Definition[edit]
Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as "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."[4] The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions" of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction.[5]
Philip Kotler defines marketing as :-marketing is about Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably."[6] A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value.[7] In this context, marketing can be defined as "the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage."[7]
Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science,[8][not in citation given]allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.[9][not in citation given]
The process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals.[10] Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.
Concept[edit]
The 'marketing concept' proposes that in order to satisfy the organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of potential consumers and satisfy them more effectively than its competitors. This concept originated from Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, but would not become widely used until nearly 200 years later.[11] Marketing and Marketing Concepts are directly related.
Given the centrality of customer needs and wants in marketing, a rich understanding of these concepts is essential:[12]
- Needs: Something necessary for people to live a healthy, stable and safe life. When needs remain unfulfilled, there is a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as the need for food, water and shelter; or subjective and psychological, such as the need to belong to a family or social group and the need for self-esteem.
- Wants: Something that is desired, wished for or aspired to. Wants are not essential for basic survival and are often shaped by culture or peer-groups.
- Demands: When needs and wants are backed by the ability to pay, they have the potential to become economic demands.
Marketing research, conducted for the purpose of new product development or product improvement, is often concerned with identifying the consumer's unmet needs. [13] Customer needs are central to market segmentation which is concerned with dividing markets into distinct groups of buyers on the basis of "distinct needs, characteristics, or behaviors who might require separate products or marketing mixes." [14] Needs-based segmentation (also known as benefit segmentation) "places the customers' desires at the forefront of how a company designs and markets products or services." [15] Although needs-based segmentation is difficult to do in practice, it has been proved to be one of the most effective ways to segment a market.[16] In addition, a great deal of advertising and promotion is designed to show how a given product's benefits meet the customer's needs, wants or expectations in a unique way.[17]
Orientations[edit]
A marketing orientation has been defined as a "philosophy of business management." [18] or "a corporate state of mind" [19] or as an "organisation[al] culture" [20] Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:[21]
Product[edit]
A firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its own product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that, all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of a superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customers and their needs and desires derived from research and (or) intuition and understands consumers' quality expectations and price they are willing to pay. For example, Sony Walkman and Apple iPod were innovative product designs that addressed consumers' unmet needs. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practising a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and in arts marketing.[22]
Sales[edit]
A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than determining new or unmet consumer needs or desires. Consequently, this entails simply selling existing products, using promotion and direct sales techniques to attain the highest sales possible.[23] The sales orientation "is typically practised with unsought goods." [24] One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies.[25] The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.
A 2011 meta analyses[26] has found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behaviour based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).
Production[edit]
A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is "one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations." [27]
Marketing[edit]
The marketing orientation is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver.[28] Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be relatively robust in a variety of contexts.[29]
The marketing orientation often has three prime facets, which are:
- Customer orientation: A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.
- Organizational orientation: In this sense, a firm's marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from an organization's marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other department's within the firm. As an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.
- The production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production and promotion of the product. Inter-departmental conflicts may occur, should a firm adhere to the marketing orientation. Production may oppose the installation, support and servicing of new capital stock, which may be needed to manufacture a new product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure, since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.
- Mutually beneficial exchange: In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits/market share/sales. A consumer on the other hand gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service. As no-one has to buy goods from any one supplier in the market economy, firms must entice consumers to buy goods with contemporary marketing ideals.
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