Everybody
lives by selling some products, services or ideas. Generally, marketing is
considered as selling and promotion. However, making a sale, i.e., selling is
the old sense of marketing. In its new sense, marketing is satisfying customer
needs. Selling is only one aspect of marketing.
It
is but one of several marketing functions and that too not the most important
one. It means taking certain other steps, such as identifying customer needs,
developing good quality product, fixing reasonable prices, distributing and
promoting the product effectively. Then his goods will sell very easily.
No
organization will be able to survive, if it fails to market what it wants to.
In India a saying goes like this -' Bolne wale ki basi bhi bik jati hai, na
bolne wale ki taja bhi nahi bikati' (those who make marketing efforts are
able to find customers even for rotten ones and those who remain silent in
their marketing effort are not able to find customers for the fresh ones).
This
shows how important marketing is. Gone are the days of sellers market. In these
days of buyers market only those marketers will survive who take care of their
customers in every possible way.
Marketing
has been continuously shifting its focus and goals keeping in view the changing
marketing environment. First, marketing appeared as a branch of applied
economics and was concerned with the study of channels of distribution. Then,
it became a managerial discipline and was concerned with the increase in sales.
Then,
it shifted to an applied behavioral science and is concerned with the
understanding of buyers and sellers. Thus, it has travelled from commodity
approach (me-too products) to institutional approach (manufacturers, wholesalers,
retailers, agents) to functional approach (exchanging, promoting, logistics,
and pricing) to managerial approach (analysis, planning, organizing and
controlling) to social focus.
Different
people have given different concepts of marketing. American Marketing
Association's definition in 1935 carried the traditional view emphasizing only
one-way traffic, i.e., transfer of goods and services from producer to
consumer, i.e., 'pushing products and services'. Profit maximization is the
sole objective and consumers are taken for granted.
The
managerial perspective is concerned with the 'art of selling', but selling is
only the tip of marketing in its totality. The current perspective as given in
their 2004 version is concerned with 'knowing and understanding the customer so
well that the product or service fits him and sells itself, i.e., engaging in
customer service engineering.
It
is against profit maximization at the cost of stakeholders consumers, uses
marketing as a means for social welfare. In fact consumer is the purpose of
marketing. In the new concept of marketing, the orientation has changed from
production to marketing, product to customer, and supply to demand, sales to
satisfaction and internal to external.
Marketing
concept and philosophy state that the organization should strive to satisfy its
customers' wants and needs while meeting the organization's goals. The best way
to meet the organization's goals is also by meeting customer needs and wants.
The
marketing concept's emphasis is to understand the customers before designing
and producing a product for them. With the customer's wants and needs
incorporated into the design and manufacture of the product, sales and profit
goals are far more likely to be met.
Interpreted
literally, the marketing concept only advocates discovering consumers' wants
and needs and satisfying them. Critics assert that consumers may not be aware
of all of their wants and needs.
In
the 1950s, how many consumers were of need for microwaves to cook food? In the
1960s, how many consumers were aware of having personal computers? The new
definition of AMA does not talk of hidden needs.
Supporters
of the marketing concept have contended that it does not stifle innovation and
that it does recognize that consumers cannot conceive of every product that
they may want or need, because need is defined in a very broad sense.
The management process through which goods
and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4
P's of marketing:
(2) determination
of its price,
For example, new Apple products are developed to include improved applications and systems, are set at different prices depending on how much capability the customer desires, and are sold in places where other Apple products are sold. In order to promote the device, the company featured its debut at tech events and is highly advertised on the web and on television.
Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer
needs and their satisfaction. Marketing differs from selling because (in the words of Harvard
Business School's retired professor of marketing Theodore C. Levitt) "Selling
concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as
marketing invariable does, view the entire business
process as consisting of
a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs." In other
words, marketing has less to do with getting customers to pay for your product as it does developing a demand for that product and fulfilling the customer's needs.
Marketing
is communicating
the value of a product, service or brand to customers,
for the purpose of promoting or selling that product, service, or brand.
Marketing
techniques include choosing target
markets through market analysis and market segmentation, as well as understanding consumer
behavior and advertising a product's value to the customer.From a
societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society's material
requirements and its economic patterns of response.Marketing satisfies these needs
and wants through exchange processes and building long-term
relationships.Marketing blends art and applied
science (such as behavioural sciences) and makes use of information technology.
Marketing
is applied in enterprise and organizations through marketing management.
F, E. Clark,
“Marketing consists of those efforts which effect transfer in ownership of goods
and core for their physical distribution.”
Stanton and Others, “Marketing is a total system of business activities
designed to plan price promotes and distribute wants-satisfying products to
target markets to achieve organisational objectives.”
Kotler and Armstrong, “Marketing is a social and managerial process
by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating
and exchanging products and values with others.”
American Management Association (1985), “Marketing is the process of
planning and executing the conception, pricing promotion and distribution of
ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individuals and organizational
objectives”. This is a widely accepted definition of Marketing.”
Thus
marketing is getting the right goods and services to the right people at the
right place at the right Lime at the right price with the right communication
and promotion. Marketing is the performance of those business activities which
are involved in the flow of ideas, goods and services from their point of
production to the point of consumption.
The objectives of marketing is to ascertain consumer needs,
convert them into ideas, products or services and move such ideas etc. to the
final consumer or user, to satisfy certain needs and wants of specific consumer
segments with emphasis on profitability, ensuring the optimum use of the
resources available to the organization.
Marketing
Concept:
The
‘consumer-oriented’ marketing has led to a new philosophy of doing business known
as ‘marketing concept’. Under this concept, marketing is much more than a
physical process of distributing goods and services.
It
is a distinct philosophy of business under which all business activities are
integrated and directed to supply the goods and services which customers want,
in the way they want, at the time and place where they want and at a price
which they are able and willing to pay for.
“Marketing is the process of discovering and
translating consumer wants into products and services and then in turn making
it possible for more and more people to enjoy more and more of these products
and services.”
Introduction The marketing
concept suggest that to achieve organisational goals and be more profitable, an
organisation should focuses its efforts on developing marketing mixes that best
meet the needs of the consumer. However, since consumer needs within a market
vary, one marketing mix could not adequately satisfy the needs of the entire
market. Targeting marketing is one of the most important ideas in modern day
marketing. Under the idea, the marketer divides the market into subgroups with
similar needs and wants or preference, it will then be possible to tailor
marketing mixes to specific segments, better meeting their needs. As figure 1-1
shows, targeting marketing involve three major steps- market segmentation,
market targeting and market positioning. Market segmentation is the first step
that dividing a market into subgroups of consumers who are homogeneous in their
response to a particular marketing mix. The second step is market targeting, in
this step, the company select one or more target segments based on evaluating
of each segment¡¦s attractiveness.
The final step is market positioning, the
company formulates marketing mix for each target segments and develops
competitive positioning for its products. Figure 1-1 Steps in market
segmentation, targeting and positioning Market Segmentation Market segmentation
can be defined as the ¡§ the process of dividing a potential market into distinct
subsets of consumers with common needs characteristics and selecting one or
more segments to target with a distinct marketing mix.¡¨ Companies generally
can not serve entire markets in a effective manner, so rather than trying to
compete in an entire market, companies identify subsets of customers whose
needs best match their offering. Segmentation Criteria The organisation can
segment the market in many way, but a number of criteria should be met in order
to developing effective segments for market strategy.
Swati
Singh
