D077 Concepts in Marketing, Sales, and Customer Contacts module Study
Questions and answers 2025 (Full Set module 1-module 9) 2025 new
update version Western Governors University
Unit 2 Marketing Planning
Module 1: The Marketing Mix & Marketing Environment
1. Define marketing: Business function that identifies, satisfies, and retains customers through a set of activities
related to creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for the customer. - to
influence what people do and why they do it. - is to communicate with customers and address their wants and
needs. - Marketing is about creating exchanges.
2. What is the difference between sales and marketing?
Sales incorporates actually selling the company’s products or service to its customers, while marketing is the
process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers so that the product or service sells.
3. What is the difference between a good and a service?
good - Physical product offering / service - Intangible product offering by a business manufactured by a business:
4. What are the four elements in the Marketing mix?
Product, place, price & promotion (Marketing Mix or the 4Ps of marketing)
Product
4a. What does creating a product strategy involve?
Developing the marketing mix typically starts with the product. Marketers cannot plan a distribution system or
set a price if they do not know exactly what product will be offered to the market. Marketers use the term
,product to refer to goods, services, or even ideas.
4b. What is product life cycle stage? Identify at least two main features in each of the life cycle stages.
Introductory, Growth, Maturity & Decline: 1. Introductory: low sales, little or no profit, and Often little to no
competition. 2. Growth: Increasing Sales, Rapidly increasing, and market has accepted the product and
competitors begin to enter the market.
4c. What is product mix, product lines, product width, and product depth?
Product lines - Series of similar products focused on a sector that a company creates under a single brand Product
width - the number of different product lines, or series of products a company offers)
Product depth - Number of versions offered for each product in the product line
Price
4d. Describe six major pricing strategies. Provide an example for each.
Price skimming – Intentionally pricing a new product offering high with the intention of lowering it over time as
competition grows, particularly in the case of a unique offering with little or no competition at the outset. The
disadvantage is that high prices attract competition. Skimming means to price the product high to increase profits.
Penetration pricing - Penetration pricing can be applied when you want to enter a market and price your product
lower than the perceived market price so that more people will buy it and increase your market share. the low
initial price may induce consumers to switch brands or companies. penetration pricing may discourage
competitors from entering the market.
Leader pricing – Leader pricing is pricing products below the normal markup or even below cost to attract
customers to a store where they would not otherwise shop. A product priced below cost is referred to as a loss
leader.
Bundling - Bundling means grouping two or more related products together and pricing them as a single
product. The idea behind bundling is to reach a segment of the market that the products sold separately would
not reach as effectively.
Prestige pricing - The strategy of raising the price of a product so consumers will perceive it as being of higher
quality, status, or value. This type of pricing is common where high prices indicate high status.
1
,competitive pricing strategy – Competitive pricing strategy involves setting the price of a product according to
competitor prices, to use price as one of the features that differentiates the product. That could mean pricing
the product higher than competitive products, to indicate that the company believes it provides greater value.
Promotion
4e. Describe nine major elements of a promotional mix. Provide at least two examples for each.
• Traditional advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor that is
delivered through traditional media channels.
• Personal selling: A face-to-face presentation to a prospective buyer, often based on long-term
relationships.
• Sales promotion: Marketing activities (other than personal selling, traditional advertising, public relations,
social media, and e-commerce) that stimulate consumer buying, including coupons and samples, displays,
shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and other types of selling efforts.8 Sales promotion is a direct
incentive for the customer to purchase the product immediately. It must adhere to strict laws and
regulations.2
• Public relations: The linking of organizational goals with key aspects of the public interest and the
development of programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance. Public relations can
include lobbying, publicity, special events, internal publications, and media such as a company’s internal
television channel.8 Public-relations efforts are the least “controllable” of all the tools of promotion, and a
great deal of effort and relationship-building is required to develop the ongoing goodwill and networking
that is needed to enhance the image of a company.2
• Social media: The use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and
various blogs to generate “buzz” about a product or company. The skills and knowledge needed to
generate information as well as to defend the company against problems (such as incriminating videos
“going viral”) are separate skills from those related to traditional advertising. Even promotional strategies
such as paying celebrities to wear a specific line of clothing and posting these images on Twitter or
Instagram (a form of advertising, also known as influencer marketing), require different types of planning
and expertise than traditional advertising.
