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Experiments and Propensity Score Matching
it does for them are usually more important than details about the underlying mathematical models, for example. Our book seeks to answer these managerially meaningful questions. ● We use a “tell–show–do” approach to the book, integrating state-of-the-art marketing analytics techniques into all aspects of the strategic planning process to allow you to make more effective data-based decisions. ● We use the latest marketing research as underpinning for all our guidance, synthesizing more than sixty years of thought in marketing research in one book. ● We provide solutions to each of our technical chapter case studies, including step-by-step instructions on how to use R and Tableau to estimate the many marketing analytics techniques covered in the book.
Overview of First Principles of Marketing Strategy
The most basic issue facing managers making marketing mix decisions (pricing, product, promotion, place) is that all customers differ. Customers vary widely in their needs and preferences, whether real or perceived. Their desires vary even for basic commodity products (e.g., bottled water). Thus, effective marketing strategies must manage this customer heterogeneity, often through segmenting, targeting, and positioning efforts. They allow the firm to make sense of the customer landscape by identifying a manageable number of homogeneous customer groups, such that the firm can meaningfully evaluate its relative strengths and make strategically critical decisions about how to win and keep customers.
Managers developing their marketing strategies must account for variation, as customers’ needs change over time. Even within a well-defined segment, members’ individual needs often evolve at different rates or directions. At some point in the future, customers who once were part of a relatively homogeneous segment will exhibit widely divergent needs and desires. A firm’s marketing strategy must account for customer dynamics to avoid becoming obsolete by identifying and understanding how a firm’s customers migrate (i.e., change), triggers of these migrations, differing needs across stages, and, ultimately, desirable positions to appeal to these customers over time.
