Category: * Answers to exercises

This is Marketing Teacher’s answer to our FREE lesson on Power SWOT.

This is the answer to our FREE profit and loss exercise. The Profit and Loss statement is one of the main business financial statements. Among the various financial statements, a Profit and Loss statement most closely resembles what is referred to as the bottom line

Answer: There are many ways to use the Internet as a new medium for Advertising. This lesson considers Pay-Per-Click (or Cost-Per-Click) Advertising, Affiliate Marketing, and touches upon the range of traditional Offline Promotions Strategies that will help to promote a website using more offline media.

Answer: Segmentation is essentially the identification of subsets of buyers within a market who share similar needs and who demonstrate similar buyer behavior. The world is made up from billions of buyers with their own sets of needs and behavior.

Answer: Generic strategies were at their most popular in the early 1980s. They outline the three main strategic options open to organization that wish to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Answer: Another one of the 4P’s is ‘promotion’. This includes all of the tools available to the marketer for ‘marketing communication’. As with Neil H.Borden’s marketing mix, marketing communications has its own ‘promotions mix.’

Answer: We’ve already considered product as part of the marketing mix. Two previous tools for product decision-making have been introduced – Product Life Cycle (PLC) and the Three Levels of a Product. Both of these tools are equally applicable to the context of eMarketing, and can be easily applied to include eMarketing and product.

Standard costing answer. Perhaps no accounting principle utilizes performance management concepts better than standard costing. One of the elements of cost accounting, standard costing is of particular benefit to those companies engaged in manufacturing.

This is Marketing Teacher’s FREE answer for the exercise – Six Living Generations in America.

Answer: SWOT analysis is a tool for auditing an organization and its environment. SWOT is the first stage of planning and helps marketers to focus on key issues. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors.

Answer: In order to actively explore the nature of a product further, lets consider it as three different products – the CORE product, the ACTUAL product, and finally the AUGMENTED product. These are known as the ‘Three Levels of a Product.’ So what is the difference between the three products, or more precisely ‘levels?’

Answer: An Annual Report is a statement prepared by companies that are traded publicly. The development of an Annual Report provides inherent value in the process of reviewing major financial and operational achievements that occurred during the past 12 months.

Here is the answer to our product life cycle PLC exercise. The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is based upon the biological life cycle. For example, a seed is planted (introduction); it begins to sprout (growth); it shoots out leaves and puts down roots as it becomes an adult (maturity); after a long period as an…

Answer: Another element of Neil H.Borden’s Marketing Mix is Place. Place is also known as channel, distribution, or intermediary. It is the mechanism through which goods and/or services are moved from the manufacturer/ service provider to the user or consumer.

Answer: A manufacturing company is uniquely positioned to benefit from activity-based costing. Activity-based Costing is a costing model that aids a company in determining the costs of certain activities involved in producing a product/service and distributing that product/service to a customer.

Answer: A business is in a better position to weather an economic downturn when it is buttressed by a good marketing plan. A firms understanding of consumer behavior is enhanced if its marketing plan includes careful consideration of market segmentation, targeting and positioning.

This is the answer to our return on investment exercise. A popular method of measuring whether a firm is getting its money’s worth from promotions is by the calculation of Return On Investment (ROI). Return on Investment is a metric that measures profit associated with each investment. Although methods and approaches may vary the calculation…

Answer: A core competence is the result of a specific unique set of skills or production techniques that deliver value to the customer. Such competences give an organization access to a wide variety of markets. Hamel and Prahalad (1990) refer to a number of organizations and their products to support their concept, including NEC, Honda…

Answer: The Balance Sheet holds information of great interest to bankers and investors alike. The information represented on a Balance Sheet is very revealing to the keen eye, because it can forecast a company’s ability to pay its bills and discloses how much money has been invested.

Answer: The loyalty ladder is often used by marketing communicators to put forward the proposition that consumers can be moved along a continuum of loyalty using a number of integrated marketing communications techniques (it is also referred to as a ‘Branding Ladder.’). Essentially, consumers become loyal to a brand, which has meaning to them in…

Answer: Like Ansoff’s matrix, the Boston Matrix is a well known tool for the marketing manager. It was developed by the large US consulting group and is an approach to product portfolio planning. It has two controlling aspect namely relative market share (meaning relative to your competition) and market growth.

Answer: A stalled economy threatens the viability of many small businesses. Some have experienced decreases in revenues that they cannot sustain. Slower sales have prompted some to institute personnel layoffs others are prone to cut advertising. But, a hasty decision could be a mistake. After all, the reason for advertising is to keep a consistent…

Answer: Culture is the way that we do things around here. Here could be a country (national culture), a distinct selection of the community (sub-culture), or an organization (corporate culture). It is widely accepted that you are not born with a culture, and that it is learned.

