Download Guide to Business Planning

Guide to
Business
Planning
Selling vs. Marketing, what is the difference?
Starting Point
The Selling
Concept
The
Marketing
Concept
Focus
Means
End
Production
Products
Selling and
promotion
Profit through
sales volume
Target market
Customer
needs
Integrated
marketing
Profit through
customer
satisfaction
Kotler, P., Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, 1997
A central aspect of any business plan is the marketing strategy. To develop a marketing strategy, the market and
potential customers must be analysed. Marketing differs from selling in as much as marketing has a customer rather
than product focus. This means that customer needs should be analysed with a view to segmenting the market on this
basis. From this flows the targeting of particular segments with a segment-specific marketing mix. This positions
products in the market, based on an understanding of buyer needs, attitudes and behaviour.
Consider a manufacturer of simple plastic bags. The bags are cheap and undifferentiated and profit can only come
through volume. In contrast a handbag, such as the Hermes Birkin bag, may cost US$ 30,000 or more. Clearly
Hermes does not generate profit from selling lots of them, but Hermes makes profits from its ability to charge a very
high price for a product which meets the (rather exclusive) needs of the target market.
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