Understanding the Functions of Marketing and PR

Use this work book to help you explain the functions of marketing and public relations. You
should ensure you use additional examples to support your explanations.

Marketing
Explain what market research is, how it can be carried out and why it could be
important.
Market Research is when an organised group of people go out and gather information
about a specific subject whether it being target audiences/customers, or about the
current market. This is a very important stage within a business.
Market research is key when you have to maintain competition over other businesses
as the research provides important information about the market size and needs.
There are type major types of research, Primary and Secondary. Primary research
occurs when researchers from a company go out and find the information for
themselves. This type of research is more effective because you are able to get the
correct results, as you know they are real.
Secondary research happens when you acquire the information from other sources, so
the research has already been done for you. This is a quicker way of researching but
could cause problems as the data could be false and old, which could affect the way
your company decides to promote something.
Some examples of market research are through focus groups, surveys and online
questionnaires. Focus groups will discuss the pros and cons for the design side of
things and may also suggest ways in how to improve the product. With online
questionnaires, if you are wanting to produce a new car, it is ideal to post a
questionnaire on sites that the product would be linked to, for example on car
websites, as this is the audience you are looking for and you will also get more
responses that way.
It is important to do market research because the business needs to be able to keep
up with market trends and to also maintain a competitive side as this helps you to
understand your target market and helps increase sales.
Explain market analysis. Why is it done and who could carry it out for you?
Market analysis happens when a business takes research and looks at it in fine detail
and identifies the characteristics that would be most important. Only by knowing these
characteristics can a business plan what to do with this information so it is quite
important to do this stage.
By having a good understanding of the markets, the business should be able to aim
their products at the correct audience effectively. If there is a lack of analysis, then this
could result in selecting the wrong market and this would be a waste of time and
money for the company.
Deciding how to analyse a market can involve various things such as:
Deciding exactly what you need to know as this will avoid time wasting

Considerations such as time and cost. This is a large part of analysis because
you dont want to spend too much money on your analysis as this could have
drawbacks for the company in the long run as this could mean that they dont
have enough time or money to complete the product.
Considerations such as detail. This affects factors like size of the research and
amount spent.

Sometimes if you dont have the right experts to carry out some large projects, you
may need to ask another agency to come in and to help carry it out for you.
Explain marketing strategy using examples.
A marketing strategy is how you are going to market
your products to customers. It shows you your
objectives and how you should carry them out. A
marketing strategy can cover anything from a few
weeks to up to 15 years.
An effective marketing strategy will help you to
define what direction you want your marketing to go
in. Your strategy should be clear on how you are
going to deliver your products in the best way
possible so that it will satisfy your customers.
Once this is defined, you will need to develop some tactics that you will use in order to
carry out your strategy and reach your target.
Why is advertising so important to an organisation? Use examples to help you explain.
Advertising has served a huge purpose within the business world by giving the sellers
of products a chance to compete against one another in order to get attention from the
buyer.
Whatever it is you are trying to sell, you need to have strong advertising elements in
order for your product to get noticed.
The objective of advertising is to get out to the customers that you have a product to
offer to them. Whether you promote your products on commercials, billboards, or
online, the content must be checked as it has to follow the ASA codes according to
whom youre promoting too.
Advertising helps to keep the consumers informed and up to date on the new products
and services that are available in todays economy. It helps to spread awareness
about them to potential buyers.
The aim of advertising is to sell, so the companies need to make sure that their
adverts will grab the attention of the potential buyer, as they are what helps them
decide whether to buy the product or not.

What is brand promotion and what methods could you use to promote a brand?
Brand promotion is the element of marketing, which is made to design, inform and
persuade the customers to buy the product youre trying to sell.
The main objectives are to
promote information and to
differentiate the product. The
business will provide the relevant
information about the brand like
the price and features.
Brand Promotion is a common
strategy that is used to increase
product awareness,
competitiveness and sales.
Businesses use it to show you
how good they are and what they
are trying to sell.
Businesses need to increase brand awareness, which is a measure of whether their
customers know about the products, and services they offer. For the company to
compete against others, they have to be able to get messages to the public, which
requires effort.
There are many ways in that you could promote a brand, for example you could use
contests. These are used frequently as people like to win prizes, so if you sponsor a
contest, it could help to get your name and products out to the public. Another form of
promotion is through Social Media. Websites such as Facebook offer companies a
way of promoting their products and services. They have adverts can be seen down
the edge of a Facebook page, making it a more relaxed way of advertising. This is
ideal as it helps to get in touch with customers on a personal level.

