Marketing ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS IN USE (ADVANCED)

ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS IN USE (ADVANCED)

UNIT 15

Marketing

A	What is marketing? ••• <    > The Marketing Expert Home Definition Key Terms Case Studies Marketing is the process of studying and defining the needs of target customers as well as promoting products to fulfil those needs. For example, if your company produces ice cream, you need to learn as much as you can about consumer demands and preferences. (What ­ flavours do they like? What size pack do they prefer?) How do companies  find out about their customers? Companies conduct / carry out market research. They may do this through questionnaires, surveys or focus groups1. What do companies need to know about their customers? They want to fi nd out about consumer behaviour and buying habits – for example, where do they shop and what do they buy? They may also want to find out the age and income bracket2 of their customers. This helps them to create a demographic profile3 of a typical customer. Building up a picture of the customer is all part of customer relationship management4 (CRM). What do companies do with this information? Companies will use the information to make decisions about product development and design. It also helps them to look at market segmentation5 so that they can target certain areas of the market or certain types of consumers. It also helps companies to know what their own market share is. ¹ a group of potential customers who give their opinions about a product, brand, packaging etc. ² a section of the population classified according to their level of income ³ information such as the age, gender and occupation of a group of people ⁴ the strategies that companies use to analyse and manage their contact with customers ⁵ the way the market is divided into different consumer groups and the differences between them Tip A customer is a person who buys a product and a consumer is someone who uses a product – oft en it can be the same person, but not always.
B	Getting the message across What makes a successful marketing campaign? What’s the best way to reach the target audience? Justine Blake, Head of Marketing for a major fashion retailer, explains more: ‘We use a number of different ways to communicate with our customers. There are the more traditional channels like TV and billboard advertising, as well as product placement1. But these days we’re also doing much more guerrilla marketing2. For example, in one recent campaign we installed special “mirrors” on bus shelters, that showed people what they would look like wearing some of our latest designs. ‘We have our own in-house marketing team but we also use an advertising agency which specialises in that type of work. Our brand identity3 is very important and one of our aims is to build brand awareness4. We want customers to feel confident about the quality of our clothing and so increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. ‘Our latest online campaign featured a video about a young girl and her grandmother going clothes shopping together. It was a lovely story about having positive role models. It went viral5 and was shared on social media all over the world! Of course, the more free airtime6 or press coverage7 we can get, the better. In the fashion world, celebrity endorsement8 can also have a huge impact.  ‘Ultimately, we want to engage with our customers9 and bring them the best products we can.’ ¹ a company pays for their product to be featured in a film ² a company promotes their products in an unconventional way, oft en on a low budget ³ how a business wants to be seen by its customers ⁴ increase knowledge of a brand among potential customers ⁵ become very popular through social media ⁶ time featured on e.g. TV, without payment ⁷ reporting in the press ⁸ a famous person is paid to promote a product ⁹ communicate with customers

EXERCISES

15.1	Match a word from each box to form collocations.
15.2	Complete each sentence using a collocation from 15.1. 1 I enjoyed the film, but there was a lot of _______________ _______________ in it. All the top-brand cars, phones, watches and so on. It was a bit distracting. 2 We want to build a really strong _______________ _______________ as a trustworthy company. 3 One of the aims of our research was to identify certain patterns of _______________ _______________: specifically where they bought our products and how much they spent. 4 This is a luxury brand, clearly aimed at consumers in the higher _______________ _______________. 5 Our latest _______________ _______________ was very successful – sales increased by over 20%! 6 The company were really lucky – there was a whole news item on their latest innovation, so they got a lot of _______________ _______________ as a result.
15.3	Complete the collocation forks. Use a dictionary to find one more word to add to each list.
15.4	Look at B. Choose the correct collocation. 1 It’s been 10 years since Kate first set up our in-off ice / out-of-off ice / in-house marketing team, and now we employ 13 marketers working in 3 countries. 2 We want to increase brand understanding / awareness / recognise among young professionals. 3 Our last campaign went airtime / guerrilla / viral and was shared on social media all over the world. 4 One way to measure customer / target / brand satisfaction is to put a questionnaire on your website, and ask questions about how happy people are with your service. 5 We got a lot of public / press / paper coverage when we gave out free energy monitors as part of last year’s ‘Energy Week’. 6 The objective / customer / target audience for our new sportswear range is active parents.
15.5	Read these remarks by diff erent people. Then answer the questions. Chloe: We want to encourage people to keep buying our products and so we give them discounts when they spend a certain amount of money. Thierry: To promote a monster film, we created giant ‘footprints’ on the beach. People loved it! Clare: If we want to emphasise how healthy the snack bars are, we could get a famous sports personality to appear in the ads. Bruno: We invited some potential customers to look at the new packaging and give their feedback. Veronique: Our market research focused on finding out the age and gender of our customers. Freddy: We asked people to tell us where they shopped and how oft en they bought our products. 1 Who wanted to know about the demographic profile of their customers? ____________________ 2 Whose company used a focus group to do some research? ____________________ 3 Who is talking about celebrity endorsement? ____________________ 4 Who wanted to know about their customers’ buying habits? ____________________ 5 Who is talking about customer loyalty? ____________________ 6 Whose company uses guerrilla marketing? ____________________

ANSWER KEY

15.1 marketing campaign free airtime product placement income bracket consumer behaviour brand identity 15.2 1 I enjoyed the film, but there was a lot of product placement in it. All the top-brand cars, phones, watches and so on. It was a bit distracting. 2 We want to build a really strong brand identity as a trustworthy company. 3 One of the aims of our research was to identify certain patterns of consumer behaviour: specifically where they bought our products and how much they spent. 4 This is a luxury brand, clearly aimed at consumers in the higher income bracket. 5 Our latest marketing campaign was very successful – sales increased by over 20%! 6 The company were really lucky – there was a whole news item on their latest innovation, so they got a lot of free airtime as a result. 15.3 1 customer other common collocations: experience, retention, focus, orientation 2 market other common collocations: leader, survey, research 3 brand other common collocations: name, flagship, generic 4 product other common collocations: life cycle, build 15.4 1 It’s been 10 years since Kate first set up our in-house marketing team, and now we employ 13 marketers working in 3 countries. 2 We want to increase brand awareness among young professionals. 3 Our last campaign went viral and was shared on social media all over the world. 4 One way to measure customer satisfaction is to put a questionnaire on your website and ask questions about how happy people are with your service. 5 We got a lot of press coverage when we gave out free energy monitors as part of last year’s ‘Energy Week’. 6 The target audience for our new sportswear range is active parents. 15.5 1 Veronique 2 Bruno 3 Clare 4 Freddy 5 Chloe 6 Thierry