• E-commerce: The use of a company’s website to generate sales through online ordering, information,
interactive components such as games, and other elements of the website. Various forms of promotion are
created on a website from content to advertisements. Website development is mandatory in today’s
business world. Understanding how to develop and promote on a website to generate sales is imperative
for any marketer.
• Online advertising: The use of the internet to advertise is a form of promotion that comes in many forms
including online banner ads, pop-up ads, video advertisements, etc.
• Content marketing: A subset of digital marketing, content marketing involves the creation and sharing
of online material (such as social media posts) designed to create interest in a product, service, or idea
without directly promoting the brand.
• Guerilla marketing: Marketing communication that is generally experiential and often involves
unconventional, innovative, and usually low-cost marketing tactics to engage consumers in the
marketing activity, generate attention, and achieve maximum exposure for an organization, its
products, and services.
4f. What is the difference between Integrated Marketing Communications and Omni-Channel
Communication?
IMC (integrated marketing communications) - involves carefully coordinating all promotional activities—
traditional advertising (including direct marketing), sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social
media and e-commerce, packaging, and other marketing elements—to produce a consistent, unified, customer-
focused message.
Omnichannel communication - includes channels such as physical locations, e-commerce, mobile applications,
and social media. Rather than working in parallel, communication channels and their supporting resources are
designed and orchestrated to cooperate. Companies that use an omnichannel
2
, approach contend that a customer values the ability to engage with a company through multiple avenues at
the same time.
Place
4g. What is Place strategy?
Answer: Place involves some method of getting the product from the creator of the product to the customer.
Place includes a myriad of important tasks: transportation, location, supply chain management (managing each
entity that deals with the product in its route to the buyer), online presence, inventory, and atmospherics (how
the office, store, or even the website looks)
4h. What is Distribution? What are the two types of distribution? What is a supply chain?
Answer: Distribution is efficiently managing the acquisition of raw materials by the factory and the movement
of products from the producer or manufacturer to business-to-business (B2B) users and consumers. It includes
many facets, such as location, hours, website presence, logistics, atmospherics, inventory management, supply-
chain management, and others.
1.13 What is supply chain?
Answer: supply chain is the system through which an organization acquires raw material, produces products,
and delivers the products and services to its customers. Supply chain management helps increase the efficiency
of logistics service by minimizing inventory and moving goods efficiently from producers to the ultimate users.
4i. What is a vertical marketing system? Describe the three types of Vertical marketing systems and
provide an example for each.
Answer: Cooperation between multiple levels of a distribution channel: corporate, contractual, and
administered.
Answer: 1. In a corporate vertical marketing system, a single company owns all levels of production and
distribution.
2. In a contractual vertical marketing system, a formal agreement between the levels (such as franchise,
retail sponsored or wholesale sponsored) coordinates the distribution process.
3. In an administered vertical marketing system, one member of the channel system effectively controls
the system out of sheer power and size. It can determine the activities of the other channel levels without an
ownership stake.
5. Identify seven major uncontrollable elements in the marketing environment that may affect
an organization. Give one example for each of the uncontrollable elements.
• Competitive elements: Includes such factors as new and shifting competition from domestic
and foreign-based firms
• Natural/ecological elements: Includes such factors as natural resources, increased pollution,
supply of raw materials, and practices that support environmental sustainability
• Political-legal elements: Includes such factors as changes in laws, regulatory agency activities,
and political movements
• Socio-cultural elements: Includes such factors as the buying behaviors of specific cultures and
subcultures, the values of potential customers, the changing roles of families, and other
societal trends such as employees working from home and flexible work hours
• Demographic elements: Includes such factors as changes in the ages of potential customers
(e.g., baby boomers, millennials), birth and death rates, and locations of various groups of
people
• Technological elements: Includes such factors as advances in telecommunications and
computer technology
• Economic elements: Includes such factors as changing incomes, unemployment levels, inflation,
and recession.
