How does marketing strategy take account of the characteristics of service?

Marketing (services

The current fast and dynamic environment generates substantial challenges for marketing specialists , who aspire to achieve success . Not only various environmental factors but also the attributes of the offer made by producers have to be considered . With this regard , it is crucial to say that marketing of a product substantially differs from the process of marketing a service . It happens because service possesses specific features non-existent or not so obvious in physical product Therefore , those characteristics create challenges for marketologists who have to develop special strategies to succeed p

The key characteristics of services are

Intangibility

Inseparability

Variability

Perishability

Cannot be owned

With regard to those characteristics , the marketing challenges and solutions can be as such . Intangibility means that it is impossible for the customer to touch or smell the service and thus test it immediately For example , in PR sector , when agency offers an organization of special press event , the customer cannot determine wether the event is going to be successful as it is possible , for example , sampling the physical product . Therefore , the main marketing challenge appears to be to convince customers to try ' the service . Possible solution - sales promotion and active communicational campaign as marketing strategies Sales promotion could include introductory offer with lesser price Communicational campaign -- the creation of detailed portfolio of former projects , preferably with references from the former customers which should be available on the web . For instance , PR company can set lower price for the corporate party , which it offers for companies

Inseparability means that it is impossible to separate the provider of the service from the actual service itself . Continuing the example of PR agency , media monitoring service can be provided only by the specialist of the agency . Thus , the main challenge of marketing management is to ensure and convince customers in the quality of the final product . The marketing strategy is appropriate positioning that create certain perception of the company in the eyes of customers . For instance , PR company positions its monitoring service as the one that is done by a powerful team of analytics that could easily handle the task

Variability is another distinct feature of service , which indicates that service performance is unpredictable . For example , the launch of advertising campaign might meet the expectations of the market at the moment . Yet , in a month the moods can change and this particular service might lose its relevance . Thus , the marketing management challenge is to predict the trends and to suit the existing customer needs . Possible marketing strategy - to hold market research analysis and to conduct a segmentation of the market . Then , according to segmentation , focus efforts on the given segment launching massive PR campaign in to create positive image of the company or service . It will ensure invulnerability of the company with regard to any trend fluctuations

Perishability of service indicates that service doesn 't leave any specific traits after itself . For example , insurance assumes a collection of money during some period of time . Yet , after this period...