ESSENTIALS OF MARKETING
Module 1: Introduction to Marketing
What is Marketing?
● Managing profitable relationships
○ Marketing = business
discipline
○ Whether it is a profit through
money or other forms of
returns, the exchange should
be profitable with
customer and with the
company.
● Create value for customers and
capture in return
○ creating value for customers
= capture value in return
○ Value → market offering;
product and service that you are
selling to your target market
● Process of planning and executing
the conception, pricing, promotion,
and distribution of ideas, goods,3
and services, to create exchanges
that satisfy individual
organizational objectives
○ Satisfy the individual or
customer objective
Creating Value
○ Satisfy the organizational
objective → Capture Value in
Return
● Activity, set of institutions and
processes for creating,
communicating, delivering,
exchanging offerings that have value
for customers, clients, partners, and
society at large (American Marketing
Association)
○ Marketing does not just
include your company but
others are also involved.
○ Set of institutions: customers,
clients, partners, and society
at large
Marketing Process: A Five-Step Process
● Step 1 - Understand the
Marketplace and Customer Needs
○ Identifying your target
audience/market
● Step 2 - Design a customer-driven
the marketing strategy
● Step 3 - Construct an integrated
marketing program that delivers
superior value
● Step 4 - Build profitable
relationships and create customer
delight
○ Marketing = being in a
relationship
○ Marketers Goal: not break
the relationship with the
customers
● Step 5 - Capture value from
customers to create profits and high
and customer equity
Needs, Wants, Demands
→ ● Needs - a state of felt deprivation
○ Things that we don’t have
control of
● Wants - the form of human needs
take as shaped by culture and
individual personality
○ Personal preferences
and ● Demand - human wants that backed
up by buying power
○ Purchasing power to buy and
avail the product = demand
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
1. Physiological - food, clothes,
shelter, water
2. Safety - security, job,
insurance
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 3. Belonging - family, friends; a
sense of belongingness
4. Esteem - a sense of worth
5. Self Actualization
Marketing Offering
● Combination of product, services,
information, and experiences offered
a market to satisfy a want or need
○ Note: COMBINATION
○ Not just the product or
service, but the whole
experience of the customer
■ Way they are treated
■ Online translation:
how quick the website
loads
■ Buying process
Marketing Management
- The art and science of choosing
target markets and building
profitable relationships with them.
- To find, attract, keep, and grow
target customers by creating,
delivering, and communicating
superior value to customers.
Marketing Mix (4Ps)
- set of marketing tools a company
uses to achieve its goals
● Product - create a need-
satisfying market offering
● Price - decide how much will
charge for the offer
● Place - decide how it will
make the offer available to
the target market
○ Distribution plan
● Promotion - communicate
with the target market about
the offer and persuade them
of its merit
→ Process of Marketing
→ Framework by a lot of marketers used in
providing or creating products and services, and
experiences to their target market
Marketing Definition in Relation to the
4Ps
- How it is applied to Marketing
- Why are they important to the
marketing process
Marketing is simplistically defined as
‘putting the right product in the right place,
at the right price, at the right time.’
- A lot of hard work and research
needs to go into setting this simple
definition up.
- If even one element is off the mark,
a promising product or service can
fail completely and end up costing
the company substantially.
The use of a marketing mix is an excellent
way to help ensure that ‘putting the right
product in the right place,…’ will happen.
Marketing Mix is a crucial tool to help
understand what the product or service
can offer and how to plan for a
successful product offering. The
marketing mix is most commonly executed
through the 4 P’s of marketing: Price,
Product, Promotion, and Place.
Product: either a tangible good or an
intangible service that seems to meet a
specific customer need or demand.
- Key: understanding the problems
that the product is trying to solve.
- Benefits offered by the product and
all its features need to be
understood
- Unique selling proposition of the
product needs to be studied
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 - The potential buyers of the product
need to be identified and
understood.
Price: covers the actual amount the end-
user is expected to pay for a product.
● How a product is priced will directly
affect how it sells.
○ The perceived value of the
product is to the customer >
an objective costing of the
product on offer
● Positive customer value = product
can be sold to a higher price
● Little value to the customer =
underpriced
● Price may also be affected by
distribution plans, value chain costs,
and markups and how competitors
price a rival product.
Place: or placement has to do with how the
product will be provided to the customer.
● The key element: distribution
● The placement strategy will help
assess what channel is the most
suited to a product.
○ How a product is accessed
by the end-user also needs
to compliment the rest of the
product strategy.
Promotion: marketing communication
strategies and techniques.
● includes advertising, sales
promotions, special offers, and
public relations
● Must be suitable for the product,
price, and end-user it is marketed to
● Promotion is just the
communication aspect of the
entire marketing function.
Why are the 4Ps important to the
Marketing Process?
● The 4Ps helps you define your
marketing options in terms of
product, place, price, and
promotion. Use the model when
you are planning a new venture, or
evaluating an existing offer, to
optimize the impact with your target
market.
● Helps develop a marketing strategy
● The 4Ps of marketing are a model
for enhancing the components of
your "marketing mix" – the way in
which you take a new product or
service to market. It helps you to
define your marketing options in
terms of
○ Price
○ Product
○ Promotion
○ and Place
● so that your offering meets a specific
customer need or demand.
● Helps identify some key factors for
their business, including:
○ What consumers want from
them
○ How their product or service
meets or fails to meet those
needs
○ How their product or service
is perceived in the world
○ How they stand out from their
competitors
○ How they interact with their
customers.