‘Defining Marketing for the New Realities

Formally or informally, people and organizations engage in a vast number of activities,

under a function called marketing. Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and
social needs. One of the shortest good definitions of marketing is “meeting needs of
persons in the market (potential customers) profitably.”

The Value of Marketing

Financial success often depends on marketing ability (Singapore Airlines) Successful
marketing builds demand for products and services, which, in turn, creates jobs Marketing
builds strong brands and a loyal customer base, intangible assets that contribute heavily to the
value of a firm
There is little margin for error in marketing. Just a short time ago, MySpace, Yahoo!,
Blockbuster, and Barnes & Noble were admired leaders in their industries. What a difference
a few years can make! Each of these brands has been completely overtaken by an upstart
challenger—Facebook, Google, Netflix, and Amazon—and they now struggle, sometimes
unsuccessfully, for mere survival.

The Scope of Marketing

Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social need Sama’s formal definition:
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
One of the shortest good definitions of marketing is “meeting needs profitably.”

Marketing Management
The art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers
through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value. Marketing
management takes place when at least one party to a potential exchange thinks about the
means of achieving desired responses from other parties.

What is Marketed?
• Goods
• Services
• Events
• Experiences
• Persons
• Places
 • Properties
• Organizations
• Information
• Ideas

Who Markets?
A marketer is someone who seeks a response—attention, a purchase, a vote, a donation—
from another party, called the prospective two parties are seeking to sell something to each
other, we call them both marketers.

Core Marketing Concepts

Needs, Wants, and Demands

Needs are the basic human requirements such as for air, food, water, clothing, and shelter.
Humans also have strong needs for recreation, education, and entertainment. These needs
become wants when they are directed to specific objects that might satisfy the need.

Demands are wants for specific products backed by an ability to pay. The potential person is
willing to specify a price at which he is going to buy and able to show money resources to do
the transaction (generally it means he has an income).

Target Markets, Positioning, and Segmentation

Marketers start by dividing the market into segments. They identify and categorise distinct
groups of buyers who might prefer or require varying product or service benefits and
features by examining demographic, psychographic, and behavioral differences among
buyers.

After creating market segments for a product or service, the marketer decides which present
the greatest opportunities and select some of them as its target markets. For each, the firm
develops a benefit statement to position in the minds of the target buyers a central benefit or
two as the specialty of the offering by the particular company.

Offerings and Brands

Companies address customer needs by putting forth a value proposition, a set of benefits that
satisfy those needs. The intangible value proposition is made physical by an offering with
features, which can be a combination of products, services, information, and experiences.

A brand is an offering from a known source. A brand name identifies the source and carries
many
associations in people’s minds that make up its image.
Marketing Channels
Marketers use three kinds of marketing channels. Communication, Distribution and Service.

Communication channels help in communicating with target buyers. They include

newspapers, magazines, radio, television, mail, telephone, billboards, posters, fliers, CDs,
audiotapes, and the Internet. The firms also communicate through the look of their retail stores
and Web sites and other media. Marketers are increasingly adding interactive channels such as
e-mail, blogs, and toll-free numbers to engage in conversation with potential buyers.

Distribution channels display, sell, and deliver the physical product or service(s) to the buyer
or user. The distribution may be direct via owned retail outlet, salesmen, the Internet, mail,
or mobile phone
or telephone, or indirect with distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and agents as intermediaries.

Services used by marketers include warehouses, transportation companies, banks, and

insurance companies.

Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

Media used in marketing for communications is divided into three categories. Paid, owned and
earned media. For paid media, the companies pay fee and insert their advertisement or
communication message. When the communication medium is totally owned by a company
say, a brochure, an in-house magazine, or an advertisement on the packaging, it is termed
owned media. Earned media is the messages circulated by consumers and public in social
media or in traditional media. The rise of digital media has increased the coverage of the earned
media and also increased its role in the media mix.

Impressions and Engagement

Impressions is number of times consumers view the message in the digital media. Engagement
is the active involvement of the audience with the message. Are they accessing the detail given
in the message by clicking and opening the underlying message.

Value and Satisfaction

The buyer chooses from the competing offerings the one he or she perceives to deliver the
most value.Value is primarily a combination of product quality (specification and actual
product), service, and price (qsp or QSP) and it is called the customer value triad. Value
perceptions increase with quality and service but decrease with price.

Marketing can be thought of as an activitity that does identification, creation, communication,

delivery, and monitoring of customer value.

Satisfaction reflects a person’s judgment of a product’s perceived performance in relationship

to expectations. If the performance falls short of expectations, the customer is dissatisfied. If
it matches expectations, the customer is satisfied. If it exceeds them, the customer is delighted.
Supply Chain
Each company has a value chain and captures only a certain percentage of the total value
generated by the supply chain’s value delivery system. When a company acquires or enters
upstream or downstream activities, it will capture a higher percentage of supply chain value.

Competition
Competition includes all the actual and potential rival offerings and substitutes a buyer might
consider.

Marketing Environment

The marketing environment has task environment and broad environment. The task
environment includes the economic entities engaged in producing, distributing, and promoting
the offering. These are the company, suppliers, distributors, dealers, and target customers.
Suppliers include marketing services companies also.

The broad has six components: demographic environment, economic environment, social-
cultural environment, natural environment, technological environment, and political-legal
environment.

The New Marketing Realities

Major Societal Forces: Network information technology, Globalization, Deregulation,
Privatization, Heightened competition, Industry convergence, Retail
transformation, Disintermediation, Consumer buying power, Consumer information,
Consumer participation, Consumer resistance.

Marketing in the Organization

Every employee has an impact on the customer and must see the customer as the source of
the company’s prosperity. Then only every customer encounter with the company anywhere
will be a pleasant experience.

Company Orientation toward the Marketplace

The Production Concept

It holds that consumers prefer products that are widely available and inexpensive.

The Product Concept

The product concept proposes that consumers favor products offering the most quality,
performance, or innovative features. What is missing is customer needs.

The Selling Concept

The selling concept holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, won’t buy enough of
the organization’s products. So you have to put in selling effort and make them buy.

The Marketing Concept

The marketing concept holds that to succeed, a firm has to be more effective than competitors
in creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value to your
target markets.

Selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is
preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of
satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product by creating and delivering it to
the customer.

The Holistic Marketing Concept

Four broad components characterize holistic marketing: relationship marketing, integrated

marketing, internal marketing, and performance marketing.

Updating the Four Ps

Understanding the 4 As of Marketing
Marketing Management Tasks
Developing Marketing Strategies and Plans
Capturing Marketing Insights
Connecting with Customers
Building Strong Brands
Marketers' Frequently Asked Questions
Creating Value
Delivering Value
Communicating Value
Conducting Marketing Responsibly for Long-Term Success