What is Marketing ?

Definition of Marketing

 

choosing a target market; choosing certain qualities or themes to highlight in advertising; running advertising campaigns; attending trade shows and public events; defining the terms of sale, such as price, discounts, warranties, and return policies; placing products in media or with people thought to influence other people's purchasing decisions; and agreements with retailers, wholesale distributors, or resellers.

 

The seller, who is typically a retailer or manufacturer, is responsible for marketing. Tasks are occasionally delegated to a specialized marketing company or advertising agency.

 

Less frequently, a trade association or government body (like the Agricultural Marketing Service) will promote an entire industry or region, frequently a specific food product (like Got Milk? ), food from a particular region, or a city or area as a travel destination.

 

It is one of the fundamental elements of business administration and trade. Marketers can target either consumers directly or other businesses (B2B marketing) (B2C marketing). Numerous factors are relevant regardless of the target audience, including the perspective the marketers will adopt. They establish how marketers approach the planning phase of marketing and are referred to as "market orientations."

 

The environment in which the product is sold, the findings of marketing and market research, and the traits of the product's target market all have an impact on the marketing mix, which describes the specifics of the product and how it will be marketed. Marketers must choose which product promotion strategies to employ after determining these factors, including the use of coupons and other price inducements.

 

The business process of identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customers' needs and wants is known as "marketing," also known as "attracting customers," and it incorporates knowledge learned from researching the management of exchange relationships..

 

The American Marketing Association (AMA) currently defines marketing as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society as a whole."

 

But over time, the definition of marketing has changed. Every three years, the AMA reviews both this definition and its definition of "marketing research." In 2008, the term "society at large's interests" was added to the definition. By contrasting the 2008 definition with the AMA's 1935 version, it is possible to see how the definition has evolved.

 

The conduct of business operations that control the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers is referred to as marketing. The more recent definition emphasizes how important other stakeholders are becoming to the evolving idea of marketing.

 

Recent definitions of marketing place more emphasis on the relationship with the customer than on a purely economic transaction. For instance, Philip Kotler, a well-known marketing author and educator, has modified his definition of marketing.

 

He described marketing as "the process by which companies engage customers, build strong customer relationships, and create customer value in order to capture value from customers in return" in 1980 and "satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process" in 2018. Marketing is described as "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction" in a related definition from the sales process engineering perspective."

 

Additionally, some definitions of marketing emphasize the discipline's capacity to generate gains for the company's stockholders. This definition of marketing fits well in this context: "the management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage." For instance, the Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating, and satisfactorily satisfying customer requirements" from a customer-centric standpoint.

 

Even today, many steps in the marketing process (such as product design, art direction, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting, etc.) involve the use of the creative arts. Marketing practice used to be viewed as a creative industry that included distribution, selling, and advertising.

 

However, because marketing uses a lot of social sciences, including anthropology, economics, mathematics, sociology, and neuroscience, the field is now widely acknowledged as a science. A clear procedure for developing a marketing plan has been developed by marketing science.

Concept of Marketing

According to the "marketing concept," a company should anticipate the needs and wants of potential customers and provide for them more successfully than its rivals in order to meet its organizational goals. It took nearly 200 years for this idea to gain widespread acceptance after it was first introduced in Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations. It is directly related between marketing and marketing concepts.

 

Given the importance of customer needs and wants in marketing, a thorough comprehension of these ideas is necessary.

Needs: A requirement for leading a safe, secure, and healthy life. When needs are not met, there is a definite negative result: dysfunction or death. The need for food, water, and shelter are objective and physical needs. Subjective and psychological needs include the need for self-esteem and the need to belong to a family or social group.

Wants: Something that is wished for, desired, or aspirational. Wants are frequently influenced by culture or peer groups and are not necessary for basic survival. Demands: Needs and wants can turn into economic demands when they are supported by the financial capacity to pay for them.

Unmet needs of the consumer are frequently a focus of marketing research that is done to develop new products or improve existing products. To segment the market, consider the needs of the consumer.

 

focuses on segmenting markets into different buyer groups based on "distinct needs, characteristics, or behaviors that may require separate products or marketing mixes." Benefit segmentation, another name for needs-based segmentation, is a strategy that "puts the needs of the customer at the center of how a company designs and markets products or services." Although it is challenging to implement needs-based segmentation in practice,

 

It has been demonstrated to be among the best strategies for market segmentation. Additionally, a lot of advertising and promotion aims to demonstrate how a certain product's advantages specifically satisfy the needs, desires, or expectations of the consumer.