What is Marketi ng

Marketing is the process of getting potential clients or customers interested in your products
and services. The keyword in this definition is "process"; marketing involves researching,
promoting, selling, and distributing your products or services.
This discipline centers on the study of market and consumer behaviors and it analyzes the
commercial management of companies in order to attract, acquire and retain customers
(hopefully instilling brand loyalty) by satisfying their wants and needs.

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and
society at large. (Approved 2017)

The 4 Ps of Marketing
According to E. J. McCarthy, the 4 Ps of Marketing is a simple formula for identifying and
working with the essential elements of your marketing strategy.
 Product. Having a product is key and is, consequently, the root of all
things marketing. In this sense, a product would be anything that a company could offer
consumers which might satisfy a need. The best thing to do is to decide on your product
or service based both on the needs and motivations of consumers and how the product
would benefit the consumer; not so much on the object’s physical characteristics or
attributes.

 Place. Strategic merchandising locations can be anything from an online store

(ecommerce) to a channel of physical stores across multiple towns and countries. The
goal of the distribution strategy is to enable potential clients to have easy access to
products/services, as well as offer a good company experience throughout the purchasing
process.  

 Price. How we price our products and services is an extremely important decision

within the marketing strategy; this factor affects other factors such as:

o The margin we hope to obtain.

 o What target market do we want to present ourselves to? What purchasing
power do our consumers have? Do we want to enter into the luxury market or bet on
the mass market?

o A company's financial goals.

o How does the competition price their products and what possible product
substitutes are there?

o Trends and fads.

o Increased price in order to give a better perception of quality.

 Promotion. This refers to all the marketing and communication actions we carry out

in order to diffuse the benefits and characteristics of our product or service within the
market. This is how we increase sales.

Different Marketing Strategies 

Marketing is not just one single strategy, but rather a combination of many different techniques
and tactics. Below we've listed some essential marketing strategies that you should know
about. Click on the red links to learn more about each of these strategies. 

 Marketing Plan . Discover what a marketing plan is, why you need to design one, and
the keys to creating a strong plan. Without a marketing plan, a company or brand can’t
reach its goals.
 Digital Marketing : digital marketing is the discipline of marketing which focuses on
developing a strategy solely within the digital environment.
 Direct Marketing : direct marketing is a type of campaign based on direct and two-
way communication that seeks to trigger a result by a specific audience.
 Email Marketing : Email Marketing is one of the most profitable and effective
techniques in terms of return. Naturally, it consists of sending emails to your audience;
therefore, make sure to also define your segments well.
 Mobile Marketing : Mobile Marketing is a broad concept which brings together all
marketing campaigns and actions focused exclusively on mobile platforms (i.e. smart
phones and tablets).
 Viral Marketing : Having something go viral is every company’s dream. Viral
Marketing is like a virus; it wildly spreads from one person to the next and is capable of
going incredibly far.
 Performance Marketing : Performance Marketing is a methodology which applies
various marketing methods and techniques which guarantees advertisers that they only
have to pay for achieved results.
 Inbound Marketing : This methodology focuses on creating valuable content to
attract qualified traffic. In order to attract potential customers, with whom to work
towards the final sale. 

 The History of Marketing   

1450-1900: Printed Advertising 

 1450, Gutenberg invents the printing press. The world of books and mass copies is
revolutionized.

 1730, the magazine emerges as a means of communication.

 1741, the first American magazine is published in Philadelphia.

 1839, posters become so popular that it became prohibited to put them in London
properties.
1920-1949: New Media

 1922, radio advertising begins.

 1933, more than half of the population in the United States (55.2%) has a radio in
their home. 

 1941, television advertising begins. The first advertisement was for Bulova watches
and reached 4,000 homes that had television.

 1946, more than 50% of the homes in the United States already had a telephone.
1950-1972: Marketing is Born and Grows

 1954, for the first time revenue from television advertising surpasses revenue from
radio and magazine ads.

 Telemarketing grows as a means of contacting buyers directly. 

 1972, print media suffers an exhaustion of the outbound marketing formula.
1973-1994: The Digital Era Flourishes

 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher, makes the first call through a cell
phone.

 1981, IBM launches its first personal computer.

 1984, Apple introduces the new Macintosh. 

 1990-1994, major advances in 2G technology, which would lay the foundation for the
future explosion of mobile TV.

 1994, the first case of commercial spam through e-commerce is produced.

1995-2020: The Era of Search Engines and Social Media

 1995, the Yahoo! and Altavista search engines are born. 

 1995-1997, the concept of SEO is born.

 1998, Google and MSN launch new search engines.

 1998, the concept of blogging arises. By mid-2006, there are already 50 million blogs
worldwide.

 2003-2012, the era of inbound marketing begins.

