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Program: MBA

Semester-III
Course: Syndicated Learning Program (SLP-3)
Academic year: 2022-23

Department of Marketing & Strategy


IBS, IFHE, Hyderabad.

Dr.K.S.Venu Gopal Rao


Area Head - Department of Marketing & Strategy

Resource Persons:
 Dr.Dwarakanath Siriguppi(Course-Coordinator)
 Dr.Amar Raju
 Dr.Anitha Acharya
 Dr.Shivratan Agarwal
 Dr.Vijayudu Gnanamkonda
 Dr.Vikas Gautham

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Table of Contents divided into 6 parts covered in 3 sessions
Basics of MM1, MM2

S.No. Broader Topic Sub- Pg.


Topics No.
1.Core marketing concepts 2-32
2. Marketing Mix
1 Basics of Marketing 3. Marketing environment
management 4.STP
5.Consumer markets & Business markets
6.Product, Pricing, Distribution, Promotion, Branding,
MR, Global marketing

FAQs –Marketing

4. MARKETING AND STRATEGY

4.1. Marketing Management


1. What is the difference between segmentation and targeting?

Ans. Segmentation is done to get homogeneous market out of heterogeneous one. Targeting to a
homogeneous market done based on business attractiveness

2. What brands do you like or follow on social media and why?

Ans. The best answers go further than which companies a candidate likes buying from -- they indicate
why he or she trusts certain companies, what about their content strategy appeals to the candidate, and
what specifically about those companies the candidate looks up to (and maybe wants to emulate in their
own work).
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3. What do you read, and how do you consume information?"

Ans. Marketing is changing constantly at a rapid pace -- so anyone in a marketing role needs to know
how to stay on top of and adapt to these changes. Do they know where to look for industry news? Are
they familiar with and subscribed to top marketing blogs? What do they do when they see a change
has taken place, like when Google updates their algorithm?

4. Why do you love marketing?

Ans. Part of their answer will lie in the body language of the student and enthusiasm. The other part
will lie in how concrete the answer is. Get at the details by asking a follow-up question, like: "Let's say
you're at home, kicking around, and doing something related to marketing. What is it that you're doing?"
Perhaps they're reading their five favorite marketing sites, or analyzing traffic patterns of websites for
fun, or writing in their personal blog, or optimizing their LinkedIn profile.

5. What are the 4Ps of marketing?

Ans. Product, Price, Place & Promotion.

6. What is difference between sales and marketing?

Ans. Marketing is all about identifying the value, creating the value, communicating the value and
delivering the value. Sales is a part of marketing, which deals with delivering the value mostly

7. What are the major role of marketing channels

Ans. There are three types of marketing channels, Communication channel, distribution channel and
service channel. Communication channels deliver and receive messages from target buyers.
Distribution channels help display, sell or deliver the physical product or service(s).To carry out
transactions with potential buyers, the marketers uses service channels

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8. What is supply chain management?

Ans. The supply chain is a channel stretching from raw materials to components to finished product
carried to final buyers

9. What is holistic marketing concept?

Ans. The holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of
marketing programs, processes, and activities that recognize their breadth and interdependencies.
There are four broad components of holistic marketing- integrated marketing, internal marketing,
relationship marketing, and performance marketing

10. What is the difference between core competence and competitive advantage?

Ans. Competitive advantage is advantage over other companies which can be copied easily. Core
competence is advantage over other company, which cannot be copied easily.

11. What is BCG Matrix?


Ans. BCG matrix is a matrix used to decide resource allocation to strategic business unit(SBU).BCG
growth share matrix used relative market share and annual rate of market growth as criteria for
investment decisions, classifying SBUs as dogs, cash cows, question marks and stars.

12. What is Ansoff matrix?

Ans. Ansoff matrix is also known product market expansion grid, which considers the strategic growth
opportunities for a firm in terms of current and new products and markets. The company first
considers whether it could gain more market share with its current products in their current markets,
using a market- penetration strategy. Next it considers whether it can find or develop new markets for
its current products, in a market-development strategy. Then its considers whether it can develop new

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products for its current markets

with a product development strategy. Later the firm will also review opportunities to develop new
products for new markets in a diversification strategy.

13. What comes under Porters generic strategies?

Ans. It consists of three strategies- overall cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy

14. What is your expertise – B2B or B2C?

Ans. If you are interviewing for a B2B profile and you have only worked in a B2C profile, be sure to
show how you can transfer your skills in that area to the current situation.

15. Name 5 essential elements of a marketing campaign

Ans. The five essential elements of a successful marketing campaign are – 1) the target, 2) the value
proposition, 3) the call-to-action message, 4) the delivery method and 5) the follow-up.

