Marketing
Every individual lives by selling some services, products or ideas. Commonly, promotion and selling are considered as marketing. However, selling is the old sense of marketing. In its new sense, marketing is satisfying customer needs. This definition views marketing as a process involving marketing exchanges, strategies, activities, positions, and institutions. Marketing is a fundamental part of the modern world. It has totally transformed the commerce of selling and buying products and services. Marketing is frequently understood as the procedure of developing and implementing the pricing, promotion, and delivery of concepts, goods, and services to generate connections that satisfy individual and business goals (Paul Baines, 2013). The expression “satisfy individuals” suggests that the core goal of marketing is to gratify the desires of the clients, thus it is a wholly customer-centered process.
Marketing is linked with business establishments. Many individuals are undoubtedly conversant with the marketing activities of Domino’s pizza and other consumer product firms such as Procter ; Gamble, Sony, McDonald`s, and General Motors. They may also be aware of marketing efforts by businesses that market to other organizations such as Monsanto, Caterpillar, Xerox, Boeing, and Allied-Signal (O.C. Ferrell, 2014).
Gifts in kind America ; This nonprofit organization matches donated goods with groups that can use them. It also operates a shipping service to help other nonprofit organizations reduce their shipping costs. Marketing these services is what this organization does (Kumar, 2013).
Jewish Hospital ; Jewish Hospital used an integrated marketing communications strategy to establish itself as the premier heart care provider in the Louisville, Kentucky, area. The hospital integrated television, radio, newspaper, magazine, and billboard advertisements with a direct-mail campaign and telemarketing program. The different communication tools educated consumers about the warning signs of heart disease and the capabilities of Jewish Hospital to treat all types of heart disease (Paul Baines, 2013).
President Clinton ; President Clinton used marketing research throughout his campaign for the presidency and continues to use it to help develop policies. Focus groups and survey are employed to assess potential public reaction to policy alternatives. Once a policy decision is made, President Clinton tries to market it to the public through appearances at town meetings and on television call-in shows (Paul Baines, 2013).
Southern California Gas ; The largest gas utility in the country, Southern California Gas rarely considered how consumers felt about its service. Now, with deregulation producing some competitors, the utility regularly evaluates customer satisfaction and provides extensive training to customer service and field representatives. The results have been impressive, with both customer satisfaction scores and financial performance improving (Paul Baines, 2013).
All these examples illustrate marketing`s importance to a nonprofit organization, financial services firm, politician, utility provider, and hospital. Today, more organizations and individuals realize that effective marketing is a critical determinant of success.
Marketing can also be viewed as an organizational philosophy and a societal process. In every organization, there exists some kind of philosophy that guides the efforts of every person in it. The philosophy can be specified officially, as in a mission statement, or it can be recognized informally via the actions and communications of uppermost management. The view of an organization determines the kinds of activities that are valuable to the organization (William M. Pride, 2014). Three different philosophy deserve mention:
;;;;;;;;;;;;;; A production philosophy exists when an organization emphasizes the production function. An organization that encourages following such a philosophy values activities related to improving production efficiency or producing sophisticated products and services.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;; A selling philosophy prevails wherever the sales role is appreciated. The supposition here is that if adequate selling effort is allocated to any product, it can be sold. A marketer;s work is to vend whatever the business chooses to create. Granting selling is one element of marketing, a company directed by the sale of philosophy, underline selling exertions to the exclusion of other marketing activities.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;; A marketing philosophy advocates that the organization should concentrate on sustaining and meeting the desires of clients. This emphasis applies to persons in the marketing department in addition to individuals in finance, production, accounting, personnel, and other departments.; Production and selling remain vital. Nonetheless, the business is driven by nourishing client needs.
Many firms have a marketing philosophy and the marketing concept, is evidenced by following statements from various top executives.
;The winners of the nineties will be those who can develop a culture that allows them to move faster, communicate more clearly, and involve everyone in a focused effort to serve ever more demanding costumers. (John F. Welch, Jr, CEO of General Electric.);;
;Customers must be the center of your management philosophy (Yutaka Kume, president of Nissan Motor.);;
;In the age when business success depends on staying close to costumers, my experience without exception has been that successful companies spend time in conversation, in close touch, with what is going on in the marketplace. (Kenichi Ohmae, managing director of Mckinsey ; Company in Japan.);.
