Marketing is about effective communication of your product to the public. And if you get your communication right, then your customers will make new connections, and their behaviour will become buying behaviour. Marketing Management is defined by the American Marketing Association as “the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals”.
Marketing creates the environment in which sales can operate. It is everything that a company can do to reach and persuade prospects, to make them aware of the product and the brand. Marketing can be defined as the activities you use to reach and persuade your prospects that you are the company for them. It’s the message that prepares the prospect for the sales. It consists of activities such as advertising, public relations, brand development and marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail
Wikipedia says that Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
Marketing create prospects or leads for sales to follow up. Marketing and Sales departments work closely together to give the consumer a joined –up message and ensure the company can deliver what it promises. Both functions are necessary and mutually dependent.
For most businesses, sales and marketing is the key problem if it is not working. Everything else can be fixed, even if you have to throw resources at it, but if the product is not selling, then the business is in trouble.
Marketing Is the Ultimate Driver In a growing business. No other aspect of your business can give you such high returns, so quickly, as a new marketing campaign.
The public are fickle and it is very difficult to predict accurately the response to a marketing campaign. By the same token sometimes an apparently small tweak can bring amazing results, causing sales to leap.
Sometimes you don’t have to increase your budget, you can spend the same amount of money, but just by changing a headline or strapline, bundling a new offer, or changing a design detail, you can alter public reaction to the product.
To take advantage of this very powerful area of leverage, and use it to grow your business and make more profit, you must understand what marketing is, how it works, and how to do it.
Marketing theory holds that the key to successful business is to be more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities toward determining and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets.
Marketing theory has four pillars: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability.
Target market Companies need to select the best markets to work in. Most products will not perform effectively in every market.
Customer needs Effective marketing finds and satisfies customers’ needs and wants.
Integrated marketing occurs when all the departments in a company work together to fulfil customers’ needs
Profitability Marketing managers aim to provide value to the customer and profits to the organization. They evaluate the profitability of all alternative marketing strategies and decisions and choose the most profitable decisions for the long-term survival and growth of the firm, and to achieve its business objectives.
Some marketers draw a distinction between responsive marketing and creative marketing. A responsive marketer finds an existing need and fulfils it. A creative marketer discovers and produces solutions the customer didn’t ask for but to which they enthusiastically respond.-The products that you did not know you needed until they were marketed to you!!
Marketing people watch the response customers have to their marketing and branding, and see what the message means to their customers. They aim to manage the customer relationship.
In marketing it is vital to test and measure, test and measure. Every time a variable is changed, the result needs to be evaluated, and what does not work needs to be discarded, and what does work needs to be built on.
There are many components of marketing, each with a clearly defined role. We will consider each of them in turn in the next lesson