6. What are the various controllable elements in the marketing environment?
Questions and answers 2025 (Full Set module 1-module 9) 2025 new
update version Western Governors University
Unit 2 Marketing Planning
Module 1: The Marketing Mix & Marketing Environment
1. Define marketing: Business function that identifies, satisfies, and retains customers through a set of activities
related to creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for the customer. - to
influence what people do and why they do it. - is to communicate with customers and address their wants and
needs. - Marketing is about creating exchanges.
2. What is the difference between sales and marketing?
Sales incorporates actually selling the company’s products or service to its customers, while marketing is the
process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers so that the product or service sells.
3. What is the difference between a good and a service?
good - Physical product offering / service - Intangible product offering by a business manufactured by a business:
4. What are the four elements in the Marketing mix?
Product, place, price & promotion (Marketing Mix or the 4Ps of marketing)
Product
4a. What does creating a product strategy involve?
Developing the marketing mix typically starts with the product. Marketers cannot plan a distribution system or
set a price if they do not know exactly what product will be offered to the market. Marketers use the term
,product to refer to goods, services, or even ideas.
4b. What is product life cycle stage? Identify at least two main features in each of the life cycle stages.
Introductory, Growth, Maturity & Decline: 1. Introductory: low sales, little or no profit, and Often little to no
competition. 2. Growth: Increasing Sales, Rapidly increasing, and market has accepted the product and
competitors begin to enter the market.
4c. What is product mix, product lines, product width, and product depth?
Product lines - Series of similar products focused on a sector that a company creates under a single brand Product
width - the number of different product lines, or series of products a company offers)
Product depth - Number of versions offered for each product in the product line
Price
4d. Describe six major pricing strategies. Provide an example for each.
Price skimming – Intentionally pricing a new product offering high with the intention of lowering it over time as
competition grows, particularly in the case of a unique offering with little or no competition at the outset. The
disadvantage is that high prices attract competition. Skimming means to price the product high to increase profits.
Penetration pricing - Penetration pricing can be applied when you want to enter a market and price your product
lower than the perceived market price so that more people will buy it and increase your market share. the low
initial price may induce consumers to switch brands or companies. penetration pricing may discourage
competitors from entering the market.
Leader pricing – Leader pricing is pricing products below the normal markup or even below cost to attract
customers to a store where they would not otherwise shop. A product priced below cost is referred to as a loss
leader.
Bundling - Bundling means grouping two or more related products together and pricing them as a single
product. The idea behind bundling is to reach a segment of the market that the products sold separately would
not reach as effectively.
Prestige pricing - The strategy of raising the price of a product so consumers will perceive it as being of higher
quality, status, or value. This type of pricing is common where high prices indicate high status.
1
,competitive pricing strategy – Competitive pricing strategy involves setting the price of a product according to
competitor prices, to use price as one of the features that differentiates the product. That could mean pricing
the product higher than competitive products, to indicate that the company believes it provides greater value.
Promotion
4e. Describe nine major elements of a promotional mix. Provide at least two examples for each.
• Traditional advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor that is
delivered through traditional media channels.
• Personal selling: A face-to-face presentation to a prospective buyer, often based on long-term
relationships.
• Sales promotion: Marketing activities (other than personal selling, traditional advertising, public relations,
social media, and e-commerce) that stimulate consumer buying, including coupons and samples, displays,
shows and exhibitions, demonstrations, and other types of selling efforts.8 Sales promotion is a direct
incentive for the customer to purchase the product immediately. It must adhere to strict laws and
regulations.2
• Public relations: The linking of organizational goals with key aspects of the public interest and the
development of programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance. Public relations can
include lobbying, publicity, special events, internal publications, and media such as a company’s internal
television channel.8 Public-relations efforts are the least “controllable” of all the tools of promotion, and a
great deal of effort and relationship-building is required to develop the ongoing goodwill and networking
that is needed to enhance the image of a company.2
• Social media: The use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and
various blogs to generate “buzz” about a product or company. The skills and knowledge needed to
generate information as well as to defend the company against problems (such as incriminating videos
“going viral”) are separate skills from those related to traditional advertising. Even promotional strategies
such as paying celebrities to wear a specific line of clothing and posting these images on Twitter or
Instagram (a form of advertising, also known as influencer marketing), require different types of planning
and expertise than traditional advertising.