16. What is Customer perceived value? How is it different from Customer Lifetime value?

Ans: Customer perceived value is a concept widely used in marketing and branding circles. Customer
perceived value is the notion that the success of a product or service is largely based on whether
customers believe it can satisfy their wants and needs. In other words, when a company develops its
brand and markets its products, customers ultimately determine how to interpret and react to marketing
messages. Companies spend significant time researching the market to get a sense of how customers
think and feel. On the other hand, Customer lifetime value or CLV is a forecast over a period of time
of a customer’s monetary value to the company after considering the association with the customer.
Customer lifetime value helps in understanding the profits that a company would make from a
customer’s in his or her association over a time period. Customer lifetime value in business is also

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referred as lifetime customer value (LCV) or life-time value (LTV)

17. Suggest ways through which an organization can cultivate customer relationships.

Ans: Personalizing marketing, Customer empowerment, tackling customer complaints

18. What are brand communities? What are the benefits of brand communities?

Ans: A brand community is a community formed on the basis of attachment to a product or marquee.
Recent developments in marketing and in research in consumer behavior result in stressing the
connection between brand, individual identity and culture. Among the concepts developed to explain
the behavior of consumers, the concept of a brand community focuses on the connections between
consumers. A brand community can be defined as an enduring self-selected group of actors sharing a
system of values, standards and representations (a culture) and recognizing bonds of membership
with each other and with the whole.

Brand communities are characterized in shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of
moral responsibility. Pp. 85; Pp. 87 (1st para)

19. What is your understanding of the term CRM? What are the major points of focus for a firm
which focuses on CRM?

Ans: CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a strategy for managing an organization’s


relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps
companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.

20. How can firms monitor customer satisfaction?


21. Ans: Using measurement techniques like Periodic surveys, monitoring customer loss rates and
hiring mystery shoppers.
22. What is a MIS?
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Ans: MIS is the use of information technology, people, and business processes to record, store and
process data to produce information that decision makers can use to make day to day decisions. MIS is
the acronym for Management Information Systems. Pp. no. 102.

23. Explain the differences between a fad, a trend and a megatrend with examples.

Ans: The differences between fads, trends and megatrends are an interesting reflection of peoples
values. Fads are transient here one day and virtually gone the next. They could be longer acting but
things like popular hair styles or fashion move quickly. In technology, they are things like Pokémon
Go. I believe I am participating in the Fad of Facebook but the trend of social media is here to stay. A
trend is a movement, social media for example is considered essential to many people that are users.
They actively participate by going into a social media site everyday and find that belonging is an
important way of connecting with others. The level of awareness to important social movements can
only be facilitated through this level of access. It is interesting and is easy for many people to
participate. Trends are significant because they impact the world and each of our place in it. You can
avoid trends however as you may choose not to participate in them but they can’t be ignored.
Megatrends are life altering movements that impact everyone no matter if you choose to participate or
not. As pointed out in today’s class a megatrend is an aging population or the fundamental necessity for
the use of technology in every sector of every industry. Pp. no. 107

24. What are the major macroeconomic forces which a marketer needs to monitor in order to
gauge new opportunities and threats?

Ans: Demographic, Economic, Social, Cultural, Natural, Technological, Political-Legal.

25. What does the term “corporate environmentalism” refer to?

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Ans: Corporate environmentalism is the organisation-wide recognition of the legitimacy and
importance of the biophysical environment in the formulation of organizational strategy and the
integration of environmental issues into the strategic planning process. Pp. no. 115

26. How are core beliefs different from secondary beliefs?

Ans: Core beliefs and values are passed on from parents to children and are reinforced by schools,
churches, business, and government. Secondary beliefs and values are more open to change. Believing
in marriage is a core belief; believing that people should get married early in life is a secondary belief.
Pp. no. 114.

27. How are “pleasure seekers” different from “social surrogates”?

Ans: Pp. no. 113 (1stpara)

28. If a country has a very young population and rapid population growth, what do you think
can be some of the most important products in that country?

Ans: Examples, Milk, Diapers, School Supplies, Toys etc.

