Dollinger index

Marketing the New Venture 215

egy, is the key component of its overall marketing strategy. Locations are always evalu-

ated relative to their rents. When rent paid is appreciably lower than the property’s value

to the retailer, the venture has an enormous initial advantage. Great service is another

key component of the marketing strategy. The leading Lexus dealer in the United States

washed all of his customers’ cars after Hurricane Andrew to rid them of acid created by

burning debris. Luck and creativity matter because they are so difficult to duplicate.

According to Phillip Kotler, international marketing guru at Northwestern University’s

Kellogg School of Management, successful outlets are likely to be “more creative. They

may depart from some of the standard procedures—and perhaps even the principles in

some cases... .”^16

Here we hear echoes of Sam Walton’s Rule Number 10: “Break all the rules.”

Both the resource-based approach to marketing and the total marketing concept

require that the marketing concept focus on the firm’s distinctive competencies. Any

advantages should be pressed through marketing strategy. So—what is our distinctive

competence? We have already explored this topic in Chapters 2 through 5. The next

question is: Who values our competence? We considered this subject along with our

resource analysis, but we include it in our marketing discussion because it involves selec-

tion of target markets and segments. The subsequent questions are: What marketing

activities enable us to interact most effectively with our markets? How will the market-

ing variables—price, promotion, product characteristics, and distribution—be set to

increase our market? And finally: Given a set of marketing activities, how much can we

expect to sell? We will address this issue below in the section on sales forecasting.

Selection of Markets and Segments

Not all customers are alike. Our analysis of buyer characteristics in Chapter 3 indicated

that buyers differ, for example, in price sensitivity, brand loyalty, and requirements for

quality. Market segmentation is the identification of distinct heterogeneous buying

groups and the development and implementation of a marketing strategy to fit each

group. Market segmentationenables the venture to discriminate among buyers for its

FIGURE 6.1 The Diffusion Process

Stage 1

Knowledge

Stage 2

Persuasion

Stage 3

Decision

Stage 4

Implementation

Stage 5

Confirmation

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