:: Marketing
An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded, primarily in the United States, after a course of post-secondary study lasting two or three years. It is a level of qualification between a high school diploma or GED and a bachelor's degree.
The first associate degrees were awarded in the UK (where they are[when?] no longer awarded) in 1873 before spreading to the US in 1898. In the United States, the associate degree may allow transfer into the third year of a bachelor's degree.[1] Associate degrees have since been introduced in a small number of other countries.
In the United States, associate degrees are usually earned in two years or more and can be attained at community colleges, technical colleges, vocational schools, and some colleges, as well as at some universities. A student who completes a two-year program can earn an Associate of Arts/Associate in Arts (AA)[25] or an Associate of Science/Associate in Science (AS) degree.[25] AA degrees are usually earned in the Liberal Arts and Sciences such as humanities and social science fields; AS degrees are awarded to those studying in applied scientific and technical fields and professional fields of study. Generally, one year of study is focused on college level general education and the second year is focused on the area of discipline.
Students who complete a two-year technical or vocational program can often earn an Associate of Applied Science/Associate in Applied Science (AAS), although sometimes the degree name will include the subject (a "tagged" degree).[26]
Transfer admissions in the United States sometimes allows courses taken and credits earned on an AA, AS, or AAS course to be counted toward a bachelor's degree via articulation agreements or recognition of prior learning, depending on the courses taken, applicable state laws/regulations, and the transfer requirements of the university.[27]
Common associate degree titles include:[26]
- Associate of Applied Business (AAB)
- Associate of Applied Science (AAS)
- Associate of Applied Technology (AAT)
- Associate of Arts (AA)
- Associate of Arts in Teaching (AAT)
- Associate of Business Administration (ABA)
- Associate of Electrical Engineering Technology (AEET)
- Associate of Electronics (AE)
- Associate of Engineering (AE/AEng)
- Associate of Engineering Technology (AET/AEngT)
- Associate of Forestry (AF)
- Associate of General Studies (AGS)
- Associate of Industrial Technology (AIT)
- Associate of Nursing (AN)/Associate Degree Nurse/Nursing (ADN)
- Associate of Occupational Studies (AOS)
- Associate of Science (AS)
- Associate of Science in Computer Assisted Design (AS-CAD)
- Associate of Technology (AT)
- "Associate Degrees". British Columbia Commission on Admissions and Transfer. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
- "Q & A on Sub-degree Programmes". Information Portal for Accredited Post-secondary Programmes. Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
- "USNEI". Education USA. US Department of Education.
"Cal State University". California State University Transfer Requirements.
Marketing management is the process of developing strategies and planning for product or services, advertising, promotions, sales to reach desired customer segment.
Marketing management employs tools from economics and competitive strategy to analyze the industry context in which the firm operates. These include Porter's five forces, analysis of strategic groups of competitors, value chain analysis and others.[1]
In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market, focusing on their relative competitive strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis. Marketing managers will examine each competitor's cost structure, sources of profits, resources and competencies, competitive positioning and product differentiation, degree of vertical integration, historical responses to industry developments, and other factors.
Marketing management often conduct market research and marketing research to perform marketing analysis. Marketers employ a variety of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include:
Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to help identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis.
A brand audit is a thorough examination of a brand's current position in an industry compared to its competitors and the examination of its effectiveness. When it comes to brand auditing, six questions should be carefully examined and assessed:
- how well the business’ current brand strategy is working,
- what the company's established resource strengths and weaknesses are,
- what its external opportunities and threats are,
- how competitive the business’ prices and costs are,
- how strong the business’ competitive position in comparison to its competitors is, and
- what strategic issues are facing the business.
When a business is conducting a brand audit, the goal is to uncover business’ resource strengths, deficiencies, best market opportunities, outside threats, future profitability, and its competitive standing in comparison to existing competitors. A brand audit establishes the strategic elements needed to improve brand position and competitive capabilities within the industry. Once a brand is audited, any business that ends up with a strong financial performance and market position is more likely than not to have a properly conceived and effectively executed brand strategy.