29. How would you differentiate a “culture” from a “subculture”?

Ans: Culture is part of the external influences that impact the consumer. That is, culture represents
influences that are imposed on the consumer by other individuals. Culture, as a “complex whole,” is a
system of interdependent components. A subculture is a group of people within a broader culture who
have their own set of beliefs and practices. A subculture is a smaller group within a culture
Subcultures describe are used
to categorize the variance within a larger culture. One culture can have many subcultures. Pp. no. 114

30. Mention some technological trends that marketers need to monitor.

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Ans: Some of these technological advances are more commonly used among larger corporations, but
small businesses can still learn quite a bit from the developing marketing strategies of bigger firms.
Business News Daily spoke with marketing experts to get a better idea of the marketing trends small
businesses can capitalize on in 2019. Here are five trends it is believed to make sense for small
businesses to take advantage of this coming year:

A rise in authentic content marketing


An increased demand for chatbots
More widespread use of voice search
Continued value of data analytics
Time-saving benefits courtesy of artificial intelligence Pp. no. 115 (last 2 lines)

31. What do you understand by the term “industrializing economies”?

Ans: A newly industrialized country (NIC) is a term used by political scientists and economists to
describe a country whose level of economic development ranks it somewhere between developing and
highly developed classifications. ... Experts also know them as "newly industrializing economies" or
"advanced developing countries." Pp. no. 112 (5th para)

32. What is organizational buying?

Ans: Organizational buying is the decision-making process by which formal organizations establish
the need for purchased products and services and identify, evaluate, and choose among alternative
brands and supplier.

33. Difference between The Business market vs The consumer market?

Ans: Business Marketing: Business Marketing refers to the sale of either products or services or both
by one organization to other organizations that further resell the same or utilize to support their own
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system. Consumer Marketing on the other hand refers to the transaction of goods and services between
organizations and potential customers.

34. Who are the participants in the buying center process?

Ans: They can be clubbed into categories such as: Initiators, Users, Influencers, Deciders, Approvers,
Buyers and Gatekeepers.

35. What is the difference between Institutional vs Government markets?

Ans: The institutional market consists of schools, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other
institutions that provide goods and services to people in their care. The government market offers large
opportunities for many companies, both big and small. In most countries, government organizations
are major buyers of goods and services. Government buying and business buying are similar in many
ways. But there are also differences that must be understood by companies that wish to sell products
and services to governments. To succeed in the government market, sellers must locate key decision
makers, identify the factors that affect buyer behavior, and understand the buying decision process.
Government organizations typically require suppliers to submit bids, and normally they award the
contract to the lowest bidder.

36. Name the important decisions in International marketing which global managers might have
to take on daily basis?

Ans: The decisions that a global manager can take in international marketing could range from
deciding whether to go abroad or not. If yes then deciding which markets to enter; deciding how to
enter the market; deciding on the marketing program; and deciding on the marketing organization
structure that they have to follow in a particular nation.
37. What is your understanding of Developed vs Developing Markets?

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Ans: Countries are divided into two major categories by the United Nations, which are developed
countries and developing countries. The classification of countries is based on the economic status
such as GDP, GNP, per capita income, industrialization, the standard of living, etc. Developed
Countries refers to the sovereign state, whose economy has highly progressed and possesses great
technological infrastructure, as compared to other nations. The countries with low industrialization and
low human development index are termed as developing countries.

38. What are the various entering strategies that a marketing manager can take while
penetrating in any country?

Ans: There are multiple strategies that a marketing manager can take while entering a country. These
might range from Indirect exporting, direct exporting, Licensing, Joint Ventures, Direct Investment,
Acquisitions.

39. What is your understanding of the term ‘Price Escalation’?

Ans: A disparity in pricing where goods have higher costs in a foreign market than in the domestic
market due to transportation and exporting costs. Price escalation can also refer to the sum of cost
factors in the distribution channels which add up to a higher final cost for a product in a foreign
market.

40. What do you mean by a Gray Market?

Ans: The gray market (sometimes spelled as "grey market") is the collective system of
unauthorized sales channels for products. Gray market products may be less expensive than those
bought through official distribution channels but are sometimes inferior. The products may be
counterfeit or have counterfeit parts, for example; they may be second-hand products or contain

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second-hand components that are represented as new.

41. What is Country of Origin (COO) Effect?

Ans: COO or Country of Origin Effect refers to the practice of marketers and consumers associating
brands with countries and making buying decisions made on the country of origin of the product.

42. What is STP?

Answer: The STP process is an important concept in the study and application of marketing. The
letters STP stand for segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The STP process demonstrates the links
between an overall market and how a company chooses to compete in that market.

43. What is the basis of segmentation?

Answer: Four types of market segmentation

Geographic segmentation. Geographic segmentation targets customers based on a predefined


geographic border. ...
Demographic segmentation. ...
Psychographic segmentation. ...
Behavioral segmentation.
44. Named the target marketing strategies?

Answer: 1. Undifferentiated or Mass 2. Differentiated 3. Focused or Concentrated

45. Define Niche marketing.

Answer: Niche marketing is a strategy that focuses on a unique target market. Instead of marketing to
everyone who could benefit from a product or service, this strategy focuses exclusively on one group—a
niche market— or demographic of potential customers who would most benefit from the offerings.
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46. What do you understand by positing?

