CBSE Class 12 Marketing (812)
Chapters: 6
1. Part A: Employability Skills
Communication skills · Self-management skills · ICT skills · Entrepreneurial skills · Green skills
- Communication Skills: How to Share Meaning Clearly and Kindly – Communication is sharing meaning between people. A sender encodes an idea into a message, sends it through a channel, and a receiver decodes it and gives feedback. Barriers such as noise, hard words, strong emotions and cultural differences can block or bend the message. We send meaning with words (verbal), with face, eyes, gestures, posture and tone (non-verbal), and with pictures (visual). Active listening — attention, patience, questions and paraphrasing — proves the message arrived. Good communicators adapt to context: formal or informal, spoken or written, and use polite requests, kind refusals, sincere apologies and assertive (not aggressive or passive) language.
- Self-Management: Taking Charge of Your Feelings, Goals and Time – Self-management is the skill of guiding your own feelings, thoughts and actions so you can reach your goals. It starts with self-awareness: noticing what you feel and how strong it is. Then you pause before reacting (Stop, Think, Act) and use calming tools such as slow breathing. Your beliefs and thoughts shape your feelings and actions, so changing an unhelpful thought ('I'm useless') into a helpful one ('I can't do it yet') changes what you do. Good self-managers set SMART goals, plan their time by importance, build healthy habits and bounce back from setbacks (resilience). These skills help in school, friendships and future careers.
- ICT Skills: Office Tools, Internet, E-mail and Staying Safe – ICT means Information and Communication Technology. It is the set of tools we use to make, store and share information: computers, phones, software and the internet. The core ICT skills are: using a word processor to write, a spreadsheet to calculate, a presentation tool to show ideas, the internet to search, e-mail to communicate, and good habits to stay safe online.
- Green Skills: Sustainable Development, Green Economy and Green Jobs – Green skills are the knowledge, habits and job skills that help us live and work without harming the planet. They rest on sustainable development (meeting today's needs while leaving enough for the future). A green economy grows while cutting pollution and waste, often by going circular: make, use, repair, recycle. It creates green jobs such as solar technician or recycling worker. Everyone can use green skills through the 5 Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle.
2. Product
Product decisions
- Product Decisions: Levels, Branding, Labelling, Packaging and Life Cycle – A product is anything that satisfies a need. It has three levels: the core benefit, the actual product and the augmented product. Branding gives it a name and identity, labelling gives information, and packaging protects and promotes it. Every product goes through a life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity and decline, and each stage needs a different plan.
3. Price Decision
Pricing
- Pricing: Objectives, Factors and Methods – Price is the money a buyer pays for a product. Firms set prices to meet goals such as survival, profit, market share or quality leadership. Internal factors (cost, objectives, product) and external factors (demand, competition, government, economy) shape the price. Common methods are cost-plus, competition-based, value-based, skimming and penetration pricing.
4. Place Decision: Channels of Distribution
Distribution
- Distribution Channels: How Products Reach You – A distribution channel is the path a product takes from producer to consumer. Direct channels have no intermediaries; indirect channels use wholesalers and retailers, who add services and a margin. The internet lets firms skip intermediaries (disintermediation) but new ones appear. Firms choose intensive, selective or exclusive coverage and, because shoppers move between online and physical outlets, link all channels in an omnichannel strategy.
5. Promotion
Promotion
- The Promotion Mix – Promotion means telling people about a product and persuading them to buy it. The promotion mix has four main tools: advertising (paid, reaches many), personal selling (face to face, deep effect), sales promotion (short-term offers) and publicity / public relations (news coverage and goodwill). Firms combine them to fit the product, the buyers and the budget.
6. Emerging Trends in Marketing
New trends
- Digital Marketing – Marketing starts with understanding the market: who the customers are, what they need, and which group (segment) to target. Digital marketing reaches these customers through the internet: search engines (SEO and paid search), social media, email and messages, content and influencers. It follows the funnel: awareness, interest, purchase, loyalty. Unlike a newspaper ad, it can be measured: click-through rate = clicks ÷ views, conversion rate = buyers ÷ visitors. Services (like a haircut or a lesson) are intangible and cannot be stored, so they need extra care. The internet also created new business models such as subscription, freemium, marketplace and sharing platforms.