves risks. A particular market segment can turn sour. For these reasons, many companies prefer to operate in more than one segment.

12. Write a short note on selective specialization marketing.

The firm selects a number of segments, each objectively attractive and appropriate. There may be little or no synergy among the segments, but each promises to be a money-maker. This multisegment strategy has the advantage of diversifying the firm’s risk.

Consider a radio broadcaster that wants to appeal to both younger and older listeners. Emmis Broadcasting owns New York’s KISS-FM, which describes itself as “smooth R & B [rhythm and blues] and classic soul” and appeals to older listeners and WQHT-FM (“Hot 97”), which plays hip-hop (urban street music) for listeners in the under-25 crowd.

13. What is product specialization marketing?

In product specialization marketing, the firm makes a certain product that it sells to several segments. An example would be a microscope manufacturer who sells to university, government and commercial laboratories. The firm makes different microscopes for the different customer groups and builds a strong reputation in the specific product area. The downside risk is that the product may be replaced by an entirely new technology.

14. What is market specialization?

In market specialization, the firm concentrates on serving many needs of a particular customer group An example would be a firm that sells an assortment of products only to university laboratories. The firm gains a strong reputation in serving this customer group and becomes a channel for additional products the customer group can use. The downside risk is that the customer group may suffer budget cuts.

15. What is full market coverage?

In full market coverage, the firm attempts to serve all customer groups with all the products they might need. Only very large firms such as Microsoft (personal computing), ^p2 General Motors (vehicle market) and Coca-Cola (beverages market) can undertake a p₃ full market coverage strategy.

16. Define market segmentation.

Philip Kotler has defined it as the “Market segmentation is the sub -dividing of a market into homogeneous sub-sects of customers where any sub-sect may conceivably be selected as a market target to be reached within a distinct marketing mix.”

Thus, market segmentation aims at distinguishing customer needs or interests so as to win them effectively.

17. Define product. What do you mean by marketing mix?

A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organisation and ideas.

Marketing mix denotes a combination of various elements which together constitute a firm’s mar­keting system. These elements are often described as four P’s: Product, price, places, organisation and ideas.

18. What is the difference between market segmentation and product differentiation?

(a) Market segmentation is consumer oriented while, product differentiation is production oriented.

(b) Market segmentation aims at concentrating on the needs of a limited market while, product segmentation concentrates on a large market.

19. What is the one price policy? What do you mean by rebate?

Under this policy, all the customers who are purchasing a particular quantity at a particular time are charged the same price, i.e. the price is fixed and no changes are made in it.

Rebate is a concession given to the buyer to compensate him for the loss of value satisfaction suffered by him. Dissatisfaction may be due to defective goods, delay in delivery, goods damaged in transit, etc.

20. What is the need of promotional activities?

The increasing distance between the producer and consumer and the growth in number of consumers have made it necessary for the producer to undertake promotional activities.

21. (a) What is direct distribution channel?

(b) What is concentrated marketing strategy?

(a) It is the system in which producer can sell the goods directly to consumer without the help of intermediaries.

The methods used are:

(i) By own sales shop (ii) By mail orders (iii) By travelling sales representatives (iv) By tele­phone.

(b) This strategy instead of focusing on total market, considers only one particular part of market. It instead of going for a smaller share in whole market, goes for larger share in one or few submarkets.

22. What do you understand by product item?

The detailed description of one product in manufacturers list is known as product item. Product item is a specific version of a product that has a separate designation on the seller’s list, e.g. Johnson and Johnson’s, Clean and Clear Moisturizer is a product item.

23. What is meant by product line?

It is a group of products that are closely related because they function on a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through the same types of outlets or fall within given price ranges.

Thus Amul’s product line includes ghee, butter, cheese, milk, ice cream, chocolate, etc. Videocon’s electronic product line includes T.V., music system, refrigerator, A.C., washing machine, etc.

24. What is product mix?

Product mix is the full list of all products offered for sale by accompany. It needs not consist of related products. Thus, Manikchand’s Tea, Flour, electrical accessories, construction, packaging, greeting and wedding caros, power projects and mineral water are its product mix. A product mix has certain length, width, depth and consistency.

25. What do you mean by length and width of product mix?

Length of product mix refers to the total number of items in its product mix. Width or breadth of product mix refers to the number of different product lines offered by the company, e.g. Hindustan Lever Ltd. produces soaps, shampoos, creams, moisturizers, talcum power, deodorants and many other cosmetic products. The greater the number of different classes of product the greater the width of product line.

26. What is meant by depth of product mix?

Depth of product mix refers to the average number of items offered by the company under each product line, i.e., quality, sizes, colours, models offered within each product line e.g., Hindustan Lever Ltd’s soap line consist of Hamam, Lux, Liril, Lifebuoy, Pears, etc. Greater the number of brands in any product class, greater is the depth of product line.

27. What is consistency of product mix?

Consistency of product mix refers to how closely related the various product line are in terms of production requirement, consumer behaviour, distribution channel or in some other way, e.g., the various toiletries offered by Hindustan Lever Ltd., have consistency as most of the products enhance beauty in one way or the other

28. Briefly describe various stages of product life cycle.

The PLC concept provides a useful framework for developing effective marketing strategies in different stages of the products life cycles. Every product moves through four stages of life cycle and each stage poses different challenges to the seller:

1. Introduction:

A period of slow sales growth as the product is introduced in the market. Profits are non-existent because of the heavy expenses incurred with product introduction.

2. Growth:

A period of rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement.

3. Maturity:

A period of a showdown in sales growth because the product has achieved acceptance by most potential buyers. Profits stabilize or decline because of increased competition.

4. Decline:

The period when sales show a downward drift and profits erode

29. What do you understand by growth-slump-maturity pattern of product life cycle?

Growth-slump-maturity pattern is often characteristic of small kitchen appliances. Some years ago, in western countries, sales of electric knives grew rapidly when the product was first introduced and then fell to a “petrified” level. The petrified level is sustained by late adopters buying the product for the first time and early adopters replacing the product.

30. What is the cycle-recycle pattern of product life cycle?

The cycle-recycle pattern often describes the sales of new drugs. The pharmaceutical company aggressively promotes its new drug, and this produces the first cycle. Later, sales start declining and the company gives the drug another promotion push, which produces a second cycle (usually of smaller magnitude and duration).