Core Marketing Concepts

• Marketing involves identifying and meeting human and social needs
• Marketing represents the activities, institutions, and processes involved in creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings of value. These offerings extend to customers, clients, partners, and society at large
• Marketing management involves the art and science of selecting target markets, acquiring, retaining, and growing customer base through the creation, delivery, and communication of superior customer value
• Marketing focuses on identifying and satisfying needs

Core Marketing Concepts

• Needs encompass basic human necessities
• Wants are needs shaped by specific objects that could satisfy them
• Demands represent wants for particular products, supported by the ability to pay
• Target market involves the specific consumer group a company aims to reach
• Positioning involves establishing a clear, distinctive, and desirable place for a product relative to competitors in the minds of consumers
• Offerings includes a combination of products, services, information, and experiences designed to satisfy a need or want
• Brands encompass names, terms, signs, symbols, designs, or combinations thereof that distinguishes the goods/services of a seller from those of competitors
• Value and Satisfaction involves a customer's assessment of the product's overall ability to meet their needs
• Supply Chain consists of a channel that extends from raw materials, through components, to finished products delivered to final buyers
• Competition includes all actual and potential rival offerings and substitutes a buyer might consider

The Marketing Environment

• The marketing environment consists of internal and external factors influencing a company's ability to transact and build relationships with its target customers
• It includes both micro and macro environments

Microenvironment

• The microenvironment includes actors close to the company that can affect its ability to serve its customers
• The company itself has departments sharing responsibility for understanding customer needs and delivering customer value
• Suppliers provide the necessary resources for the company's production of goods and services
• Marketing intermediaries aid in promoting, selling, and distributing products to end buyers; including resellers, distribution firms, service agencies and financial intermediaries
• Customers are divided into five markets: consumer, business, reseller, government, and international
• Competitors require marketers to achieve strategic advantage via strong product positioning
• Publics are groups with potential interest or impact on an organization's ability to meet its objectives; consisting of financial, media, government, citizen-action, local, general, and internal groups

Macroenvironment

• The macroenvironment includes broader societal forces impacting the microenvironment
• Demographic environment considerations involving human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, occupation, and other statistics
• Economic environment involves economic factors that impact consumer purchasing power and spending habits
• Natural environment considerations include the natural resources utilized as inputs by marketers or affected by them
• Technological environment includes the dramatic forces shaping our future
• Political environment consists of laws, government agencies, and pressure groups impacting organizations and individuals
• Cultural environment includes institutions and forces affecting society’s values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors

Market Segmentation

• Market segmentation includes dividing a broad consumer or business market into subgroups of consumers based on shared characteristics
• Geographic segmentation consists of dividing the market into geographical units like nations, regions, states, counties, cities, or neighborhoods
• Demographic segmentation includes dividing the market by factors like age, gender, family size, life cycle, income, occupation, education, religion, race, generation, and nationality
• Psychographic segmentation consists of dividing a market by social class, lifestyle, or personality characteristics
• Behavioral segmentation includes dividing a market based on consumer knowledge, attitudes, uses, or responses to a product

Requirements for Effective Segmentation

• Measurable: Segments' size, purchasing power and profiles can be measured
• Accessible: Market segments can be reached and served effectively
• Substantial: Segments are large or profitable enough to serve
• Differentiable: Segments are conceptually distinct and respond differently to marketing mix elements
• Actionable: Effective programs can be designed to attract and serve segments

Market Targeting

• Market targeting involves evaluating each segment’s attractiveness and selecting one or more to enter
• Undifferentiated (mass) marketing includes a market-coverage strategy where a company ignores differences and targets the entire market with one offer
• Differentiated (segmented) marketing consists of targeting several market segments with separate offers for each
• Concentrated (niche) marketing involves pursuing a large share of one or a few segments
• Micromarketing includes tailoring products and marketing to individual and local segment needs; this includes local or individual marketing

Positioning

• Positioning consists of arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desirable place relative to competing products, in the minds of consumers
• Competitive advantage involves an advantage gained by offering greater customer value through lower prices or justified benefits
• Choosing a positioning strategy means identifying possible competitive advantages, selecting the right ones, and devising an overall strategy

Marketing Mix

• The marketing mix includes the tactical marketing tools, product, price, place, and promotion, which the firm blends to produce the desired response in the target market

The 4Ps

• Product includes the goods and services the company offers to the target market
• Price includes the amount customers pay to obtain the product
• Place includes activities making the product available to target consumers
• Promotion includes activities communicating the product's merits and persuading target customers

The 4Cs

• Customer Solution is the focus, instead of product
• Customer Cost is the focus, instead of price
• Convenience is the focus, instead of place
• Communication is the focus, instead of promotion

SWOT Analysis

• SWOT analysis consists of evaluating a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Strengths includes capabilities that help a company reach its objectives
• Weaknesses includes internal limitations that interfere with achieving objectives
• Opportunities includes external factors the company may exploit
• Threats includes external factors that challenge the company’s performance