Answer: Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it
is distinguished from the products of the competitors

47. Difference between points-of-parity (POPs) vs. (points-of-difference) PODs.

Answer: POP- The aspects of product offerings that are largely similar to the offerings of the like
competitor.
... …See more the POP are the generic features and benefits that all the players, brands, products
(competitors) are giving, and POD are the differential effects that no one else gives in the market.

48. What is emotional branding?

Answer: Emotional branding is a term used within marketing communication that refers to the practice
of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs and aspirations.

49. How will you establish a brand positioning of a product?

Answer: Name the below elements:

Know Your Target Audience. Never give your target audience what they need. ...
Tell Them Who You Are. ...
Provide Evidence. ...
Value Proposition. ...
Unique Selling Proposition. ...
Segment Your Market. ...
Carefully Craft Your Message. ...
Know Your Competition.

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50. What do you understand by Brand Mantra?

Answer: A brand mantra is not an advertising slogan or tagline, and, in most cases, it won't be
something you use publicly at all. Great brand mantras can change everything. They become rallying
cries that define everything a brand is and will ever be.

51. What is straddle positioning?


Answer: Straddle positioning is the kind of positioning where the brands are looking for position itself
in two categories simultaneously.
52. Why branding is important?

Ans key: Role of brands for consumers and firms can be explained.

53. What are the advantages of strong brands?

Ans Key: Improved perceptions of product performance, greater loyalty, larger margins, increased
marketing communications effectiveness, additional brand extension opportunities etc.

54. . What is Brand equity?

Ans Key: It is the added value endowed to products and services with consumers. It may be reflected
in the way consumers think, feel and act with respect to the brand as well as in the prices, market share
and profitability.

55. What is BAV model?

Ans Key: BrandAsset Valuator (BAV) is a model of brand equity. It helps in comparing the brand
equity with thousands of brands across the world. It has four key components- energized differentiation,
relevance, esteem and knowledge.

56. What is Brand Resonance Model?


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Ans Key: It is a combination of brand development stages, brand building blocks and branding
objectives. Resonance is the intensity of customers’ psychological bond with the brand and the level of
activity it engenders.

57. How Brand equity can be measured?

Ans Key: Brand Value Chain: A structured approach to assess the sources and outcomes of brand
equity and the way marketing activities create brand value.

58. How Brand equity can be managed?

Ans Key: Through brand reinforcement and revitalization.

59. Name a market leader and suggest some competitive strategies for the same.
Ans Key: A market leader must perform the following tasks:

Expand total market demand


Protect market share
Increase market share
60. What are market-challenger strategies?

Ans Key: There are broadly three strategies:

Defining the strategic objective and opponent (s)


Choosing a general attack strategy
Choosing a specific attack strategy
61. What are market-follower strategies?

Ans Key: There are three broad strategies:

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Cloner
Imitator
Adapter
62. Name the stages in Product life cycle (PLC)?

Ans Key: Introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

63. Which strategies a company may follow in maturity stage?

Ans Key: Market modification, product modification, market program modification.

64. Which strategies a company may follow in decline stage?

Ans Key: Eliminating weak products, harvesting and divesting.

65. What are the different product levels?


Ans: Core benefit, basic product, expected product, augmented product and potential product.
66. Explain the classification of consumer goods.
Ans: Convenience, shopping, specialty and unsought goods.

67. What are the ways in which we can classify industrial goods?
Ans: Materials and parts, capital items, supplies and business services
68. What are all the different means of product differentiation?
Ans: Form, features, performance quality, conformance quality, durability, reliability, reparability and
style.
69. What are the main service differentiators?

Ans: Ordering ease, delivery, installation, customer training, customer consulting, maintenance and
repair, and returns.

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70. Explain the various levels of product hierarchy.
Ans: Need family, product family, product class, product line, product type, item.
71. Explain the product mix dimensions.
Ans: Width, length, depth and consistency.
72. Explain the various product-mix pricing situations.
Ans: Product line pricing, optional feature pricing, captive product pricing, two part pricing, by product
pricing and product bundling pricing.
73. Explain the different forms of co-branding.
Ans: Same Company co-branding, joint venture co-branding, multiple-sponsor co-branding, retail co-
branding.
74. What are the various categories of service mix?
Ans: Pure tangible good, tangible good with accompanying service, hybrid, major service with
accompanying minor goods and services and a pure service.
75. What are the distinctive characteristics of services?
Ans: Intangibility, inseparability, variability and perishability.
76. What are the demand side strategies to produce a better match between service demand and
supply?
Ans: Differential pricing, nonpeak demand, complementary services and reservation systems.
77. What are the supply side strategies to produce a better match between service demand and
supply? Ans: Part-time employees, peak-time efficiency routines, increased customer participation,
shared services and facilities for future expansion.

