MARKETING

Understanding the Concept and Process of Marketing

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Understanding the Concept and Process of Marketing

Introduction

In today's competitive business environment, no business can afford to exist in isolation. The businesses of today need to design and implement creative marketing strategies that cater to the needs of the target audience, create top of the mind recall, help the company stand apart and also bring in the desired revenue (Anitsal, 2012a, p 131). Hence, it is very important for businesses to understand the concepts and processes of marketing. The paper discusses the various elements of the marketing process, and evaluates the benefits and costs of a marketing orientation for a selected organization.

The elements in the marketing process are known as the Marketing Mix. The original marketing mix comprises of 4Ps - Product, Price, Place and Promotion, but to expand its applicability three more Ps have been added - People, Process and Physical Evidence. The 7 Ps are known as extended Marketing Mix model which refers to a tool that marketers employ to describe their marketing strategy. The addition of these 3Ps has been done because of the unique nature of services.

Elements of the Marketing Process

Marketing may be defined as the creation of value for customer to get their customer lifetime value. The elements of marketing process are typically used to assess a product or service range of an organization. Product refers to customer value that is offered to the target market, price is the cost to the customer, place refers to the convenience it offers to the customers, promotion is the process of communication that is used to bring the product to the end consumers. The additional 3Ps - people refers to the appropriate use of employees and people, process is the system that facilitates in delivering the services, and physical evidence permits customers to form judgment on the organization (Sudhir, 2010, p 50).

Product

Product refers to the characteristics of products such as design, quality, variety, guarantees or services, dimensions, and brand image. It is all the bundles of benefits as well as the value that the customers may derive out of the product. These are the benefits that are sought as well as the benefits that are given to the customers for customer delight. In order to understand the value offered to the customer, a successful manager may ask himself questions such as what added feature an organization can offer along with the core offerings (service or product) to grasp the attention of customers (Wise & Sirohi, 2005, pp. 10-11)?

Price

After making assessment that what the product will offer, the subsequent question arises how much this product or service offering will cost to the customer. The cost to customer can be defined in terms of money and time. If a customer makes an investment in terms of money or time, he absolutely looks for some sort of value that the product or service will create for him (Enache, 2011, p. 23). The element of price is much broader than ...