A brand audit examines whether a business’ share of the market is increasing, decreasing, or stable. It determines if the company's margin of profit is improving, decreasing, and how much it is in comparison to the profit margin of established competitors. Additionally, a brand audit investigates trends in a business’ net profits, the return on existing investments, and its established economic value. It determines whether or not the business’ entire financial strength and credit rating is improving or getting worse. This kind of audit also assesses a business’ image and reputation with its customers. Furthermore, a brand audit seeks to determine whether or not a business is perceived as an industry leader in technology, offering product or service innovations, along with exceptional customer service, among other relevant issues that customers use to decide on a brand of preference.
A brand audit usually focuses on a business’ strengths and resource capabilities because these are the elements that enhance its competitiveness. A business’ competitive strengths can exist in several forms. Some of these forms include skilled or pertinent expertise, valuable physical assets, valuable human assets, valuable organizational assets, valuable intangible assets, competitive capabilities, achievements and attributes that position the business into a competitive advantage, and alliances or cooperative ventures.
The basic concept of a brand audit is to determine whether a business’ resource strengths are competitive assets or competitive liabilities. This type of audit seeks to ensure that a business maintains a distinctive competence that allows it to build and reinforce its competitive advantage. What's more, a successful brand audit seeks to establish what a business capitalizes on best, its level of expertise, resource strengths, and strongest competitive capabilities, while aiming to identify a business’ position and future performance.
Two customer segments are often selected as targets because they score highly on two dimensions:
- The segment is attractive to serve because it is large, growing, makes frequent purchases, is not price sensitive (i.e. is willing to pay high prices), or other factors; and
- The company has the resources and capabilities to compete for the segment's business, can meet their needs better than the competition, and can do so profitably.
A commonly cited definition of marketing is simply "meeting needs profitably".
The implication of selecting target segments is that the business will subsequently allocate more resources to acquire and retain customers in the target segment(s) than it will for other, non-targeted customers. In some cases, the firm may go so far as to turn away customers who are not in its target segment.The doorman at a swanky nightclub, for example, may deny entry to unfashionably dressed individuals because the business has made a strategic decision to target the "high fashion" segment of nightclub patrons.
In conjunction with targeting decisions, marketing managers will identify the desired positioning they want the company, product, or brand to occupy in the target customer's mind. This positioning is often an encapsulation of a key benefit the company's product or service offers that is differentiated and superior to the benefits offered by competitive products.For example, Volvo has traditionally positioned its products in the automobile market in North America in order to be perceived as the leader in "safety", whereas BMW has traditionally positioned its brand to be perceived as the leader in "performance".
Ideally, a firm's positioning can be maintained over a long period of time because the company possesses, or can develop, some form of sustainable competitive advantage.The positioning should also be sufficiently relevant to the target segment such that it will drive the purchasing behavior of target customers. To sum up,the marketing branch of a company is to deal with the selling and popularity of its products among people and its customers, as the central and eventual goal of a company is customer satisfaction and the return of revenue.
Marketing management employs a variety of metrics to measure progress against objectives. It is the responsibility of marketing managers to ensure that the execution of marketing programs achieves the desired objectives and does so in a cost-efficient manner.
Marketing management therefore often makes use of various organizational control systems, such as sales forecasts, and sales force and reseller incentive programs, sales force management systems, and customer relationship management tools (CRM). Some software vendors have begun using the term marketing operations management or marketing resource management to describe systems that facilitate an integrated approach for controlling marketing resources. In some cases, these efforts may be linked to various supply chain management systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), material requirements planning (MRP), efficient consumer response (ECR), and inventory management systems.
 Industry Description |
|
 |  Pioneer Pacific College
Program: The Marketing and Sales major provides students with an understanding of the marketing process and its role in domestic and international business environments. Courses are design to develop student's abilities to plan, implement, and analyze marketing strategies and campaigns aimed at targeted buyer demographics.
:: Concentration: Marketing |
|
:: Location: Portland, OR |
|
|
Industry DescriptionThe Marketing and Sales major provides students with an understanding of the marketing process and its role in domestic and international business environments. Courses are design to develop student's abilities to plan, implement, and analyze marketing strategies and campaigns aimed at targeted buyer demographics. Study for positions in: - Marketing Support
- Direct Sales
top |