78. Explain the gaps in the service quality model.


Ans: Consumer expectations-Management perception, Management perception-service quality
specification, service quality specification-service delivery, service delivery- external communication,

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perceived-expected service.
79. Based on the service quality model, what are the five determinants of service quality?
Ans: Reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles.
80. What are the steps service firms can take to increase quality control?
Ans: Invest in good hiring and training procedures standardize service-performance process
throughout the organization, monitor customer satisfaction.
81. For achieving marketing excellence in services, what are the three broad areas to focus on?
Ans: External marketing, internal marketing and interactive marketing.
82. Traditionally, what are the three specific worries customers had about product service?
Ans: Failure frequency, downtime and out-of-pocket costs.

83. When a firm creates a new product which is completely new to the market and people in the
world had no idea about the product before, what is such a new product called?

Ans: New to the world.

84. What is the name of the products pricing mechanism in which prices starts high and slowly drop
over time?

Ans: Market-skimming pricing

85. When Micromax first entered into mobile phone segment, it set the price of the mobile phone
lower than other brands in the market to capture maximum market share in the Indian market.
What is the name of the pricing strategy adopted by Micromax?

Ans: Market-Penetration pricing

86. What is the name of the demand curve when marketers need to know how responsive the
demand is to a change in price for a particular product?
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Ans: Price Elasticity of Demand.

87. What is name of the popular marketing research technique that marketers use in new
product development to determine what features a new product should have and how it should
be priced?

Ans: Conjoint Analysis

88. What are the processes through which consumers decide to adopt a new product?

Ans: 1. Awareness, 2. Interest, 3. Evaluation, 4. Trail, 5. Adoption

89. What are the stages through which a company sets its pricing policy for a product?

Ans: i) Selecting the pricing objective, ii) Determining Demand, iii) Estimating Costs, iv) Analyzing
competitors’ costs, prices, and offers, v) Selecting a pricing method, vi) Selecting the final price.

90. IKEA has decided to charge a fairly low price for a high-quality offering to win loyal
customers. What kind of pricing strategy IKEA has followed?

Ans: Value Pricing

91. What do you mean by Retailing?

Ans: It includes all the activities in selling goods or services directly to the final consumers for
personal, non- business use.

92. What is private label brand?

Ans: Brand that retailers and wholesalers develop.

93. What is a Multichannel marketing?

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Ans: Multichannel marketing refers to the practice by which companies interact with customers via
multiple channels, both direct and indirect, in order to sell them goods and services. Companies use
direct channels, or ones in which the company proactively reaches the customer – such as physical
stores, catalogs or direct mail
– or indirect ones in which they push content via websites or social media, also known as inbound
marketing. Other means of reaching customers with multichannel marketing include via mobile
devices, text messaging, email, company website, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO)
or GPS to track customers' proximity to goods and services. Multichannel marketing combines the
practices of inbound and outbound marketing with the goal of reaching customers on the channel of
their choice. In this way, the buying process is more controlled by the customer than the marketer.

94. What is your understanding of the term Marketing Channels or Place Mix?

Ans: Place refers to distribution or the methods and location you use for your products or services to be
easily accessible to the target customers. Your product or service dictates how it should be distributed.

95. What functions are performed by Marketing Channels?

Ans: The functions performed can be categorized as: Physical Flow, Title Flow, Payment Flow,
Information Flow and Promotion Flow. (pp. 655, Text book).

96. What do you mean by Channel Levels in Marketing?

Ans: A Channel level means the presence of channel intermediaries in between the manufacturers and
consumers. A zero level channel, also called a direct marketing channel, consists of a manufacturer
selling directly to the final customer. A one level channel contains on selling intermediary. A two-
level channel contains two intermediaries and so on.

97. What decisions a marketing manager can take regarding the number of channel numbers?
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Ans: The decision can be taken w.r.t the number of channels that a company can have. It could be:
Exclusive Distribution; Selective Distribution or Intensive Distribution (pp. 661 of text book).

98. What is a Vertical & Horizontal Marketing Systems?

Ans: A Horizontal Marketing system is a form of distribution channel wherein two or more
companies at the same level unrelated to each other come together to gain the economies of scale. In
other words, Horizontal marketing system is the merger of two unrelated companies who have come
together to exploit the market opportunities. A Vertical Marketing system (VMS) comprises of the
main distribution channel partners- the producer, the wholesaler and the retailer who work together as
a unified group to serve the customer needs.

In conventional marketing system, the producer, wholesaler and the retailer worked separately with the
intention to maximize their profits even at the expense of one another. This led to the unending
conflicts between the channel partners resulting in less profit for the business as a whole.

