MARKETING

Marketing



Marketing

Introduction

Marketing affects our day to day life. Everywhere people go they see brand names. From the computers they use complete their work to the restaurants they eat in even the vehicles they drive. Understanding that marketing is not just advertising and brand recognition is important to business success. Marketing encompasses all aspects of a product and services from conception to advertising to production. When considering the importance of marketing on organization success, marketing can be defined in a few ways.

Definition of Marketing

Some definitions focus on marketing in terms of what it means to an organization, such as being the key functional area for generating revenue, while other definitions lean more toward defining marketing in terms of its most visible tasks, such as advertising and creating new products. There probably is no one best way to define marketing, however, whatever definition is used should have an orientation that focuses on the key to marketing success - customers. For the purpose of this tutorial we will define marketing as follows (Tariq K. Muhammad, 1996):

Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics used to identify, create and maintain satisfying relationships with customers that result in value for both the customer and the marketer.

History of Marketing

It is hard for many to believe, but when compared to economics, production and operations, accounting and other business areas, marketing is a relatively young discipline having emerged in the early 1900s. Prior to this time most issues that are now commonly associated with marketing were either assumed to fall within basic concepts of economics (e.g., price setting was viewed as a simple supply/demand issue), advertising (well developed by 1900), or in most cases, simply not yet explored (e.g., customer purchase behavior, importance of distribution partners) (Sylvia M, 2002).

Led by marketing scholars from several major universities, the development of marketing was in large part motivated by the need to dissect in greater detail relationships and behaviors that existed between sellers and buyers. In particular, the study of marketing led sellers to recognize that adopting certain strategies and tactics could significantly benefit the seller/buyer relationship. In the old days of marketing this often meant identifying strategies and tactics for simply selling more products and services with little regard for what customers really wanted. Often this meant companies embraced a “sell-as-much-as-we-can” philosophy with little concern for building relationships for the long term (Perreault & McCarthy, 2005).

But starting in the 1950s, companies began to see that old ways of selling were wearing thin with customers. As competition grew stiffer across most industries, organizations looked to the buyer side of the transaction for ways to improve. What they found was an emerging philosophy suggesting that the key factor in successful marketing is understanding the needs of customers. This now famous Marketing Concept suggests marketing decisions should flow from FIRST knowing the customer and what they want. Only then should an organization initiate the process of developing and marketing products and services (John Elfrink, Duane Bachmann, Doug Robideaux, ...