Marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; operation of advertising campaigns; attendance at trade shows and public events; design of products and packaging attractive to buyers; defining the terms of sale, such as price, discounts, warranty, and return policy; product placement in media or with people believed to influence the buying habits of others; agreements with retailers, wholesale distributors, or resellers; and attempts to create awareness of, loyalty to, and positive feelings about a brand. Marketing is typically done by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Sometimes tasks are contracted to a dedicated marketing firm or advertising agency. More rarely, 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.
It is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct their product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing). Regardless of who is being marketed to, several factors apply, including the perspective the marketers will use. Known as market orientations, they determine how marketers approach the planning stage of marketing.
Customer focus:
The marketing function of a business is customer-centred. It makes an attempt to study the customer needs, and goods are produced accordingly. The business existence depends on human needs. In a competitive market, the goods that are best suited to the customer are the ones that are well-accepted. Hence, every activity of a business is customer-oriented.
Customer satisfaction:
A customer expects some services or benefits from the product for which payment is made. If this benefit is more than the amount paid, then the customer is satisfied. In the long run, customer satisfaction helps to retain market demand. It helps achieve organizational objectives. Customer satisfaction can be enhanced by providing value-added services, which includes providing additional facilities at little or no extra cost.
Objective-oriented:
All marketing activities are objective-oriented. Different objectives are fixed at different levels, but the main objective is to earn profit from business along with the satisfaction of human wants. Marketing activities undertaken by sellers make an attempt to find out the weaknesses in the existing system, and measures are taken to improve the shortfalls so that the objectives are achieved.
Marketing is both art and science:
Art refers to a specific skill that is required in marketing activities of any type of business. Science refers to a systematic body of knowledge, based on facts and principles. The concept of marketing includes a bunch of social sciences such as economics, sociology, psychology and law. It indicates market operations based on some principles. Hence, marketing is an art as well as a science.
Continuous and regular activity:
Marketing is an activity designed to plan, price, promote and distribute products. At the same time, it also addresses both the current and future consumers. Thus, it is a continuous process. A marketer has to consistently monitor environment. This helps in coming up with new products.
Exchange process:
Marketing involves exchange of goods, services and ideas with the medium of money. Exchange takes place between sellers and buyers. Most of marketing activities are concerned with the exchange of goods. Functions such as distribution, after-sale services and packaging help in the exchange process. Channels of distribution and physical distribution play an important role in the exchange process by creating place utility.
Marketing environment:
Economic policies, market conditions, and environmental factors, such as political, technological, demographic and international, influence marketing activities. Marketing activities are inseparable from such environmental factors. A successful marketer needs to adapt to these changing factors and adjust marketing strategies to suit new market developments.
Marketing mix:
A combination of four inputs constitutes the core of a company’s marketing system product, price, place, and promotion. Marketing mix is a flexible combination of variables. They are influenced by consumer behaviour, trade factors, competition and government regulatory measures.
Integrated approach:
The marketing activities must be co-ordinated with other functional areas of an organization. Functions such as production, finance, research, purchasing, storekeeping and public relations (PR) are to be integrated with marketing. This will help in achieving organizational objectives. Otherwise, it will result in organizational conflicts.
Commercial and non-commercial organizations:
With the societal marketing concept gaining importance, social marketers are finding useful new ways of applying marketing principles. Commercial organizations are also adopting cause-related marketing to strike long-term relations with consumers.
Business organizations such as educational institutions, hospitals, religious institutions and charitable trusts have also found meaningful applications of marketing. Thus, marketing is applicable to both business and non-business organizations.
Precedes and follows production:
Identifying consumer needs and wants is the primary task of a marketing manager. Production activities are adapted to these consumer needs. Thus, marketing precedes production. Marketing helps in the distribution of the goods which follows production. Hence, production and marketing activities are closely related to each other.
Types:
Service Marketing:
Services are intangible economic activities that fulfill certain needs of a customer. Some services are purely intangible in nature while some are associated with tangible goods. Production and delivery of services is simultaneous, i.e., services cannot be stored and are consumed at the point of sale. They cannot be seen or touched, but only experienced.