PR
What are some of the key principles involved in managing the message?
There are 11 important principals that will be effective in managing the message about
the changes within a business.
Communicate early and often.
Communicate what you know and when you know it.
Dont be afraid to say I dont know as long as you follow that up with ...but Ill
find out and get back to you as soon as I do.
Let everyone know what is happening, why, and what they can do to help
Reinforce what is staying the same as you discuss what may be changing.
Create multiple, targeted approaches to reach your various audiences
Communicate openly, honestly, and frequently as things continue to change
Establish feedback mechanisms from those affected by the changes to those in
leadership to inform your ongoing decisions

Communicate the initial results and early progress of your change efforts to
everyone
Acknowledge and thank everyone who helped contribute to your success
Continue to communicate well after the changes occur and as long as the
transition continues

You need to focus on the future as if you want to change the company; you need to
make sure that people dont fall back into old habits as they might think that the
changes have been left.
What is positive publicity? Find an example of it to help explain.
Positive publicity is always important in any business because it helps your company
to get well known throughout the public. Businesses also get bad publicity, but there
are many ways that you can handle it so that it turns into good publicity.
If your business receive complaints about faulty products, accidents or customer
service etc. this can affect the business and it will make it onto the news, so you have
to be careful about the kind of publicity you get. If you are getting coverage in the
media, as a business, you need to respond quickly, honestly and you also need to be
clever.
There are various ways of generating positive publicity for your business, for example,
a media release is simply some written information that is sent to the media, This
informs them of anything new or exciting that is going to happen so that it can be put
out into the news to the viewers. The information has to be interesting; otherwise the
customers will not want to know about it.
In public relations terms, what is spin? Find an example to help you with your
response.
Spin is commonly used in politics and business where it described as exaggeration,
inaccuracies and untrue appeals.
Their opponents especially accuse politicians as they claim to speak the truth, whilst
using the spin tactic to manipulate what the publics opinion is.
The most common spin technique is the non-apology apology. This is where a person
in the public eye has said or commented about something that is most often seen as
racist or homophobic. They then publicly apologise by twisting the apology by saying
that his/her words were taken in the wrong way. This usually means that they arent
apologising for what they had said.
For a while, a lot of businesses have been taking comments from customers and
editing them to make the comments seem much more positive than originally posted.
This is also an example of spinning. It is the shaping of events to make you look better
than the competition.
As an example, in politics, if they want to raise taxes, they will leak small information
about a 5% tax rise, which the public will be very disappointed with, but then the
politicians will only raise it by 2%. This is a small example of spin because they are
manipulating the public to make it seem like it isnt as big as you first thought.

Why might a person or a company engage in damage limitation? Using an example

will improve your grade.
Often in business, things go wrong, and whether its the companys fault, the customer,
or someone else it is ideal to engage in damage limitation. You should always be
aware and prepare for anything that could go wrong, so you need to read up on your
knowledge.
If you have the correct know how, you will be able to turn a negative situation, into a
positive one. If you focus your attention on the minimal damage, it will bring attention
the fact that there is damage.
If you happen to land in trouble, being honest and reacting quickly will bring your
business back to its reputation for being honest and concerning. If you lie and try to
avoid the subject, the reputation of your business could be in jeopardy.
I found an example of this where it occurred in a restaurant in America. This restaurant
were giving samples of an alcoholic slushy out to adults, when the parents of a four
year old gave their child on of the samples. The restaurant had made a statement,
which tries to aim the blame on the family, although this resulted in the server being
fired as they avoided telling the truth. The server hadnt informed the family that there
was alcohol in the samples.
What benefit could there be to an organisation to create an event? Use an example of
a marketing or PR event to support your responses.
Organising events for a business is always a good idea because it will get the whole of
the business in it and you are able to get everyone interacting with each other, which
will get some good communication within the business.
These events are also good because it will get your business known amongst other
businesses by inviting them to your event. This will help to also create good
communications with them, as you may need their help in the future for some projects.
Other benefits could include the media because if you are putting on an event like for
charity, this would be noticed by the media, so could get you some good publicity and
your business known by a wider audience, so your services and/or products would be
promoted by the media.
What is lobbying and who is most likely to be influenced by it?
Lobbying is where people try to influence the decisions of people within the
government. These people are most often legislators and members of regulatory
agencies.
Lobbyists are paid people who have a job of influencing decisions of the government.
They are usually secretive and do everything behind closed doors, but they are very
tactical and construct their arguments carefully.
Lobbying occurs when somebody with socioeconomic power tries to corrupt the law,
i.e. Twisting the words to make it untrue, to make the comments in their favour.
When people who have a duty to act on the behalf of others, shaping the law is

beneficial to them because it serves the interest of the parties they are working for.