Traditionally, the roots of ;modern; marketing have been traced to the 1950s, when the marketing concept was first articulated. Before then, according to this view, most firms were driven by either production or sales philosophies, even though they engaged in marketing activities. Thus in the 1950s, leading companies presumably embraced the customer-oriented marketing concept. However, the recent historical analysis provides substantial evidence that marketing activities and customer orientations were commonplace in firms much early than the 1950s in the US, Germany, and England (Phil Burton, 2012).
The industrial revolution, from about 1750 in England and 1830 in the US and Germany, produced tremendous changes in marketing. Production methods and transportation system are greatly improved. A substantial migration from rural areas to urban centers creates potentially significant markets. Marketing became a pervasive and central activity as firms tried to serve these developing markets. Because of intensive competition, businesses targeted particular population groups developed products specifically for them and promoted the products vigorously (Venkatesh Shankar, 2012).
The industrial revolution, from about 1750 in England and 1830 in the US and Germany, produced tremendous changes in marketing. Production methods and transportation systems were greatly improved. A substantial migration from rural areas to urban centers created potentially significant markets. Marketing became a pervasive and central activity as firms tried to serve these developing markets. Because of intensive competition, businesses targeted particular population groups developed products specifically for them and promoted the products vigorously. Many companies carried out the relevant marketing activities that we know as market segmentation, target marketing, and promotion during this period (Westwood, 2013).
Marketing has built on past accomplishments as it evolved. Many firms for many years have taken a customer orientated approach and performed essential marketing activities. What has changed most in recent years is the way marketing activities are performed. For example, the practice of dividing the market for a product into segments with different needs (market segment) has been used by at least some firms for over two centuries. However, segmentation procedures have changed drastically from simple, judgmental approaches to the use of sophisticated statistical techniques and large databases (Harvard Business School Press, 2013).
Marketing has a field of specialization is very extensive, with particular ideas targeted for every connected action, for instance, relationship marketing, cultural marketing, social marketing, political marketing, and others. The work of a professional marketer begins before the manufacturing of the product and continues after the sale (Venkatesh Shankar, 2012).
Today there are various types and techniques of marketing, which are applicable to different areas and different people. In general, marketing is always visual, and argumentative, for example, on the internet, images that fast attracts the attention of the web user are used and many times are a target to the young generation that usually browse the internet frequently. Moreover, television and radio advertisement are used to attract more customers. A company has to do all this to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them. It helps any organization to establish their names and recognition, distinguish themselves from competitors, communicate its value proposition, and most importantly sell more products (William M. Pride, 2014). Therefore, from the first moment, the company needs to have a system of supporting customers hence creating a rapport which is finalized with the sale of a service or a product and spreads to other sales processes. It is vital that clients discuss an organization;s goods and services in a positive manner, as a way of advocating them to other potential clients. Then, the customers become one of the forms of advertising, encouraging new people to buy products and services, as they become fans of the brand and will spread free of charge the return that your products and services bring to them. So, it is necessary to create customer loyalty so that they remain to acquire the goods and services offered by the company, by setting up this mechanism for communication with the client to know the degree of satisfaction and if he is willing to acquire again what you have to offer (O.C. Ferrell, 2014).
The practice of Marketing requires capacity and training within the organization. Many companies have sought the application of Relationship Marketing without proper preparation, hence not getting the expected results. In spite of the various ways to prepare for the process of approximation of the customers, several companies do not get results because they did not know the essential ways. Above all, the focus on the relationship with the client passes through all the sectors. No matter the size of the companies. Marketing became essential for the differentiation of customer service. It has been showing as a strategy fundamental to the success of any organizations. Many of these have sought how to use this approach with a focus to achieve the expected results.
References
Ganesan, S., ed., 2012. Handbook of Marketing and Finance. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Harvard Business School Press, 2013. Understanding Marketing: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges. 2nd ed. Brighton: Harvard Business Press.
Kumar, N., 2013. Marketing As Strategy: Understanding the CEO’s Agenda for Driving Growth and Innovation. 1st ed. Brighton: Harvard Business Press.
O.C. Ferrell, O. N. B. L. S. S. W. M. P., 2014. Marketing Principles PDF. 2nd ed. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia.
Paul Baines, C. F. K. P., 2013. Essentials of Marketing. 2nd ed. Oxford: OUP Oxford.
Phil Burton, G. P. B. L., 2012. 42 Rules of Product Marketing: Learn the Rules of Product Marketing from Leading Experts from Around the World. 1st ed. Cupertino: Happy About.
Venkatesh Shankar, G. S. C. J. F. A. H. ed., 2012. Handbook of Marketing Strategy. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
William M. Pride, O. C. F., 2014. Foundations of Marketing. 6th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