• E-commerce: The use of a company’s website to generate sales through online ordering, information,
interactive components such as games, and other elements of the website. Various forms of promotion are
created on a website from content to advertisements. Website development is mandatory in today’s
business world. Understanding how to develop and promote on a website to generate sales is imperative
for any marketer.
• Online advertising: The use of the internet to advertise is a form of promotion that comes in many forms
including online banner ads, pop-up ads, video advertisements, etc.
• Content marketing: A subset of digital marketing, content marketing involves the creation and sharing
of online material (such as social media posts) designed to create interest in a product, service, or idea
without directly promoting the brand.
• Guerilla marketing: Marketing communication that is generally experiential and often involves
unconventional, innovative, and usually low-cost marketing tactics to engage consumers in the
marketing activity, generate attention, and achieve maximum exposure for an organization, its
products, and services.
4f. What is the difference between Integrated Marketing Communications and Omni-Channel
Communication?
IMC (integrated marketing communications) - involves carefully coordinating all promotional activities—
traditional advertising (including direct marketing), sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social
media and e-commerce, packaging, and other marketing elements—to produce a consistent, unified, customer-
focused message.
Omnichannel communication - includes channels such as physical locations, e-commerce, mobile applications,
and social media. Rather than working in parallel, communication channels and their supporting resources are
designed and orchestrated to cooperate. Companies that use an omnichannel
2
, approach contend that a customer values the ability to engage with a company through multiple avenues at
the same time.
Place
4g. What is Place strategy?
Answer: Place involves some method of getting the product from the creator of the product to the customer.
Place includes a myriad of important tasks: transportation, location, supply chain management (managing each
entity that deals with the product in its route to the buyer), online presence, inventory, and atmospherics (how
the office, store, or even the website looks)
4h. What is Distribution? What are the two types of distribution? What is a supply chain?
Answer: Distribution is efficiently managing the acquisition of raw materials by the factory and the movement
of products from the producer or manufacturer to business-to-business (B2B) users and consumers. It includes
many facets, such as location, hours, website presence, logistics, atmospherics, inventory management, supply-
chain management, and others.
1.13 What is supply chain?
Answer: supply chain is the system through which an organization acquires raw material, produces products,
and delivers the products and services to its customers. Supply chain management helps increase the efficiency
of logistics service by minimizing inventory and moving goods efficiently from producers to the ultimate users.
4i. What is a vertical marketing system? Describe the three types of Vertical marketing systems and
provide an example for each.
Answer: Cooperation between multiple levels of a distribution channel: corporate, contractual, and
administered.
Answer: 1. In a corporate vertical marketing system, a single company owns all levels of production and
distribution.
2. In a contractual vertical marketing system, a formal agreement between the levels (such as franchise,
retail sponsored or wholesale sponsored) coordinates the distribution process.
3. In an administered vertical marketing system, one member of the channel system effectively controls
the system out of sheer power and size. It can determine the activities of the other channel levels without an
ownership stake.
5. Identify seven major uncontrollable elements in the marketing environment that may affect
an organization. Give one example for each of the uncontrollable elements.
• Competitive elements: Includes such factors as new and shifting competition from domestic
and foreign-based firms
• Natural/ecological elements: Includes such factors as natural resources, increased pollution,
supply of raw materials, and practices that support environmental sustainability
• Political-legal elements: Includes such factors as changes in laws, regulatory agency activities,
and political movements
• Socio-cultural elements: Includes such factors as the buying behaviors of specific cultures and
subcultures, the values of potential customers, the changing roles of families, and other
societal trends such as employees working from home and flexible work hours
• Demographic elements: Includes such factors as changes in the ages of potential customers
(e.g., baby boomers, millennials), birth and death rates, and locations of various groups of
people
• Technological elements: Includes such factors as advances in telecommunications and
computer technology
• Economic elements: Includes such factors as changing incomes, unemployment levels, inflation,
and recession.
6. What are the various controllable elements in the marketing environment?
