Topics covered in this snack-sized chapter:
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
Marketing can be a catalyst for change and is an equally powerful way to preserve the state of things.
Marketing is not about providing products or services.
- It is essentially about providing changing benefits to the changing needs and demands of the customer.
Marketing is the ability to identify and satisfy customer needs while making a profit.
The aim of marketing is to have:
- The right product or service.
Marketing has a huge impact on the success of an organization.
The importance of marketing is growing, as customer needs are constantly changing.
Marketing:
- Introduces and promotes products.
Driving forces:
- Growing international trade.
- Increasingly sophisticated and demanding buyers.
Marketing helps in evaluating:
- Where a business is currently?
Market research is also used to assess the competition and forecast industry trends.
The 4 P’s of marketing are a way of thinking about the ways marketers can influence their customers.
Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable categories.
4 P’s:
- Product- Product is the actual offering by the company to its targeted customers which also includes value added stuff.
- Price- Price includes the pricing strategy of the company for its products. How much customer should pay for a product?
- Place–Availability of the product at the right place, at the right time and in the right quantity is crucial in placement decisions. How the product is distributed to the customer?
- Promotion -Promotion includes all communication and selling activities to persuade future prospects to buy the product.
Marketing management can be described as the attempt to create a desired relationship between a company and its customers.
5 Main Marketing Concepts:
- The Societal Marketing Concept.
According to the concept, people will approve products that are cheap and widely available.
In production-oriented companies, managers focus on distribution to:
- Lower the cost of products.
- Increase the availability of products.
A large emphasis is placed on:
- Uninterrupted product availability.
This orientation holds that consumers will favor those products that offer the most quality, performance, or innovative features.
- This takes the focus away from the needs of the market.
Managers focus their energies internally:
- The focus is on making good products and then improving them.
The philosophy that believes that customers must be attracted through marketing, advertising, or other means.
If the market does a good job of:
- Identifying consumer needs.
- Developing appropriate products and pricing.
- Distributing and promoting them effectively, these products will sell very easily.
Basically, the idea is that the company works on selling what they make, rather than making what the market wants.
According to Marketing Concept:
- Organizations should focus to analyze the needs and wants of a target market.
- Provide the desired satisfaction more effectively than competitors do.
- The marketing concept emphasizes on understanding the customers first, and then creating products.
The societal marketing concept is an enlightened marketing concept that holds that a company should make good marketing decisions by considering consumers' wants, the company's requirements, and society's long-term interests.
The Societal Marketing Concept holds that:
- The organization should determine the needs, wants and interests of target markets.
- Deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors.
There are basically three levels of marketing performance:
Responsive Marketing has been defined as the task of "finding and filling needs" of a customer.
Three things happen in responsive marketing:
- Some company identifies it.
- Then, that company comes up with a cost-effective answer to that need.
Figuring out what a customer needs before they do.
Anticipative marketing is more risky than responsive marketing:
- Companies may come into the market too early or too late.
Need-Shaping Marketing is the boldest level of marketing.
It occurs when a company introduces a product or service that nobody asked for and often could not even conceive of.
Both sales and marketing are focused on increasing revenue, but they differ in a few ways:
Sales
| Marketing
|
Concentrate on smaller groups such as individuals.
| Concentrate on larger groups.
|
Only involves a short term process of finding the target consumer.
| Includes:
|
Tactical function
| Strategic function.
|
Converting prospects into purchase or orders.
| Generating leads or prospects.
|