 2003-2004, three social networks are launched: LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook.

 2005, the first video is posted on YouTube

 2006, Twitter is born.

 2009, Google launches real time searches.

 2010, 90% of all American households have a cell phone. Instagram is created in
October 10.

 Young people between the ages of 13 and 24 spend 13.7 hours on the Internet,
compared to 13.6 hours watching television.

 2011, Snapchat was created, driving even more young users to their phones and
fueling the social media app craze.
 2012, there are already 54.8 million tablet users.

 2014, the rise of Influencer marketing begins. Users and brands alike begin to realize
the power of social media users with large followings

 2014, for the first time ever mobile usage outweighs desktop usage. More users are
checking social media, reading emails, and making purchases on their phones. 

 2015-2016, Big data and marketing automation are explored and used more robustly
to advertise to users. 

 2018, video marketing continues to grow, especially with Instagram’s launch of IGTV.
Video content is no longer just limited to YouTube and Facebook. 

 2019-2020, Move over millennials! Gen Z is the new focus and they have a hot new
app: TikTok. 

It will be interesting to see where marketing continues to grow. With new world events, like
the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 causing millions of people to stay in doors, social media and
marketing trends are sure to change, and we’ll be right here to track them. 

Typical marketing divisions

There are many divisions of marketing. Not all companies have the same names for each one.
Below is a list of the most common divisions (Source: London School of Economics):

Advertising

Advertising involves promoting an idea or product into the marketplace by placing ads in the
media.

Community Involvement

The term means working with the local community. This is not only good for the company’s
standing locally, and as a way of growing customer loyalty, but it is also great for morale within
the firm

Examples include sponsoring local events, chairing meetings, volunteering in schools or local
youth centers, and belonging to local associations.
Customer Service

Basically, this involves providing assistance and advice to people who purchased the product. In
many business, sellers also provide this service to customers before, during, and after a sale.

Good customer service produces satisfied customers. In other words, their experience meets or
exceeds their expectations. If your competitors have good customer service and you don’t, you
will probably lose market share to them.

Direct Marketing

This approach involves delivering your message directly to consumers via leaflets, forms, fliers,
catalogs, as well as street promotion.

Distribution

Distribution is part of the management chain. It involves transporting one product from storage
to a shop or supermarket.

Market Research

Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing information. The data will make the
company more aware of how people will react to its current and future products.

Business owners are conducting market research all the time. When they talk to customers
about their business,  they are conducting market research. Whenever somebody tries to find
out what the competition is doing, they are conducting market research.

Good market research can produce a wealth of data about the business’ products, customers,
and the marketplace.

Media Planning

Media planning is closely-related to advertising. It is an advertising strategy we employ to

target consumers using a range of informational outlets.

Advertising or media planning agencies usually conduct this kind of work. They find the best
media outlets to reach the target market.

Examples of media outlets include the internet, posters, television, radio, physical newspapers
and magazines, etc.

Product pricing

When setting the price, you should take into account how much something costs to produce
and deliver. You should also consider how much competitors are selling it for, its quality, the
brand, etc.
Most product prices rarely stay the same for long. Production costs may change, salaries can
rise, or competitors might suddenly offer discounts or raise their prices. You need to be aware
of every factor that influences price all the time.

Public Relations

“A strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between

organizations and their publics,” says the PRSA.

Sales

Sales includes planning and supporting the sales team by pushing ahead with sales targets. It
also involves formulating a plan as to how to reach potential and existing customers.
Salespeople aim to hit those targets.

One-to-One Marketing

One-to-one marketing involves communicating directly with each customer. The company then
tailors the approach to each customer’s tastes and preferences.

Impression Management

Impression management is the process of shaping people’s perceptions of things, other people,
places and events.

In marketing and sales, it means getting consumers to perceive your products or services in a
good light.

The Internet and marketing

With the advent of the Internet and ad-blocking software, inbound marketing has become
increasingly popular. It involves using content – newsletters, blogs, podcasts, etc. – that online
users like, to lure them in.

In the past, company’s sales personnel used to be the experts. However, today the experts are
the consumers.

A term that Internet marketing specialists use all the time is the ‘bounce rate.’ The bounce rate
refers to the percentage of people who leave the website after visiting a page.

In other words, instead of going to another page within the same site, they leave – they bounce
out.The lower the bounce rate, the better.

Global Marketing refers to the planning, creating, placing, and promoting a business’ goods or
services in the worldwide market. Is is a specialized skill. Executives who manage to implement
an effective strategy, can take their company to the next level.
During the 1960s and 1970s, many Japanese business practices emerged, which later spread
across the world. In some cases, engineering and marketing overlapped. For example, Kansei
Engineering is engineering that is based on human emotions. Not only do Kansei developers
focus on what products can do, but also on how they make consumers feel.