Marketing (management) is a process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and/or services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.[1] There are three main processes through which marketing practices might pass as organization evolves. (i) Entrepreneurial Marketing is a process where individuals realize an opportunity and perform personal one-on-one campaign to gain attention; (ii) Formulated Marketing is the next process of entrepreneurial marketing that occurs when small companies achieve success; (iii) Intrepreneuiral Marketing is the attribute of marketing that is associated with large companies.
There are 10 main types of entities that establish the scope for marketing: (i) Goods, (ii) Services, (iii) Experience, (iv) Events, (v) Person, (vi) Place, (vii) Properties (real: real state, financial: stock & bonds), (viii) Organizations, (ix) Information and (x) Ideas. Marketers are responsible for demand management, in which they have to manage negative demand (avoidance of product), no demand (lack of awareness or interest), latent demand (a strong need that cannot be satisfied with existing product), declining demand (lower demand), Irregular demand (demand varying by situation i.e. season, month, week, day etc), full demand (a satisfying level of demand), overfull demand (more demand that can be handled), and unwholesome demand (demand for unhealthy or dangerous products).
It is desired to ask the right questions for a successful marketing campaign. Among many question few are: (i) How can we spot and choose the right market segment? How can we differentiate our offerings? How should we respond to our customers who press for lower prices? How can we compete against our lower-price & lower-cost rivals? How far can we go on in customizing our offerings for each customer? How can we grow our business? How can we build stronger brand? How can we reduce cost of customer acquisition and keep customer loyal? How can we tell which customer are more important? How can we measure payback from marketing campaign? How can we increase sales-force productivity? How can we manage channel conflicts? How can we get other departments to be more customers oriented?
Market segmentation is very important step of the marketing management process. Market segments can be identified by examining demographic, psychographic and behavioral differences among buyers. After this firm’s target segment is the one whose need can be met in a superior fashion.
Today’s market is very different from that of traditional (physical) market place. In modern era market has split into marketplace (shopping in store) and marketspace (digital i.e. internet). Marketplace and marketspace are all part of metamarket (a concept proposed by Mohan Sawhney) that can be described as “a cluster of complementary product and services that are closely related in the minds of customers but are spread across a divers set of industries”.
One of the core concepts of marketing is marketers (someone who is seeking a response i.e. attention, a purchase, a vote or a donation) and prospects (from whom marketers are seeking the response).
Need, wants and demands are three important things about which a marketer should be very clear about. Need describe basic human requirements; want is next step of need if a specific object (type) is required to satisfy the need; and demand are wants for specific products backed by an ability to pay. Needs are not created, instead they preexist. Marketers have no control over need but are able to influence wants.
A product is an offering that can satisfy a need or want (10 items specified above that scope the market). A brand is an offering from a known source. Brand carries many associations that constitute the brand image.
Value and satisfaction is a measure of success of a product offerings i.e. a product will be successful if it delivers value and satisfaction to the target buyers. The winning product is the one that delivers most value at lowest cost. Value = (Benefits/Cost) = [(Functional Benefits + Emotional Benefits)/ (Monetary Cost + Time Cost + Energy Cost + Psychic Cost)].
Exchange involves obtaining a desired product from someone by offering something in return. Exchange is a value creating process as it leaves both the parties better off. Exchange is a process rather than an event. Transaction is the next process of exchange once agreement is reached. Note that transaction is different than transfer.
To reach a target market, marketers use 3 kinds of marketing channels: communication channel (to deliver and receive message form target buyers), distribution channel (to display or deliver physical product to buyer or user), and selling channel (to affect transection with potential buyers).
Marketing environment gives very useful information about the domain where firms operate. Overall marketing environment consists of task environment (includes immediate actors involving in producing, distributing and promoting the offerings) and broad environment (that is a combination of demographic, economic, natural, technological, political-legal & socio-cultural environment). It is necessary to track environmental trends & changes as these contain forces that can have major impact on the actors of task environment.
Marketing mix is set of marketing tools that are used by firms to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market. These tools help marketers to elicit the desired response from their target markets. Marketing mix decisions must be made to influence the trade channel as well as final customers. Seller’s 4 Ps (i) Product, (ii) Price, (iii) Place, (iv) Promotion vs. customer’s 4 Cs (i) Customer Solution, (ii) Customer Cost, (iii) Convenience, (iv) Communication. Winning companies are those that meet customer wants economically and conveniently with effective communication.
Marketing management is a conscious effort to achieve desired outcome with the target market and these efforts should be carried out under well-thought-out philosophy of efficient, effective and socially responsible marketing. Given below are five competing concepts under which firms conduct their marketing activities:
Marketing concept:
The production concept holds that consumer prefer products that are widely available and inexpensive. Managers following this concept focus on achieving high production efficiency, low cost and mass distribution. The product concept holds that consumer favors those products that offer most quality, performance, and/or innovative features. Managers following this concept focus on making superior product and improving them over time assuming that consumer will appreciate their efforts (Product oriented companies design their products with little to NO input from their customers: one has to be careful that product concept does not become marketing myopia). The selling concept holds that consumers and business if left alone will not buy enough of organization’s products. The organization, must, therefore takes an aggressive step to sell its product to consumers and businesses. Selling concept is most popular with unsought goods such as insurance, funeral plots as well as in non-profit organizations such as for raising money. The marketing concept holds the promise for the company to become more effective than its competitor in creating, delivering, and communicating customer value to its target market. Selling focus on the needs of seller and marketing focuses on the need of the buyer. Four prominent pillars of marketing concept are (i) target market, (ii) customer need, (iii) integrated marketing, and (iv) profitability.
Customer Needs:
To better serve a target market one needs to clearly identify customer needs that can mainly be distinguished by five kinds: (i) stated need (ii) real need (iii) unstated need (iv) delight needs and (v) secret needs.
There are three types of marketing that need clear distinction. Responsive marketing fulfill stated need, anticipative need look at need of consumer and try to gauge future of the need; creative need is to produce solutions that are not desired by consumer but can be appreciated if company provides them.
Integrated marketing is a concept that originates if all the departments together try to satisfy customer need.
“Societal marketing concept holds that organization’s task is to determine the needs, wants, and interest of the target markets and to deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitor in a way that preserve or enhances the consumer’s and society’s well-being”.
Companies Respond to Changes:
Companies address the changes in market in a number of ways. Few are presented below:
- Reengineering: Functional departments reorganization by key processes.
- Outsourcing: Make few and buy more.
- E-commerce: Internet business.
- Benchmarking: Adapt best processes of the industry instead of internally improving own process.
- Alliances: Partner with firms instead of trying to win everything alone.
- Partner-suppliers: Use of few reliable suppliers and develop close relationships.
- Market-centered: Organize by market segment instead of organizing by product.
- Global and local: Be both global and local.
- Decentralized: Encourage more “entrepreneurial way” than managing from top.
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