Examples of services are banking, insurance, hair dressing, catering, medical services, etc. Services are very different from products and as such they need different strategies to be successfully marketed.
Social Marketing:
Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing principles to achieve a social good. It began as a formal discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald zaltman published “Social marketing- an approach to planned social change” in the journal of marketing.
They observed that the same marketing principles that were used by commercial marketers to sell products and services could also be used to sell ideas, attitudes and behaviour for the betterment of human life.
The main goal of social marketing is not to make financial gains, but to bring about behavioural change for societal benefit. It includes promoting the use of seatbelts while driving, promoting regular health checkups, persuading people to get their children vaccinated, asking people to give up tobacco use, etc.
Green Marketing:
Green marketing is the marketing of products in an environmental friendly way. It combines the satisfaction of consumer’s wants and needs with the conservation and protection of the natural environment.
Green companies may produce goods that are environmentally friendly or adopt a production method that is least damaging to natural resources. Green marketing is also known as sustainable marketing.
The four elements of the marketing mix, i.e. product, price, place and promotion are combined to market products that are environmentally superior to available substitutes. The ecological benefits of green marketing may be in forms of reduced waste, decreased emissions of toxins, better energy efficiency, etc.
Direct Marketing:
Direct marketing is the method of selling goods and services directly to the customers rather than through retailers. Firms involved in direct marketing communicate directly with the target customers with specific promotional techniques. It helps the business to build better customer relations because the business connects to the prospective customers directly.
It is basically about building loyalty in existing customers and prospecting new ones. Direct marketing is superior to other forms of mass marketing as direct marketing allows the firm to reach particular target markets.
Mass media advertising may reach a larger audience, but it is possible that a major portion of that audience is not even interested in the product. Direct marketing scores an advantage here only those people are contacted who would be genuinely interested in the product.
Holistic Marketing:
In the modern marketing world, organizations are looking beyond the traditional marketing outlook and are recognizing the need to consider marketing as a comprehensive process, a vital component of the broader economy and society. Holistic marketing enables the company to view its marketing efforts as a “whole” and develop an overall complete marketing plan.
The organization is not considered as just a single isolated entity, but as a constituent of the overall business world and economy. Multiple perspectives on the company’s commercial activities are developed instead of holding on to a one- dimensional approach. Holistic marketing recognizes that when it comes to marketing, “everything matters”, and it is necessary to have a broad integrated perspective towards all aspects of marketing.
Holistic marketing considers the whole business system while developing a marketing strategy. The emphasis is not only on the products and services provided but also on the people who are involved in creating and marketing them. Each component of the marketing strategy is designed as a part of an overall unified strategy.
Marketing efforts are directed towards implementation of all the components in a synchronised method. All the marketing activities are coordinated to achieve synergy and deliver the best possible value to the customer. Holistic marketing is an emerging concept but is very likely to gain popularity throughout the world in the coming years.
Selling
Selling comprises all those personal and impersonal activities involved in finding, securing and developing a demand for a given product or service. In the words of William J. Stanton “Selling is informing and persuading a market about a product or service. It is a function of promotion.” In the words of Still, Cundiff and Govoni, “Selling in its broad sense, is not only the making of sales, that is, effecting ownership transfers; but also is identifying prospective consumers, stimulating demands and providing information and service to buyers.”
It is, therefore, clear that selling is defined not only the transfer of ownership but also a promotional function, involving locating prospective buyers, creation of demands and providing marketing information and services, etc. In modern times, selling is considered in its wider scope.
Function:
Product Planning and Development:
No marketing effort can be successful if the product itself is unsatisfactory. Hence it would not be wrong if we say that the success of any selling organisation depends upon the planning and development of the right type and kind of products.
While planning the manufacture of the right kind of products, the manufacturer should take into account the requirements and needs of the final consumer in terms of quantity, quality, time, price, place etc. This information can be obtained through market research.
