BTEC Business: Developing a Marketing Campaign

The best question in this set is the one about a campaign that worked. A firm sets out to generate two hundred enquiries in three months, gets two hundred and forty, and converts six of them into customers when it expected thirty. Did the campaign succeed? It met the objective it was given, exactly — which tells you the objective was measuring the wrong thing, and the options offering "it failed" and "it succeeded, nothing to examine" are each half of an answer. That habit of reading what the figures actually say runs through the whole set. A survey of four hundred people with two hundred and sixty naming price supports the claim that price leads at sixty-five per cent, and does not support raising prices. A focus group of eight gives reasons in people's own words and cannot tell you how common those reasons are; a survey of two thousand does the opposite. Segmentation and targeting are treated as the separate decisions they are, rather than as two words for the same thing. And a firm with three thousand pounds and a ten-mile radius is asked to choose a promotional mix, where national television genuinely does reach the most people per pound and is still the wrong answer. Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Tell primary research from secondary by who collected the data and why
• Say what qualitative research gives you and what only quantitative research can
• Read a set of survey figures and state what they do and do not support
• Recognise demographic segmentation among the other bases for dividing a market
• Separate segmenting a market from choosing a target within it
• Say what a positioning statement settles
• Choose a promotional mix against a stated budget and audience rather than by reach alone
• Judge a campaign against its objective, and notice when the objective measured the wrong thing

A campaign set an objective of 200 enquiries, produced 240, and converted only 6 into customers where 30 were expected. — The campaign met the objective it was set, which suggests the objective measured the wrong thing.