Marketing Fundamentals

Marketing Fundamentals

• Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society.
• Exchange involves a trade of value between buyer and seller, benefiting both parties.
• A market comprises individuals with the desire and ability to purchase a specific offering.
• A target market is a specific group of potential consumers a company focuses on.
• The marketing mix combines product, price, promotion, and place to address marketing issues.
• Environmental forces, including social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory forces, impact marketing decisions.
• Customer value is a combination of benefits, such as quality, convenience, and service, at a specific price.
• Relationship marketing focuses on building long-term relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and partners.
• A marketing program integrates the marketing mix to present products, services, or ideas to prospective buyers.
• Market segments are groups of buyers with similar needs and responses to marketing actions.
• The marketing concept emphasizes consumer satisfaction and organizational goals.
• Market orientation involves gathering consumer insights, disseminating them across departments, and utilizing them to enhance customer value.
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) identifies and understands potential buyers, cultivates positive perceptions, and fosters advocates.
• Customer experience encompasses the overall response customers have to an organization and its offerings.
• The societal marketing concept prioritizes consumer needs while promoting societal well-being.

Product & Consumer Behavior

• A product is a good, service, or idea that fulfills consumer needs and is exchanged for value.
• Consumer behavior examines the actions and mental processes related to purchasing and using products/services.
• The purchase decision process involves problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior.
• Involvement refers to the importance of a purchase to the consumer.
• Consumer touchpoints are points of contact between a marketer and the consumer throughout the purchase journey.
• A consumer journey map visually represents a consumer's interactions before, during, and after a purchase.
• Personality describes consistent behaviors in recurring situations.
• Perception is how an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information to create meaning.
• Perceived risk is the anxiety resulting from uncertainty about a purchase's outcome.
• Learning involves changes in behavior due to experience or reasoning.
• Beliefs are subjective perceptions of a product/brand's performance, influenced by experience, advertising, and others.
• Word-of-mouth influence impacts purchasing decisions through conversations.
• Reference groups provide standards for self-appraisal and influence personal choices.
• Brand communities unite consumers around a specific brand.
• Social class refers to divisions within society based on shared values, interests, and behaviors.

Pricing & Profitability

• Price is the exchange value for a product/service.
• Barter is the exchange of goods/services without money.
• Value = Perceived Benefits / Price.
• Value pricing balances benefits and price.
• Profit = Total Revenue - Total Cost.
• Pricing objectives define the role of price in marketing plans.
• Pricing constraints limit pricing flexibility.
• A demand curve illustrates the relationship between quantity sold and price.
• Demand factors determine consumer willingness and ability to pay.
• Price elasticity of demand measures the change in quantity demanded relative to a price change.
• Total revenue is the total income from sales.
• Total cost is the sum of fixed and variable costs.
• Fixed costs remain constant regardless of production.
• Unit variable cost is the per-unit variable expense.
• Contribution margin is the difference between unit selling price and unit variable cost.
• Break-even analysis determines profitability at various output levels.
• The break-even point is where total revenue equals total cost.
• A break-even chart graphically represents total revenue and total cost.