CHAPTER 4THE CUSTOMER AND MARKET AUDIT PART 2: UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER NEEDS AND DEVELOPING VALUE PROPOSITIONS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter continues to spell out the essential components of a customer and market audit.
Nonetheless, as the purpose of the audit is to provide all the data and intelligence necessary for the strategic marketing plan itself, once again we repeat in Figure 4.1 the contents of the plan. This chapter will enable you to complete the section headed ‘SWOT analyses’ (of segments).
The first point we want to make is that people are not rational in their behaviour, no matter what the economists might say.
Most business people will have read about the Coca-Cola/Pepsi taste tests, which have been repeated many times over the past 40 years, always with the same results. In ‘blind’ tasting, a substantial majority prefer Pepsi. The same people, however, when tasting from bottles with the labels on, prefer Coca-Cola by a significant majority.
Even neurologists agree that people are not rational when choosing between products, as can be seen from the reference shown below.
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