99. What is the difference between Pure-click companies and Brick-and-Click companies?

Ans: Pure click companies are the companies with virtual presence or present in the internet only.
Search engines, , Internet service providers , commerce sites enabler sites , transaction sites etc are the
companies included in pure click company category. Amazon.com , ebay, Fabmart.com are the
famous commerce sites. Brick and click companies are the companies which have added online
shopping facility later. Or we can say Brick and click companies operate as both offline and online
companies. A large number of consumer durable companies have become Bick and click companies.

100. What are Horizontal vs Vertical channel conflicts? Are they real?

Ans: Yes. They are in real.

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A horizontal conflict refers to a disagreement among two or more channel members at the same level.
For example, suppose a toy manufacturer has deals with two wholesalers, each contracted to sell
products to retailers in different regions. If one wholesaler decides to branch its operations into the
other wholesaler’s region, a conflict will result. If the toy manufacturer doesn't help solve the problem,
its business dealings with both the wholesalers – and the downstream retailers, as well – might be in
jeopardy. Vertical conflicts involve a disagreement between two channel members on consecutive
levels. For example, if the toy manufacturer discovers its products are arriving at retail stores later than
scheduled, a conflict might develop between the manufacturer and the wholesaler responsible for
shipping to retailers. At the same time, the retail stores might be in conflict with the wholesaler due to
its inability to ship products on time.

101. How did you measure the impact of a successful campaign for a product that you
marketed?

Ans. Describe the metrics that you fixed before starting the campaign and how you measured those
metrics. Explain how you analysed those metrics and turned them into meaningful patterns which
showed the impact.

102. What can be the best approach to increase website traffic?

Ans. We can achieve this by various ways –

Ensuring good user experience


Building referral traffic
Performing on-page SEO
Targeting long-tail keywords
Using landing pages
103. What are some useful digital marketing tools?
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Ans. There are a range of free digital marketing tools available to streamline the everyday
management of a website, including –

Google Analytics
Keyword Planner
Alexa
Rank Watch
Kissmetrics
SEMrush
HootSuite
MailChimp
BuzzSumo
Moz Learning Center

104. Can you give us a customer trend that is happening in our industry right now?

Ans. This shows how prepared you are for the interview. Before going for the interview, go through
the industry news and understand what are the current trends and customer insights.

105. What are the limitations of online marketing?

Ans. There are certain limitations of online marketing, major being –

Online marketing requires money


Chances of cyber-attack prevail
Requires time to generate results
Takes time to build trust as compared to conventional marketing
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106. How do you use social media for marketing?

Ans. Well, social media can be used very smartly to drive traffic and expose brands on the social
platforms. We may attract more users to our brand by posting quality posts, images, videos and other
stuff. Besides, paid marketing is another approach that can help to attract users to the website.
However, this involves money, but the results can be attractive, with increased page links and
improved website visits.

107. Can you take up social media marketing for B2B businesses?

Ans. Yes, but the approach will be different for B2B marketing. In B2C, businesses may take this
liberty to share humorous as well as informative posts, but for B2C, only valuable industry content can
be shared.

108. What is Content Marketing?

1. Ans. Content marketing is a strategy to create and share valuable content across different
platforms. It aligns business and consumers, and quality content can attract and convert a
visitor to consumer.

109. If a customer left a negative review on a website or an online platform, how will you
respond to the customer?

Ans. When a customer leaves any negative review, the best way to respond is to make the customer
feel important by addressing the problems he faced. This will, automatically, make the customer feel
connected and will be delighted by the support he received, leading to a positive feedback.

110. If you are tasked with the branding campaign of a new product, how will you do it?

Ans. Tell the interviewer how you have handled such campaigns before and what are the ways you did
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like creating a new tagline, a logo and how you connected with the targeted audience.

111. What are the aspects you look while launching a product?

Ans. Launching a product is all about timing, market and creating a vibe. There should be a good
build-up to promoting the product before its launch so that the interest in the market is captured. Also,
the timing should be perfect so that it does not have to compete with a newly-launched similar
product.

112. What is a responsive website?

Ans. A website that offers an optimal viewing experience to the user with easy navigation and reading
is a responsive website. It is created using responsive web design (RWD) and is compatible with the
most popularly used web-browsers and mobile devices.

113. Do you have any idea about AMP?

Ans. AMP is the abbreviation for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It is a joint project of Google and Twitter
for making fast mobile pages. It is an open source initiative, which is lightweight and fast to load.

Brand Management

Question: Assume You Are a Brand, Describe Your Strengths and Weaknesses?

Answer: My strengths are good communication, analytical and client servicing skills and flexibility to any kind of environment.

My weakness is diversified concentration.

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I position as a brand by means of catering to the mass market (Flexibility) with assortment of product categories (diversified concentration) ac
geographies (flexibility) with high quality product standards to the consumers.