Establishing Contact with the Buyers:
Buyers are many and scattered over a vast area. After creating a demand for the product it is essential to establish contact with the buyers. The marketing personnel have to find out the places where the buyers exist, establish contacts with them and maintain cordial relations with them. Establishing contacts with the buyers is an ongoing process and has to be undertaken continuously.
Creation of Demand:
Once the right product has been produced it will result in profit only if it is demanded. Thus, an important aspect of selling is the creation of demand. The seller must inform the buyer about the availability of his products. He usually does this by resorting to activities like advertising and sales promotion. All activities undertaken by a seller to keep his customers informed and updated about his products through the different means available to him can be called as demand creation.
Entering into a Contract:
When the terms and conditions of sale are finalised the buyers and sellers enter in a contract to buy and sell so that the ownership of the goods passes legally from the seller to the buyer.
Even though buying and selling functions of marketing have been studied and analysed as two different functions, they are in actual practice complimentary to each other. After all, there cannot be selling without buying and buying without selling. They are the two sides of the exchange transaction and one cannot exist without the other.
Negotiations:
Once contact with the buyer is established the seller has to enter into discussions with the prospective buyers to finalise the terms relating to the quantity, quality, and price of the product, the time mode of transport, risk coverage etc. At this stage, offers and counter offers are made till a final agreement is reached. This process of reaching some point of common understanding through offers and counter offers can be called negotiations.
Types:
Industrial Selling:
Under industrial selling, marketing transactions take place between at least two companies, both of which seek to generate favours from the business. That is why industrial selling is also termed as business-to-business selling. Industrial selling is more complex and time consuming because a sales-person has to negotiate with a number of individuals representing the buying organization, particularly in large firms. Needless to mention, goods that are dealt in this selling are industrial in nature.
In large industrial units, buying decision may not be entrusted with a single individual but with a number of individuals who take the buying decision jointly. But in some cases, each of them may want to satisfy their personalized needs. For example, a purchase manager of a firm may be more interested in price, distribution scheme, credit terms, etc., as compared to the manufacturer or the research and development manager who would focus more on the quality of the product.
Service Selling:
Service selling has some distinctive properties vis-a-vis product selling. One major characteristic feature of service selling is that of service creation, where selling takes place simultaneously. In product selling these two are separate incidents. A doctor or a lawyer advice and suggests remedies to their clients simultaneously. An insurance agent selling insurance products to a customer persuades him to purchase and only then sells it. This is because service is more of an activity or performance designed to evolve and solve specific problems of customers.
Retail Selling:
Retail selling, popularly known as retailing, involves activities both in selling goods as well as services. Thus, it aims to deliver the finished goods to the consumers for personal or business use. Retailing is the last stage of distribution. It facilitates the adoption process of products/services by consumers and aids in creating value-addition to the merchandise to make it more attractive and acceptable to the consumers.
Retail selling may take the form of store retailing or non-store retailing. In store retailing, selling takes place from a physical location in a market whereas non-store retailing is based on door-to-door selling, mail order selling, telephonic selling or selling through the Internet. Some of the common services attached to retail selling involve procuring needed items, arranging transportation, storing and assorting the goods, grading and packaging, labelling, risk taking, selling, servicing, financing, complaints, and returns handling.
The distinction between selling and marketing are summarized in the following table:
Distinction between Selling and Marketing
| SELLING | MARKETING | |
| 1 | Emphasis is on the product. | Emphasis is on the customer wants. |
| 2 | Company first makes the product and then figures out how to sell it | Company first determines customer wants and then figures out to make it |
| 3 | Management is sales volume-oriented | Management is profit oriented |
| 4 | Profit through Sales Volume | Profits through Customer Satisfaction |
| 5 | Planning is short-run-oriented, regarding today products and markets | Planning is long-run oriented regarding new products, tomorrow’s markets, and future growth |
| 6 | Let the buyer be aware | Let the seller be aware |
| 7 | Product first then customer | Customer first then the product |
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