This is the answer to Marketing Teacher’s exercise on marketing plans. Marketing plans are vital to marketing success. They help to focus the mind of companies and marketing teams on the process of marketing i.e. what is going to be achieved and how we intend to do it. There are many approaches to marketing plans.

Answer: Personal selling occurs where an individual salesperson sells a product, service or solution to a client. Salespeople match the benefits of their offering to the specific needs of a client. Today, personal selling involves the development of longstanding client relationships.

Answer: Internal Marketing is a vital communication and change management tool. Learn how to construct an internal marketing plan.

Answer: There are many ways to price a product. Let’s have a look at some of them and try to understand the best policy/strategy in various situations.

This is the answer to our exercise on the value chain. The value chain is a systematic approach to examining the development of competitive advantage. It was created by M. E. Porter in his book, Competitive Advantage (1980). The chain consists of a series of activities that create and build value. They culminate in the…

Answer: As with many of the tools and techniques considered on Marketing Teacher, traffic lights is a simple and effective approach. It’s just like the traffic lights that are seen in millions of streets throughout the world, and is a basic metaphor for red, amber and green. Red means ‘let’s STOP it,’ amber means ‘let’s…

Answer: Five Forces Analysis helps the marketer to contrast a competitive environment. It has similarities with other tools for environmental audit, such as PEST analysis, but tends to focus on the single, stand alone, business or SBU (Strategic Business Unit) rather than a single product or range of products.

Answer: PEST analysis is very important that an organization considers its environment before beginning the marketing process. In fact, environmental analysis should be continuous and feed all aspects of planning.

Answer: Market research and marketing research are often confused. ‘Market’ research is simply research into a specific market. It is a very narrow concept. ‘Marketing’ research is much broader. It not only includes ‘market’ research, but also areas such as research into new products, or modes of distribution such as via the Internet.

Answer: Contribution Analysis addresses the problem of identifying soft, or overhead costs associated with varying production projects. Generally, Contribution Analysis aids a company by accounting for all known fixed, direct and variable costs and then subtracting that amount from revenues. The remainder is viewed as the volume of other costs which, though hard to pin…

Answer: The Balanced Scorecard is an approach that can be used by strategic marketing managers to control, and keep track of, key performance indicators. In fact the scorecard itself is designed to be wholly strategic since it contains long-term outcomes and drivers of success. There are four zones in a balanced scorecard namely financial, customers,…

Answer: Consumer buyer behaviour is focused upon the needs of individuals, groups and organisations. It is important to understand the relevance of human needs to buyer behaviour. This lesson consider buyer behaviour motivations.

Answer: Ansoff’s matrix offers strategic choices to marketing managers. Ansoff’s has four main categories.This well known marketing tool was first published in the Harvard Business Review (1957) in an article called ‘Strategies for Diversification’. It is used by marketers who have objectives for growth. Ansoff’s matrix offers strategic choices to achieve the objectives. There are…

Answer: Advertising is an important element of the marketing communications mix. Put simply, advertising directs a message at large numbers of people with a single communication. It is a mass medium.

Answer: The main purpose of a Cash Flow Statement (CFS) is to help the business owner plan and control the flow of income in order to meet scheduled financial obligations. The information illustrated in the Cash Flow Statement also aids lenders and investors in determining a company’s financial health.

Here is Marketing Teacher’s answer to our A D Little exercise. The answer is FREE as is much of Marketing Teacher’s material.

Answer: The composition of Annual Accounts is guided by applicable governmental bodies and legislation such as that found in the International Accounting Standards Board and American Securities Exchange Commission. In addition to substantially more detailed information, firms such as limited liability companys, insurance companies and savings banks, must also provide explanations for all applicable accounting…

Answer: The allocation and identification of direct and indirect costs contributes to more accurate profit calculations. Not only is the clarification of costs important to business owners, it may be of particular interest to some prime contractors who may actually impose a specific accounting methodology in order to meet its own policy requirements.

Answer: The ‘Strategy Clock’ is based upon the work of Cliff Bowman (see C. Bowman and D. Faulkner ‘Competitve and Corporate Strategy – Irwin – 1996). It’s another suitable way to analyze a company’s competitive position in comparison to the offerings of competitors.

Welcome to our FREE answer on marketing and financial ratios.

Answer: A marcoms tool that a marketer can employ for branding decision-making is the Four Banding Alternatives (Tauber 1981). Four Branding Alternatives is a strategic marketing communications technique. It is a fun and creative approach that can add value to any class that likes to discuss brands and how they could be innovatively developed.