Question: What is the Difference Between a Brand and a Product?

Answer: While brand is a name, term, symbol, design or logo, product is of an identifiable generic nature object.

Question: What are the major areas, concerning managing brands? what is the negative impact of brand management in the company?

Answer: The major areas of concern for a company

To brand or not
Cost and benefit of developing brand equity
Brand strategy
Brand repositioning

Negative impact of brand management portrays a Turf mentality among brand managers leading to cannibalization of a few brands and Sub opt
utilization of resources.

Question: What is the basic idea behind Co-branding? please give suitable example from India and abroad?

Answer: When two brands come together to create greater value to the customer then it is called Co-branding. Coke and McDonald’s have done
globally, while Dettol and ICICI Prudential are doing in India.

Question: It is not always profitable to go in for brand building? do you support this view? how would you brand Indian software development skills?

Answer: Cost of brand building Vs Benefit of branding. The point to note is that branding cost is an immediate process whereas the benefits are alw
long-term goals. If viewed from a long term image building prospective. It is always profitable to go in for brand building. We may lose out to che
labor nations unless we do something to brand our software development skills. Branding a nation is not a new and impossible proposition.

Global Marketing

Question: In the context of international marketing, how important is a second language for a manager?

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Answer: Due to rapid globalization, many organizations are expanding into foreign countries, integrating and incorporating many international mar
This international expansion creates a need for managers to have a second language for smooth business activities. A second language plays a key ro
international marketing in today's business environment. It allows managers to improve customer satisfaction through interactions in both verbal
non-verbal communication.
A manager's language affects various organizational processes such as marketing, internal reporting, innovation, hiring, integration, and teaming up
others. It can affect many aspects, and only by learning a second language can managers communicate and interact with native people, understan
their culture to help an organization connect with its target market and improve its international marketing strategies.
Question: In an attempt to market the products abroad, what kind of marketing strategy a firm should choose?

Answer: When a firm attempts to market its products abroad, it can choose between two divergent marketing:

(1) Initially it can enter a few of the most promising markets. Once its presence is established’ and the potential of its product proved, it penetrates
and presumably less profitable markets.
(2) The firm may choose to enter as many potential markets as possible as the same time. The initial broad-, scale penetration is followed by a strateg
abandoning some old and less profitable markets.
Marketing managers find the first strategy superior and use it widely because it requires a lower investment in marketing and permits the firm to te
products and concentrate on markets with the highest expected return. Most firms become multinational through this kind of creeping commitment.
Question: What do you understand about Geocentric pricing policy?

Answer: Geocentric pricing policy involves, a company neither fixes a single price worldwide nor remains aloof from subsidiary pricing decision
instead strikes an intermediate position.

Question: What roles do international product supports play in reaching target markets?

Answer: International product supports include installation, maintenance, servicing and repair, providing credit, answering questions by telephone or
the Internet, assisting businesses with inventory management, and more general activities such as providing market information. Companies often
to perform these activities in order to reach their target markets

Question: What is the role of the service sector in international marketing?

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Answer: Services play a huge role in international marketing. Services are intangible products that are based around some act or performance
delivers value. Services play a larger role in more developed countries. Tourism is a big part of the service sector in international marketing.

Question: What three forms of co-branding can be used in domestic and international marketing?

Answer: Co-branding strategies can follow ingredient, cooperative, or complementary approaches.

Question: How does the concept of brand valuation relate to international marketing?

Answer: It is the process of estimating the value of a brand. the ISO (International Standards Organization) produced ISO Standard 10668 in 2010 a
effort to reach agreement on how brand valuation should be reached. According to the ISO approach, three types of analysis are required for b
valuation: legal analysis (including assessments of the legal protections of the brand), behavioral analysis (including the contribution of the bran
purchase decisions as well as the attitudes of all stakeholder groups), and financial analysis (market values, cost, and income figures).

Question: What ethical issues are present in international product marketing?

Answer:

a. Companies are sometimes criticized for knowingly dumping unsafe or even recalled products to foreign segments in order to increase internati
sales or to offset sagging domestic sales.

b. Your products may be unsafe for consumers in some countries – you should not try to make money off of these consumers.

c. Packaging itself can be an ethical concern. If wasteful or used to mask the contents, packaging can come under attack. The use of air to make pack
seem fuller and the waste associated with plastic bottles of water are two recent examples. Using imagery on the package that targets children whe
product may not be appropriate for that age group can be another packaging issue.

d. When testing products, companies should treat animals ethically.

e. The product line itself may be an ethical issue. Companies may chose not to sell the full product line in certain markets denying those consu
access to the benefits from those products. If medicines, healthier foods, or similar products are involved, it may appear that companies are wro
selecting which consumers have better health or other positive outcomes.

