Unit 4 marketing and selling Do you know?

The origin of the word “marketing” is the Latin word “mercuri”, meaning “to track and barter”.

TEXT 1: MARKETING

Marketing can be defined as human activity which is directed at satisfying needs and wants by creating and exchanging goods or services. Originally marketing was meant to help to avoid overproduction. Nowadays the marketing concept has replaced the selling concept. The "selling concept" means that consumers have to be persuaded by selling techniques to buy non-essential goods and services. The "marketing concept", on the contrary, means that the producer should produce the products which the customers need.

So, marketing involves identifying customer needs and requirements and meeting these needs in a better way than competitors. In this way a company creates loyal customers.

The key factor to get advantage over competitors is market research. Market research provides important information to identify and analyze the market need, market size and competition. Marketing also covers planning the assortment of goods, price policy, advertising and promotion of sales, controlling the sales and post-sales servicing.

Marketing can also be approached in the terms of marketing mix. Its components are four Ps - product, price, place, promotion, that is selling the right product, at the right price, through the right channels, with the right support and communication.

In a nutshell, the main principles of marketing are:

1. to determine the customer groups or segments;

2. to determine their needs;

3. to position the product in a proper way.

Vocabulary:

to define	определять
to satisfy a need	удовлетворять потребность
to avoid overproduction to persuade	предотвратить перепроизводство убеждать
selling techniques	приемы и методы продаж
non-essential	не первой необходимости
marketing mix	комплекс маркетинга
to meet the needs	удовлетворять потребности
competitor	конкурент
loyal customer	приверженный покупатель
post-sales servicing	сервисное (гарантийное) обслуживание
in a nutshell	вкратце
to determine	определить
to position the product	позиционировать товар, т. е. использовать рекламу и другие элементы комплекса маркетинга, чтобы сообщить о достоинствах товара

Comprehension questions:

1. What is the traditional definition of marketing?

2. What is marketing mix?

3. What are the main principles of marketing?

4. What is the role of marketing in modern business?

Task 1. Find in the text the English equivalents for the following words and word-combinations

- человеческая деятельность

- удовлетворение потребностей

- концепция маркетинга

- комплекс маркетинга

- исследование рынка

- сегменты рынка

- конкурент

- ассортимент товаров

- ценовая политика

- контролирование цены

- основные принципы

- соответствующим образом

Task2: Fill in the gaps with the words from the box.

marketing mix marketing customers persuade positioned satisfy needs

1. Today competition is stiff, and companies which can best ……………….of the customers will survive and make the largest profits.

2. The factors that help a firm to sell its products are known as the ……………..

3. ………………………… means promoting goods and services to customers.

4. The product should be distributed to the most convenient place for ………………..to buy it.

5. The company is looking for a trade representative possessing high communicative skills and being able to …………………. people.

6. "Zolotaya bochka" is ……………………….. on the market as beer of high quality.

Task 3