Blog 8: Final Reflection

In marketing, there are specific factors to determine whether a company is successful or not when it comes to the marketing of a product or service. Through the practice marketing simulation, and other assignments like the blog and commercial, marketing was the key to success. Failing to market either of these assignments correctly, probably resulted in a poor grade. In the marketing simulation, my group experienced the hardships of marketing and had difficulty deciding when to market, how to market, and who to market with. When to market was important because if you continue to advertise late into the product life cycle, it will negatively affect net profit due to the overspending on advertisements. How to market was another important factor because if you want your product to be viewed in a certain way, than you have to advertise the product specifically to your company's standards, while also appealing to your target market. Finally, who to market with may be less significant, but is still relevant to marketing success. Although we were unable to play around with this aspect as much, it is pretty much apparent what needs to be done as far as who to market with. Cross promotion is mainly what I'm referring to; if you promote your product with a completely different one, it will most likely benefit both sides of the marketing campaign.

In addition to advertising, it is always important to address the marketing mix early in a product's life cycle. When a product or service is in the introduction stage, it is necessary to do this because you need to show people what your product or service is, and what it entails because most people want to know a few things, how much the product is, where it could be purchased, or if there are any upcoming sales. Heavy advertising in the introduction stage can create brand awareness. Brand awareness is crucial in marketing because it can sometimes lead to brand loyalty, and when a consumer is completely loyal to a brand, it is primarily what separates a really successful company from a mediocre one.

The most important part of marketing, on top of all of the things previously discussed, is making adjustments in advertising a product. Most companies are not successful after they release their first advertisement. But failure is a good thing, because you can learn from your mistakes. An advertisement can fail from two things, it may not get the amount of views you want, or it may not appeal to your desired target market. If either of these things are lacking in an advertisement, then adjustments must be made. Although in some cases, advertisements may appeal to your target market, and receive an exceptional amount of views, but sales may still remain at a constant rate. Through some experience in the marketing simulation, I found out that advertising sometimes takes longer to work than you may expect. Most of the time, an advertisement may take longer to be successful because people are still unaware of the product. The only time advertising should be held back is after the growth stage in the product life cycle.