MARKETING

Marketing



Marketing

Introduction

Marketing pertains to the interactive process that requires developing, pricing, placing, and promoting goods, ideas, or services in order to facilitate exchanges between customers and sellers to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. Thus, at the very center of the marketing process is satisfying the needs and wants of customers.

Concept

Needs are the basic items required for human survival. Human needs are an essential concept underlying the marketing process because needs are translated into consumer wants. Human needs are often described as a state of real or perceived deprivation. Basic human needs take one of three forms: physical, social, and individual. Physical needs are basic to survival and include food, clothing, warmth, and safety. Social needs revolve around the desire for belonging and affection. Individual needs include longings for knowledge and self-expression, through items such as clothing choices.

Wants are needs that are shaped by both cultural influences and individual preferences. Wants are often described as goods, ideas, and services that fulfill the needs of an individual consumer. The wants of individuals change as both society and technology change. For example, when a computer is released, a consumer may want it simply because it is a new and improved technology. Therefore, the purpose of marketing is to convert these generic needs into wants for specific goods, ideas, or services. Demand is created when wants are supported by an individual consumer's ability to purchase the goods, ideas, or services in question.

Consumers buy products that will best meet their needs, as well as provide the most fulfillment resulting from the exchange process. The first step in the exchange process is to provide a product. Products can take a number of forms such as goods, ideas, and services. All products are produced to satisfy the needs, wants, and demands of individual buyers.

The Marketing Process

Under the marketing concept, the firm must find a way to discover unfulfilled customer needs and bring to market products that satisfy those needs. The process of doing so can be modeled in a sequence of steps: the situation is analyzed to identify opportunities, the strategy is formulated for a value proposition, tactical decisions are made, the plan is implemented and the results are monitored.

The Marketing Process

Situation Analysis

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Marketing Strategy

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Marketing Mix Decisions

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Implementation & Control

I. Situation Analysis

A thorough analysis of the situation in which the firm finds itself serves as the basis for identifying opportunities to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs. In addition to identifying the customer needs, the firm must understand its own capabilities and the environment in which it is operating.

The situation analysis thus can be viewed in terms an analysis of the external environment and an internal analysis of the firm itself. The external environment can be described in terms of macro-environmental factors that broadly affect many firms, and micro-environmental factors closely related to the specific situation of the firm.

There are several frameworks that can be used to add structure to the situation analysis:

5 C Analysis - company, customers, competitors, collaborators, climate. Company represents the internal situation; the other four cover ...