Marketing and Its Major Components

Levitt asserts that the marketing imagination is nothing short of the most fundamental success factor in marketing. Levitt holds that the marketing imagination differs from other types of imagination in that it focuses on understanding customers, their problems and how to gain their attention. Levitt holds that people do not purchase things or features, but rather solutions and benefits. This is what sets the marketing imagination apart from other types of imagination (Levitt, 1986, p. 18).

From this beginning, Levitt moves on to the idea of differentiation, which, according to Levitt, is the process of recognizing that there have to be reasons for customers to choose one supplier over another. The process of differentiating oneself from the competition and one's products from others on the market is the process of giving customers the reason t

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designing and testing a questionnaire that facilitates response; combining the right resources to conduct the survey; analyzing the data; presenting the results effectively; and maintaining perspective when implementing the results of the survey (Salant & Dillman, 1994, p. 11). According to the authors, many individuals do not understand the limitations of surveys or how a survey differs from other types of market research (such as focus groups). It is therefore critical that companies considering a survey understand the type of information they are trying to gather and whether the survey is the best way to obtain that information. For example, if a manufacturer is trying to determine the effectiveness of a particular promotional program, a focus group might provide a better way to elicit this information since it offers the respondents a way to give feedback directly to the company (Salant & Dillman, 1994, p. 30). There is no one way to determine which survey method is appropriate for surveys in general because each has its strengths and weaknesses. Mail surveys nearly eliminate the issue of questioner bias (since there is no face-to-face contact), but may have a high nonresponse rate. Telephone surveys have a high nonrespo
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Approximate Word count = 4487
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

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