Foundations
The Marketing Concept
The philosophy that firms exist to identify and satisfy customer needs profitably, rather than to push what they already make.
Complete guideMarketing Myopia
Levitt's warning that companies decline when they define themselves by their products instead of the customer needs they serve.
Complete guideAMA Definition of Marketing
Marketing as the activity, institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value.
Complete guideMarket Orientation
An organization-wide culture of generating, sharing, and acting on market intelligence about customers and competitors.
Complete guideSegmentation & Positioning
Market Segmentation
Dividing a heterogeneous market into distinct groups with similar needs so each can be served with a tailored offer.
Complete guideSTP (Segment · Target · Position)
The three-step strategy sequence: split the market, choose which segments to pursue, and stake out a distinct place in buyers' minds.
Complete guideTargeting Strategies
Choosing between mass, differentiated, concentrated/niche, or micro-targeting approaches to selected segments.
Complete guidePositioning
Owning a distinct, valued position in the prospect's mind relative to competing alternatives.
Complete guideDifferentiation
Creating meaningful, defensible differences in the offer that buyers value enough to choose, and often pay more for.
Complete guidePerceptual Mapping
Plotting how buyers perceive competing brands on key attribute axes to reveal positioning gaps.
Complete guideThe Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix (Borden)
Borden's original idea of the marketer as a 'mixer of ingredients' blending twelve controllable elements into a program.
Complete guide4Ps (McCarthy)
McCarthy's 1960 distillation of the mix into Product, Price, Place, and Promotion, the discipline's most-taught framework.
Complete guide7Ps (Booms & Bitner)
The services extension adding People, Process, and Physical Evidence to the classic 4Ps.
Complete guide4Cs (Customer view)
Lauterborn's reframe of the 4Ps from the buyer's side: Customer wants, Cost, Convenience, Communication.
Complete guideStrategy Frameworks
Porter's Five Forces
Industry attractiveness analyzed through rivalry, entrants, substitutes, and the bargaining power of buyers and suppliers.
Complete guideAnsoff Matrix
Four growth routes from crossing existing/new products with existing/new markets: penetration, market development, product development, diversification.
Complete guideSWOT Analysis
A situation audit of internal Strengths and Weaknesses against external Opportunities and Threats.
Complete guideBlue Ocean Strategy
Creating uncontested market space through value innovation instead of fighting rivals in existing 'red oceans'.
Complete guidePortfolio Strategy (Growth–Share)
Allocating resources across a portfolio of products or brands by market growth and relative position.
Complete guideCategory Design
Deliberately creating and naming a new market category, then positioning your company as its definitive leader.
Complete guidePlanning & Budgeting
Marketing Plan
The documented translation of strategy into objectives, audiences, programs, budgets, and success measures for a period.
Complete guideBrand vs. Activation Budgeting (60:40)
Binet & Field's evidence that budgets balancing ~60% long-term brand building with ~40% short-term activation maximize effectiveness.
Complete guideMarketing Mix Modeling (MMM)
Econometric modeling of aggregate data to estimate each channel's contribution to sales and guide budget allocation.
Complete guideObjectives & KPI Setting
Defining the business outcome, the marketing objective, and the measurable indicators that will evidence progress.
Complete guideSOSTAC® Planning
PR Smith’s planning framework links Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control into a plan that can be implemented and reviewed.
Complete guideTOPPP SEED
PR Smith’s strategy checklist: Target markets, Objectives, Positioning, Partnerships, Processes, Stages/sequence, Engagement, Experience and Data.
Complete guide5Ss of Digital Marketing
PR Smith’s five digital goal areas, Sell, Serve, Speak, Save and Sizzle, help teams define value beyond sales before selecting measurable objectives.
Complete guide