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Question
A company's marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing
1 What is marketing environment? affect the marketing management's ability to build and maintain successful relationships
target customers.
Demography is the study of human population in terms of size, density, location, age, ge
2 What is Demography? race, occupation, and other statistics.
3 What are some common micro environment factors? Company, suppliers, intermediaries, competitors, public, customers.
Macro environment factors are larger societal factors that affect the micro environment.
4 What are macro environment factors? political, economic, social, demographic, etc.
5 Name some demographic trends which effect a company?
Increased population, Changing family system, better educated population.
Which are the various groups of public that can affect an
6 organizations ability to achieve its objectives? Financial public, Media public, Citizen-action public etc.
7 What are the five stages of buyer decision process?
Need Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase and Post Purc
Behavior
8 What the stages in the process of adopting a new Awareness,
product? Interest, Evaluation, Trial, Adoption
9 What do you mean by relative advantage? Degree to which an innovation appears superior to existing products.
10 What is complex buying behavior? When people are highly involved in a purchase and perceive significant differences am
brands.

Marketing Research FAQs


S.No. Question Answer
R-squared is the proportion of variance in the dependent variable that
can be explained by the independent variable.
1 What is R-square?

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The Adjusted R-squared takes into account the number of independent
variables used for predicting the target variable. In doing so, we can
determine whether adding new variables to the model actually
increases the model fit.
2 What is adjusted R-square? R2 shows how well terms (data points) fit a curve or line. Adjusted R2
also indicates how well terms fit a curve or line, but adjusts for the
number of terms in a model. If you add more and more useless
variables to a model, adjusted r-squared will decrease.

3 Difference between R-square and adjusted R-square.


4 Name the projective techniques. Construction, Completion, Association, Expressive
5 Types of measurement scales Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio
6 Name two data reduction techniques Factor and cluster analysis
CRM FAQs
S.No. Question Answer
Buttle's CRM value chain model, Payne & Frow's five step process
1 Name some famous CRM models model
Three main types - Collaborative, operational and analytical
2 Different types of CRM

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1.What are the bases for market segmentation?
Ans. Demographic, Geographic, Pyschographic and Behavioural segmentation
2. What is the criteria for effective segmentation?
Ans; Measurable; Substantiable; Accessible: Differentiable: Actonable
3.How do you segment your the following products
A. Books- Demographic, Pyschgraphic and Behavoural segmentation
A. Shoes- Demographic, Geographic; Pyschgraphic
4.What are the major segmentation variables for Business markets
Ans: Demographic; Operating varaibles; Purchasing approaches; Situational factors; Personal characteristics
5. Split loyals
Ans: Consumers who are loyal to two or three brands
6. Super segment
Ans: A Super segment is a set of segments sharing some exploitable similarity.
7.How a positioning strategy helps marketer?
Ans: It helps in guding about marketing strategy by clarifying the brand's essence, identifying the goals it helps the consumer achieve, and showing how it does so in a unique way.
8.Stradle Positioning
Ocasionally, a company will be able to straddle two frames of reference with one set of points-of-difference and points-of-parity.
What are the four quadrants of BCG matrix?
Ans: 1. Question marks 2. Star 3. Cash cows 4. Dogs
What are the two dimensions of BCG matrix?
Ans; 1. Relative market growth 2. Relative market share
How the BCG matrix helps the marketer?
Ans: It helps in reviewing of business strategy. It also guides the managers about the reviewing of SBUs and Brands in terms of competition.
What is Value chain?
Ans; Value chain is a tool for identifying ways to create more customer value.
Value chain analysis
Ans:Value chain analysis is a means of evaluating each of the activities in a company's value chain to understand where opportunities for improvement lie.
Why do mareketers conduct value chain analysis?
Ans: Conducting a value chain analysis prompts you to consider how each step adds or subtracts value from your final product or service
What are the Primary activities of a value chain?
Ans; 1. Inbound logistics 2. Outbound logistics 3.Operation 4. sales & Markewting 5. Service
What are the supportive activities of a value chain?
Ans: 1. Firm's infrastrcture 2. Procuement 3. HRM 4. Technology
What is ansoff matrix?
The Ansoff matrix is a strategic planning tool that provides a framework to help executives, senior managers, and marketers devise strategies for future growth
Whic are the Four quadrants of Ansoff Matrix?
Ans: 1. Market development 2.Diversfication 3.Market penetration 4. Product development
How Ansoff Matix is useful for marketers?
32 Ans:The Matrix is used to evaluate the relative attractiveness of growth strategies that leverage both existing products and markets vs. new ones, as well as the level of risk associated with each.
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