Notice: Please visit Enginius.biz for our latest Marketing Engineering software
Marketing Engineering for Excel has reached end of life and is no longer receiving updates. Please visit Enginius.biz to explore our newest online marketing analytics platform which is designed to replace the Marketing Engineering for Excel add-in.
Students: If your instructor has specifically told you to use Marketing Engineering for Excel software, please continue on this site.

News

Resource Allocation

on . Posted in Commercial Software Models

What you put in... What you get out...
  • Number of market segments, products, geographies or other basis for resource allocation
  • Current level of spending and associated sales
  • Profit margins
  • Response functions - how sales would change if spending were higher or lower than current spending
  • Constraints (minimum / maximum) for each basis unit
  • Optimal level of total spending
  • Optimal allocation of spending across units
  • Profit associated with optimal plan versus current plan
  • Incremental gain or loss associated with changes from current or optimal plan

resourceResource Allocation helps optimize resource sizing and resource allocations across segments, products, channels, etc. It answers such questions as

  • How much should we spend in total during a given planning horizon?
  • How should that spending get allocated to each product or market segment? To each marketing mix element? How much of our budget should be spent on advertising and other forms of impersonal marketing communications? On sales promotions? On the sales force?
  • How should budgets given to an individual (e.g., salesperson, manager of department) be allocated? To customers? To geographies? To sub-elements of the marketing communications mix? Over time?

There are four primary steps:

  • Enter data for current efforts and outcomes-- typically these are hard data about current market situations.
  • Enter calibration data--typically these are judgmental data, unless there are data available from experimentation.
  • Calibrate the response curves. Check to ensure that the curves fit the points.
  • Run the analysis (and optionally enter constraints).

Positioning Analysis

on . Posted in Commercial Software Models

What you put in... What you get out...
  • Customers' rating of focal brand and key competitors on dimensions of merit
  • Individual customer preference ratings of all competitors
  • Perceptual map, showing which brands are closest to one another
  • Attributes that differentiate brands
  • Locations of individual customer preferences
  • Projected market share associated with current and new positions on the map

Positioning Analysis software incorporates several mapping techniques that enable firms to develop differentiation and positioning strategies for their products. By using this tool, managers can visualize the competitive structure of their markets as perceived by their customers. Typically, data for mapping are customer perceptions of existing products (and new concepts) along various attributes, customer preferences for products, or measures of behavioral response of customers toward the products (e.g., current market shares of the products).

positioningPositioning Analysis uses perceptual mapping and preference mapping techniques. Perceptual-mapping helps firms to understand how customers view their product(s) relative to competitive products. The preference map introduces preference vectors or ideal points for each respondent on to a perceptual map. The ideal point represents the location of the (hypothetical) product that most appeals to a specific respondent. The preference vector indicates the direction in which a respondent’s preference increases. In other words, a respondent’s “ideal” product lies as far up the preference vector as possible. The preference map starts out with a perceptual map giving the locations of the product alternatives. In the second step, it introduces for each respondent either an ideal brand or a preference vector.

Positioning Analysis also helps firms to answer such questions as:

  • Based on customer perceptions, which target segments are the most attractive?
  • How should we position our new products with respect to our existing products?
  • How do our customers view our brand?
  • What product name is closely associated with the attributes that our target segment perceives as desirable?
  • Which brands do our target segments see as our closest competitors?
  • What product attributes are responsible for the perceived differences between products?
  • How would changes in a product's perceived attributes alter the product's market share?