Chapter Six Questions and Answers

2.1 How could you use the Web site www.brobonlin.com to help define a target market and develop a marketing plan?

I found Brobonlin’s site challenging. McDaniel, Lamb and Hair (2008) did a better job defining online marketing firms. The successes of these new firms were based on new applications that can locate a market. This was followed by improving efficiency, lowering cost, helping out the supply chain and keeping the customers coming back. What I found interesting on B to B’s site was vertical marketing. The example featured was on a new automotive product for an upcoming show and how B to B developed a plan to get the buzz out on the new automotive product which aided in the success.

3.1 Why is relationship or personal selling the best way to promote in business marketing?

Relationship selling is the challenge in business today. Internet sales are price sensitive. Face to face sales are where the profits and relationships are. Customers have demanding needs and the competition is fierce. Loyal customers make companies lots of money. The long term customer is what businesses want. What business often lose sight of is that when the environment changes, so does the customer base.

5.1 Explain how a marketer can use the Web site www.census.gov/epcdwwwnaics.html and convert SIC date to the NAICS.

Standard industrial classification (SIC) is the old system of grouping goods and services. The new system is North American business establishments (NAICS). The system is designed to work with NAFTA (trade) and for business marketers. NAICS is a tool for classifying what economic sector goods or services belong to by using numbers/digits. SIC classification only provided a limited amount of information. The new system allows marketers to have direct multi-country data of what goods and services are being moved. The downside is: as the number of digits grows, so does confusion.

5.2 Pick a product and determine its NAICS code. How easy was it to trace the groups and sectors?
I randomly chose 3111, and it turned out to be Animal Food Manufacturing.

I didn’t find the government site easy to use at all. I used a search engine versus the government site for the marketing information. I found that the projection for animal food forecasted steady growth. In 2006, there were 28,000 animal food businesses, and there have been some mergers occurring. Note: I retried the search on the site and found clicking on the buisness link on the site, and then entering the NAICS code unleashed a ton of information.