Marketing

Topics

1. 2.1 Marketing to CustomersWhy and how marketers collect customer data, segment markets, and build customer relationships.
2. 2.2 Consumer BehaviorWhy consumers buy what they buy, and the sales tactics built on Cialdini's principles of influence.
3. 2.3 Market ResearchPrimary and secondary research, hypothesis testing, and the data visualizations that communicate findings.
4. 2.4 ProductThe six stages of product development, branding, and the product life cycle.
5. 2.5 PricePricing strategies, pricing power, and the legal constraints that limit it.
6. 2.6 Place and ChannelsThe marketing channels available to a business and how to choose among them.
7. 2.7 Promotion and Marketing CommunicationsBuilding a marketing campaign and how digital tools changed the way businesses reach customers.

Trued Cycles

Theo is sixteen and rebuilds neglected bikes in the family garage, trading as Trued Cycles. Trued is the mechanic's word for a bent wheel bent back to straight, which is exactly what he sells: a bike bought cheap, restored against a documented twenty one point safety inspection, and handed over with a signed orange tag zip tied to the handlebars and a thirty day tune up guarantee. He logs every bike on one line of a two dollar spiral notebook taped inside the garage door: buy price, parts cost, hours, sale price. Unit 2 is the story of that notebook turning into a marketing plan.

Theo, sixteen year old founder who buys neglected bikes cheap and rebuilds them · Ricky, the candy seller from Unit 1, and the first customer written into the notebook · Renee, the written customer profile, forty one, buying a first commuter bike for her middle schooler · Dee, retired flea market vendor whose established stall becomes the consignment channel

1. Ricky buys a sixty dollar cargo rack bike to haul crates to his snack box, pays in cash, then asks for a receipt. No receipts exist, so Theo starts the notebook, and the six sales after that first line are all parents buying a safe first commuter bike for a middle schooler. He writes Renee's profile card from those six buyers, then notices nineteen customer phone numbers sitting in his notes app with no stated purpose.

   Customer data drives segmentation, target customers, and the customer profile, and collecting it creates privacy risk. · 2.1

2. A father circles a ninety five dollar commuter three times without buying, and the vendor two racks over offers Theo the oldest line in used sales: tell him three other people are coming this afternoon. Theo reads the man all twenty one inspection points instead, taps the thirty day guarantee at the bottom of the tag, and sells the bike. The honest version outsold the lie because the checklist answered the buyer's actual risk.

   Buying decisions run on personal, psychological, social, and situational factors, and a sales tactic is worth keeping only if it survives full disclosure. · 2.2

3. A buyer holds up a phone showing a similar bike listed at seventy five dollars and walks away rather than pay ninety five. That evening one sentence goes into the notebook: put a documented inspection tag on an otherwise identical bike and it sells for twenty dollars more, and sooner. He sweeps sixty local listings, then racks nine tagged and eight untagged bikes across two Saturdays and counts what sells.

   A business hypothesis is tested with primary research, here an A/B test plus interviews, after secondary research sizes the landscape. · 2.3

4. A parent walks past three tables of cheaper bikes, reads all twenty one checklist lines on Theo's tag, asks who signed the bottom, and buys without asking about a single component. Theo finally names what he sells: not a used bike but a certified ready to ride bike, and the certification is what closes the sale. The name Trued and the orange tag become the brand identity.

   Six stages of product development, the MVP and value proposition, brand identity, and the product life cycle. · 2.4

5. A finished commuter rolls off the stand with the price blank on its tag. The notebook line under it reads thirty five dollars to buy and eighteen in parts, plus a share of the Saturday stall fee. Theo prices it at ninety five, then tests one hundred ten and eighty on later Saturdays, and declines a rival flipper's offer to fix both their commuter prices at one hundred twenty before the school year.

   Cost, value, competitor, and penetration pricing, pricing power and elasticity, and the legal limits of collusion, gouging, and discrimination. · 2.5

6. Theo rebuilds faster than he sells, and by midsummer four tagged commuters lean against the garage wall. Dee, a retired vendor with one of the market's best corners, offers to display and sell his bikes for fifteen percent with no setup labor. He rules three columns in the notebook, prices out the marketplace, his own stall, and Dee's corner, and keeps all three.

   Direct and indirect channels compared on cost, customer experience, and reach, leading to a channel mix rather than one winner. · 2.6

7. Two weeks before school starts, Theo tapes a one week calendar next to the notebook with Ready to Ride Week across the top: a rebuild clip each morning, a code on every tag pointing at a one page inventory site, one Monday message to the subscriber list, and Saturday test rides. Twelve hundred views become four sales on thirty six dollars of spend, and the ten dollars off deadline clears the last three kids' bikes to families already in the notebook.

   A coordinated campaign across the promotional mix, and how digital tools produce the response data that grades it. · 2.7

Continues in Unit 3.

What is free and what is paid

• Free: every lesson video, the notes, worked examples, the glossary, this unit’s story and the diagnostic.
• Free with an account: progress tracking and saved flashcard state.
• Paid: the unit question bank is still in review and is not on sale yet.

The unit cheat sheet covers 7 sections, and this unit is 20-30% of the exam.