Marketing 101 - Intro to the Marketing Concept
Jobber defined marketing as ''the achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customers needs better than the competition''. Dibb and Simkin furthered this by stating that ''marketing is the philosophy that an organisation should try to provide products that satisfy customers needs through coordinated set of activities that also allows the organisation to achieve it's goals.''
The Purpose of Marketing:
The aim for a marketer is to aid the process of acquiring and retaining customers by creating a competitive advantage over the competition within the marketplace. Marketing is one of the department's that operate within a organisation. It is given direction by the organisation's corporate goals and if done successfully help to achieve those goals. Therefore if marketing is to be deemed successful it must contribute to the growth of the organisation. Growth could be achieved in a variety of ways such as; Increased profits, growth of sales, retention and acquisition of customers.
For any organisation to exist and be successful there needs to be sustainable amount of potential users/consumers of the product or service that is being offered. The job of a marketer is to first to identify a target market. Then their next job is to find their specific wants and needs, thus enabling them to create a bespoke marketing plan for their target audience. Some products can have a very wide audience such as Coca Cola their for they need a generalised marketing approach in order to appeal to a large audience. Contrastingly products that appeal to a more targeted group of customers need to in turn be more specific to their needs.
Not only is it important for an organisation to understand the consumers wants and needs, but it is also just as important to know the competition which operate with in the same market as they do. In order to be successful an organisation needs to meet and exceed customers needs and wants better than the competition. Marketers need to conduct market research in order to identify their competitions strengths and weaknesses.
Hence it's important for a marketer to understand their competitors. This can enable marketers to make specific and strategic marketing decisions by using the market research they have conducts. The first step is identify competition often this can be easy at basic level however in-depth research is needed to get a comprehensive understanding of both direct and indirect competition. For example a direct competitor could be some sells a similar product to you e.g. Samsung and Apple both sell high end phones. Where as an indirect competitor would be someone who targets the same market but with a slightly different product e.g. fizzy drinks companies such as Coca Cola vs Nestle who produce Ice tea and fruit juices.
One aim of marketing is to portray you product/service in away that makes the consumer think it is better than the competition. This can be achieved in a plethora of different ways, one effective strategy is highlighting your strength whilst putting emphasis on your competitions weaknesses by using a bespoke marketing plan.
This means that intelligent rational decisions need to be made, based on facts. Rather than people speculating what they think their customers want. By playing to your strengths you emphasize you that.
The evolution of the marketing concepts
During the Industrial Revolution the first era marketing what's known as the production era it started in the late 1800s and finished around the beginning of the 1900s. At the time there was a very high demand focus was a mass production of consumer goods this meant very little customisation. Henry Ford of Ford Motorcars was quoted to say "the customer can have any color car I want as long as it's black" This really optimised the era of mass production and low customisation.
Following the production era the sales era began in the mid 1920s and lasted until the early 1950s when the the strong customer demand subsided. Products which were able to be efficiently sold and there was a Focus on large scale personal selling and promotions for example door to door salespeople.
In the early 1950s to the late 1980s the marketing era evolved. This meant a goodbye for product and grass root selling and hello to what customers wants. Customer orientated approach and there is an emphasis on the importance of knowing customers needs they producing the products then extensively promoting.
The modern day marketing concept is known as the relationship era and it started in the 1990s. How do marketers identify customers needs and achieve sales through marketing programs. Has been emphasised on long-term development of ongoing mutually beneficial relationships I selling the right product to the right customers would reduced costs customer loyalty.
The difference between a sales oriented company and a marketing orientated company is within the sales orientated company profit comes from quantities of products sold where as in the marketing oriented company profit comes from customer satisfaction. today many organisations use a combination of both marketing and sales orientated approaches.
