Defining marketing in the 21st century-

The 21st century indian market is a buyer's market, due to the abundance of sellers it ls left up
to the buyer to decide which product to buy from, therefore the customer can make of break
the company. Now ‘serve the customer’ or ‘delight the customer’ has become the motto of
the companies. Now customers are no longer treated like a king but are treated like a God.for a
company to be successful they need to think customer, smell customer and most importantly
build customer relationships.

Marketing is everywhere from tvs,radios, newspapers, magazines, billboards and even in your
phones (digital marketing). It is done by all organisations even by non-profit organisations. If the
customer is satisfied the market share and profits will follow.

Marketing is nothing but managing profitable customer relationships

The objective of marketing is to bring in new customers by offering superior value and retain and
grow the current customers by providing satisfaction.

Definition - “Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating,

communicating and delivering value to the customers and for managing customer relationships
in a way that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders”
- American Marketing Association

Evolution of marketing-

The evolution of marketing and markets can be attributed to 3 main reasons - scarcity of
resources, labour specialisation, and consumption satisfaction. People live in different
geographical locations and different geographical locations have different acces to natural
resources. A resource scarce in one place may be abundant in an other. So markets started
forming where people used to exchange their excess resources for what they need(the scare
ones for them)

As the markets developed people now not only sold the raw resources but started processing
them and added value to the product this lead to specialisation ( leather, gold, cotton, silk, jute
etc) So people from different areas started specialising in the resource abundant to them.

No human can live in isolation. People wants and needs are a variety of products now just the
products they produce. So people exchange what they want and need for the excess they have
to satisfy their consumption desires.

There were 4 eras -

 The production era - Produce goods and make them affordable and they will sell on their
own.
The selling era - realising the products wont sell on their own even tho they are priced
low selling was required to persuade the customers to buy the product.

The marketing era- the customer’s needs and wants were taken into consideration
before making the product.

The relationship era- strong importance to creating and managing customer

relationships.

Importance of marketing -

1. Effective customer engagement and awareness.

Without marketing the customer will not be aware of the product. No matter how
good the product is if this is not communicated the the customers there is no use.
Marketing solves this by effectively communicating and spreading awareness
about the product.

2. Build and maintain brand reputation.

How the customer sees the company depends on how the company markets
itself and positions itself in the market. It is through marketing it can build
reputation. For example magnum ice creams when they first came out positioned
themself as a luxury ice cream experience through their tv ads and print media.
This build a strong brand reputation for magnum icecreams as a high quality,
premium experience icecreams and helped differentiate themself form other ice
creams.

3. Building customer relationships.

By providing superior value and delivering satisfaction. (personalised emails
and offers,discounts)

4. Staying relevant.
Social media accounts and posts. Partnering up with influences. Marketing is
also about conducting market research and collecting feedback both of which
play an important role in staying relevant.

5. Boosting sales
All this leads to boosting sales. If the customers are taken good care of the
market share and profits will follow.

6. Make informed decisions

Market research is a crucial step to identify the target audience, the needs
and wants of the customers and to set the price etc, all these decisions are
taken due to the research done in marketing.

Types of marketing

1. B2b - webinars, trade shows, email, social media

2. B2c- tv, radio, print, social media
3. C2c- selling old cloths,items on ebay
4. c2b - celebrities promoting a product for a marketer.