CO1: Introduction to Marketing

Marketing encompasses a range of activities from defining target customers and understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors to creating, distributing, and exchanging products or services to fulfill these needs.
Core concepts in marketing include needs, wants, and demands. Needs are basic necessities, wants are desires that are shaped by culture and society, while demand represents the desire for a specific product backed by the ability to pay.
The Marketing Mix is crucial for successful marketing. The 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) are fundamental. The 7Ps (adding People, Process, and Physical Evidence) further elaborates on the impact of customer interaction and brand experiences. The 4Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication) focuses on the customer perspective.
Marketing evolves over time, with different concepts shaping marketing strategies. Key evolutionary steps include the Production Concept, focusing on efficiency in production; the Product Concept, emphasizing product development; the Selling Concept, focusing on aggressive sales efforts; and the Marketing Concept, which prioritizes understanding customer needs and wants.
Marketing management involves tasks like product development, pricing strategies, promotion campaigns, and channel management.

Understanding the marketing environment is essential. Internal environment encompasses a company's resources, capabilities, and departmental functions. Micro-environment refers to factors directly affecting the company, like suppliers, distributors, competitors, and customers. Macro-environment involves broader societal forces, such as economic, political, technological, social, and environmental factors.
Analytical tools like SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis are key to understanding market factors.
Strategic planning includes identifying a company's core competencies and customer groups, creating marketing objectives, and developing marketing plans. Strategic Business Units (SBUs) are distinct parts of a company with unique markets. Corporate-level strategies help achieve overall business goals. The BCG Matrix is a framework for evaluating product performance. Product-market grids organize products and markets. Porter's Five Forces model analyses industry competitiveness.

STP Marketing (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) is a critical process.
Market segmentation involves dividing the market into distinct customer groups. Targeting identifies those groups to pursue. Positioning solidifies the image of a product. Differentiation creates unique value propositions that distinguish a product from competitors. USP (Unique Selling Proposition) highlights a product's unique benefit.
Consumer behavior focuses on identifying motivations and decision-making processes. Understanding how customers behave allows businesses to tailor their marketing strategies for optimal effectiveness. Influencing factors can be demographics, lifestyle, individual personality, or cultural factors.

Product management involves various aspects of goods/services. Product classification (consumer vs. industrial), product levels (core vs. actual vs. augmented), product mix decisions, product line management, product life cycles (introduction, growth, maturity, decline), and new product development are important.
Service marketing differs from product marketing. Service definition, characteristics (intangibility, inseparability, variability, perishability), and service quality measurements (SERVQUAL model measuring service expectations versus perceptions) are key. Service delivery considerations (Gap model) are crucial.
Branding and packaging are essential for marketing. Brand positioning, brand equity (overall value), and packaging types are aspects of this area.

Pricing objectives and methods influence purchasing decisions. Pricing strategies (cost-plus, value-based, competitive pricing) aid in product placement and value.

Marketing channels efficiently move goods/services from producer to consumer. Channel structure, responsibilities, and management are important. Channel conflict resolution addresses issues between intermediary businesses (wholesalers, retailers, distributors).
The Promotion Mix encompasses various elements. Advertising includes media planning and budget management. Sales promotion aims for short-term sales boosts. Personal selling involves direct interaction. Direct marketing reaches individual consumers. Publicity and Public Relations manage company image. Digital marketing leverages technology for interactions.
Personal selling encompasses a process from identifying the right customers to closing a sale. Key qualities of sales representatives and nurturing buyer-seller relationships greatly impact success.