Marketing Glossary

Market entry

 The launch of a new product into a new or existing market. A different strategy is required depending on whether the product is an early or late entrant to the market; the first entrant usually has an automatic advantage, while later entrants need to demonstrate that their products are better, cheaper and so on.

Market follower

A firm that is happy to follow the leaders in a market place without challenging them, perhaps taking advantages of opportunities created by leaders without the need for much marketing investment of its own -
see also 'market challenger' and 'market leader'

Market positioning

 A marketing strategy that will position a business’ products and services against those of its competitors in the minds of consumers. To achieve positioning success it is suggested that there are four basic competitive
strategies that a company can follow (based on work by Porter):

- Cost leadership - the company tries to achieve lowest costs of production and distribution

- Differentiation - making use of specific marketing mixes
- Focus - paying attention to a few market segments

The fourth strategy is a losing strategy in which a business pursues a middle-of-the-road path. Businesses that try to be good at everything are rarely particularly good at anything

Market research

The systematic gathering, recording and analysing of data about problems relating to the marketing of goods and services