Monday, May 13, 2013

Ch. 7 - Business Marketing

CAT INC. sells business products; because their products/machines are built for construction purposes they can't be considered consumer products. CAT INC. produces major equipment such as large/expensive machines, and generators. CAT INC. uses business-to-business electronic commerce to communicate with their customers/potential customers (big businesses/organizations) by providing information on their products through their homepage. Given that CAT INC.'s information about their products are all on their website the stickiness is  good. The amount of time people spend on their website is relatively high given the amount of information there, and about the only time people leave the website is to look for reviews or etc. that can't be found on their website.

CAT INC. products can be considered processed materials. Some businesses/organizations use CAT INC. products/machinery to aid with the production process although they aren't incorporated into the actual product(s) itself, just the process. An example would be the use of the BRODERSON | IC-25 crane truck in some businesses/organizations.



Two items typically found in a joint demand for CAT INC. are the actual product/machine and the CAT Financial service that comes along with the purchase.

CAT INC. products/machines aren't only used by big businesses/organizations to expand their practices (buildings/sectors/etc.) but also to collect raw materials such as coal, metals, and so on.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Ch. 8 - Segmenting and Targeting Markets

Because this chapter talks a lot about types of market segmentation this blog post may be a little shorter solely because of CAT INC.'S industry.

CAT INC.'s target market/market segment revolves around small contractors, big organizations, and construction companies. CAT INC. practices geographic segmentation in areas where there are large amounts of natural resources (coal, metals, etc.) like China. Depending on the regional market of the world/country CAT INC. may have more or less institutions/buildings there. For example, compared to China, England does not have as many coal mines so the marketing practices there will reflect upon that.



As discussed in a earlier blog post, because CAT INC.'s machinery costs more than their competitors machines they are usually viewed as a last resort by people wishing to save money, aka optimizers. The position CAT INC. has in their market is that of #1 due to their product differentiation and services.