Marketing
Marketing is the act of satisfying and retaining customers.[3] It is one of the primary components of business management and commerce.[4]
For the Canadian magazine, see Marketing (magazine). For the British magazine, see Marketing (British magazine).
Marketing is typically conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Products can be marketed to other businesses (B2B) or directly to consumers (B2C).[5] Sometimes tasks are contracted to dedicated marketing firms, like a media, market research, or advertising agency. Sometimes, a trade association or government agency (such as the Agricultural Marketing Service) advertises on behalf of an entire industry or locality, often a specific type of food (e.g. Got Milk?), food from a specific area, or a city or region as a tourism destination.
Market orientations are philosophies concerning the factors that should go into market planning.[6] The marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold, including the channels that will be used to advertise the product,[7][8] is affected by the environment surrounding the product,[9] the results of marketing research and market research,[10][11] and the characteristics of the product's target market.[12] Once these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods of promoting the product,[5] including use of coupons and other price inducements.[13]
A marketing orientation has been defined as a "philosophy of business management."[6] or "a corporate state of mind"[36] or as an "organizational culture"[37] Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific concepts that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:[38]
The term "marketing environment" relates to all of the factors (whether internal, external, direct or indirect) that affect a firm's marketing decision-making/planning. A firm's marketing environment consists of three main areas, which are:
of: Labor, Inventory, Company Policy, Logistics, Budget, and Capital Assets.[9]
Marketing research is a systematic process of analyzing data that involves conducting research to support marketing activities and the statistical interpretation of data into information. This information is then used by managers to plan marketing activities, gauge the nature of a firm's marketing environment and to attain information from suppliers. A distinction should be made between marketing research and market research. Market research involves gathering information about a particular target market. As an example, a firm may conduct research in a target market, after selecting a suitable market segment. In contrast, marketing research relates to all research conducted within marketing. Market research is a subset of marketing research.[10] (Avoiding the word consumer, which shows up in both,[73] market research is about distribution, while marketing research encompasses distribution, advertising effectiveness, and salesforce effectiveness).[74]
The stages of research include:
Market segmentation consists of taking the total heterogeneous market for a product and dividing it into several sub-markets or segments, each of which tends to be homogeneous in all significant aspects.[12] The process is conducted for two main purposes: better allocation of a firm's finite resources and to better serve the more diversified tastes of contemporary consumers. A firm only possesses a certain amount of resources. Thus, it must make choices (and appreciate the related costs) in servicing specific groups of consumers. Moreover, with more diversity in the tastes of modern consumers, firms are noting the benefit of servicing a multiplicity of new markets.
Market segmentation can be defined in terms of the STP acronym, meaning Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning.
Segmentation involves the initial splitting up of consumers into persons of like needs/wants/tastes. Commonly used criteria include:
Once a segment has been identified to target, a firm must ascertain whether the segment is beneficial for them to service. The DAMP acronym is used as criteria to gauge the viability of a target market. The elements of DAMP are:
The next step in the targeting process is the level of differentiation involved in a segment serving. Three modes of differentiation exist, which are commonly applied by firms. These are:
Positioning concerns how to position a product in the minds of consumers and inform what attributes differentiate it from the competitor's products. A firm often performs this by producing a perceptual map, which denotes similar products produced in the same industry according to how consumers perceive their price and quality. From a product's placing on the map, a firm would tailor its marketing communications to meld with the product's perception among consumers and its position among competitors' offering.[76]
The promotional mix outlines how a company will market its product. It consists of five tools: personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, advertising and social media
The product life cycle (PLC) is a tool used by marketing managers to gauge the progress of a product, especially relating to sales or revenue accrued over time. The PLC is based on a few key assumptions, including:
In the introduction stage, a product is launched onto the market. To stimulate the growth of sales/revenue, use of advertising may be high, in order to heighten awareness of the product in question.
During the growth stage, the product's sales/revenue is increasing, which may stimulate more marketing communications to sustain sales. More entrants enter into the market, to reap the apparent high profits that the industry is producing.
When the product hits maturity, its starts to level off, and an increasing number of entrants to a market produce price falls for the product. Firms may use sales promotions to raise sales.
During decline, demand for a good begins to taper off, and the firm may opt to discontinue the manufacture of the product. This is so, if revenue for the product comes from efficiency savings in production, over actual sales of a good/service. However, if a product services a niche market, or is complementary to another product, it may continue the manufacture of the product, despite a low level of sales/revenue being accrued.[5]
