Marketing Concepts and Functions

Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value for customers, clients, partners, and society.

Creating: Product or service development based on customer needs and desires.
Communicating: Advertising, branding, and promotions communicating the product's value.
Delivering: Channel and logistics ensuring the product is available when and where the customer needs it.
Exchanging: Transactions of goods/services for value, whether through physical stores, e-commerce, or other platforms.

Production Orientation (Late 19th - Early 20th Century): Focused on mass production and efficiency. Demand was higher than supply, so companies produced and expected customers to buy. Focused on quality and innovation, assuming customers would naturally prefer superior products.
Sales Orientation (1920s - 1950s): Companies began focusing on aggressive sales tactics and advertising to push products.
Marketing Orientation (1950s - Present): Companies began understanding customer needs and desires. Companies started making products based on market research.
Societal Marketing Orientation (Late 20th Century - Present): Emphasizes long-term customer relationships, societal well-being, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Customer-Centric Marketing: Understanding customer behavior, preferences, and pain points helps in designing tailored products and services.
Segmenting the Market: Dividing the market into segments to target specific groups more effectively.
Meeting Expectations: Customers expect more from the product, they expect seamless, personalized experiences across all touchpoints.

Competition: Companies must constantly monitor competitors and adjust marketing strategies to differentiate and stay relevant.
Technology: Technological advancements can disrupt the industry, helping brands evolve quickly.
Regulations: Companies must adapt to product safety, advertising, and environmental regulations.

Customer Experience: Mapping the customer journey to identify critical touchpoints and optimizing the process for maximum satisfaction.
Automation and Technology: Automating processes where possible (self-services, online check-ins) enhances efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Physical Evidence: The tangible elements that help customers to evaluate service quality.
- The Importance of Tangible: Even though service is intangible, physical evidence (uniforms, web-design) is required to provide reassurance to customers.
- Brand Image and Physical Cues: Physical evidence helps reinforce brand identity and signal quality.
- Online Physical Evidence: Social Media, websites, etc. These are essential to deliver a complete and consistent service.

Intangibility: Service can't be seen or touched before purchase.
Inseparability: Produced and consumed simultaneously, requiring customer interactions.
Variability: Service quality may vary depending on who is delivering it.
Perishability: Service can't be inventoried.

Market research is the process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about the market, customers, and competitors.
Key Uses:
- Identifying customer needs and preferences.
- Understanding market trends and competitive dynamics.
- Reducing risk in decision-making.

Gathering Customer Insights: Understanding customer needs, preferences, behaviors, and pain points for product development.
Assessing Market Opportunities: Identifying potential markets, untapped segments, and emerging trends.
Improving Product Development: Analyzing competitor products, market insights, and customer feedback to enhance products.

Product Development: Conducting research to determine product feasibility, market fit, and customer preferences.
Customer Segmentation: Identifying different customer groups based on demographics, psychographics, and behaviors to tailor marketing efforts.
Market Positioning: Analyzing competitors, target markets, and value propositions to ensure market relevance and competitive advantage.

Operations: Demand forecasting, product specifications, ensuring supply chain alignment with promotional campaigns.
Finance: Allocating budgets, pricing strategies, and resource investments in new markets.
HR: Ensures that workforce is trained to deliver the brand promise.

Unique Selling Point (USP): A key differentiator that makes your brand stand out.
Positioning Strategy: Create a distinct image or message around your product to stay in customer minds.

Total Addressable Market (TAM): The total demand for a product or service if there were no competitors or limitations.
- Calculation: Multiply the number of potential customers by the average revenue per customer.
Serviceable Available Market (SAM): The portion of TAM that the product or service can target.
- Calculation: TAM filtered by the specific market you can reach and serve with your current offerings.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The portion of SAM that your business can actually capture.
- Calculation: SAM filtered by the expected market share based on competition and the company's capacity.

Business Planning: TAM, SAM, SOM help businesses to estimate potential revenue and growth.
Investment Decisions: Investors use this metric to gauge the viability and scalability of the business.
Strategic Focus: Helps to prioritize which market segments to focus on based on opportunity size and competition.

4Ps (Price, Product, Place, Promotion)
People: The employees who attract customers.
- Employees as Brand Ambassadors: Frontline staff directly impacts the customer experience, from greetings to service delivery.
- Customer-Centric Approach: Training employees to align with the company's brand promises and values is key.
Process: The system and processes that deliver the service experience.
- Operational Efficiency: Processes in service delivery must ensure consistency and quality across all customer touchpoints.