Marketing Fundamentals

Introduction to Marketing

• Marketing involves understanding consumer needs and delivering products/services to satisfy those needs, with a focus on profitability and customer satisfaction
• Three key entities in the consumption process are the manufacturer/producer, the marketer, and the end-user/consumer
• Manufacturers create products, while producers create products but not necessarily in a factory setting
• Marketers facilitate the exchange of goods and services between producers/manufacturers and consumers
• End-users ultimately use or intend to use a product and are also known as consumers

Defining Marketing

• Marketing is about identifying consumer needs, converting them into products/services, and delivering them to consumers while ensuring profitability and customer satisfaction
• Marketing includes various activities, taking place even before production and continuing after sales
• Marketing is described as a social and managerial process where individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others

Core Marketing Concepts

• Core marketing concepts include customer needs, wants, and demands
• Needs are states of being deprived of something, which can be physical (hunger, shelter) or social/self-esteem related
• Wants are the form human needs take, shaped by culture and individual personality
• Demands are wants backed by willingness and purchasing power
• Top marketing companies prioritize understanding and fulfilling customer needs, wants, and demands

Objectives of Marketing

• Creating demand through understanding consumer preferences and informing them of product utility
• Ensuring customer satisfaction by studying demands before offering products/services
• Increasing market share, which is the ratio of a company's sales to the total sales in the economy
• Generating profits for business survival, growth, and diversification
• Building a positive public image through customer satisfaction and continuous improvement in product/services

Market Offerings

• ‘Market Offerings' are products and services designed to deliver customer value, fulfilling needs and wants
• Market offerings refer to a complete offer for a product or service
• A product isn't limited to physical items but includes anything that satisfies a need, including intangible services

Customer Value

• Customer value = Total Customer Benefits – Total Customer Costs
• Marketers aim to add value to products so that customers prefer them over competitors' offerings

Customer Satisfaction

• Customer satisfaction reflects how well customer expectations match the actual product performance
• Customer satisfaction = Experience – Expectation
• Customer satisfaction is a post-purchase phenomenon that is quite personal and emotional
• Interactive lectures and activities are used to explain how marketing and selling differ

Exchange Process

• Exchange involves obtaining a desired object by offering something in return
• Marketing functions through exchange; an individual/organization obtains and satisfies a need/want by offering money for products/services
• The exchange process extends to relationship marketing, building long-term customer relationships

Scope and Importance of Marketing

• The scope of marketing extends beyond goods/services to marketing people, ideas, experiences, events, places, properties, organizations, and information
• Goods are tangible items
• Services are intangible items like banking, consultancy, education, insurance
• Experiences stage and market memorable events like water parks, retail outlets
• People such as Politicians, celebrities, and athletes through endorsements

Types of Marketing

• Places can be marketed to consumers, businesses, and banks that include real estate developers
• Organizations markets to create to boost their goodwill by creating a unique, favorable brand image
• Properties like stocks and intangibles like real estate, and even events such as sports, concerts, and fashion shows can marketed
• Information is distributed to school, parents, students, communities
• Ideas are marketed for money, or for societal causes related for social awareness.

Factors Affecting Marketing

• Understanding the factors that may affect successful marking of a product or business
• Public awareness of product and company is increased through marketing.
• Marketing boosts sales via advertisements
• Brand image is increased and created to give the consumer an image to be remembered by.

Importance to Customers

• Marketing creates form, place, time, information, and possession utility for customers
• Marketers offer a variety of product choices to satisfy needs and wants
• Customers have more purchasing platforms; online and offline

Importance to Society

• Marketing creates of employment in the various marketing industries
• Marketers take up social responsibility to give back to the earth and the community
• Marketing helps to ensure that communities flourish by educating communities

Marketing Philosophies

• Philosophies range from production to sales
• The production concept emphasizes affordability and availability through mass production and distribution
• The product concepts is based on quality, performance, and features
• Selling emphasizes convincing and influencing customers to buy through aggressive selling and promotional activities
• Marketing focuses on understanding and meeting customer needs and wants, to give customer satisfaction
• Societal incorporates social responsibility, balancing customer satisfaction with societal well-being
• Relationship focuses on customer retention and satisfaction through building stronger relationships with customers and partners

Distinguishing Marketing from Selling

• A marketing model has a start point targeting customers, and the means is coordinated marketing
• the emphasis on earning profits through customer satisfaction by use of means
• The process and objectives are different in a marketing model compared to a selling concept which has a focus on the factory and existing products

Understanding the Marketing Environment

• All businesses are affected by a constantly changing marketing environment and the ability to adapt or fail
• The Marketing Environment is affected by internal and external factor, and forces
• Internal and external decisions are affected by all people involved with each decision such as company personnel, etc.

External Marketing

• External Marketing contains all potential positive or negative influences to company goals
• Opportunities are the positive external forces to a firm's success
• Internal and external observations allow a company to formulate effective plans and strategies

External Factors

• Fast changing mobile and computer industry are examples of external factors
• Uncertain political and government changes, social changes, and fashion changes are additional examples
• Global and regional conflict among different demographics or areas will affect decision making for new marketing choices
• The organization plans ahead and follows the above trends to continue to be successful

Scanning the Marketing Environment

• Recognizing a change that will affect the direction and implementation of company goals
• Market changes occur when external opportunities appear, and new technologies can improve quality and reduce cost
• It is needed to understand different marketing channels to reach to the target customer

Aspects Explored by Management

• Knowing consumer size and power when introducing a product
• Market trends help discover demand for new products
• Economic, political, and technology assist to observe production
• It helps analyze upcoming market competitors
• All the above will help the firm to move easily and provide a structure

The Macro-Environment Factors

• Business activity can be expressed as political, and the economic and technical sides of market strategies
• Demographic forces including the size, density, location, gender, age, race
• All combine together in the government's business models

The Micro-Environment Factors

• Include all entities and factors that would affect the firm's performance in it's current operations
• Each micro-environment must be known in each business
• Interactive lectures regarding each process can determine the student's understanding

Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning

• Segmentation, targeting, and product positioning, also known as STP
• In the 1980's we looked for the customer in each individual, today we look for individual in each customer
• Organizations benefit from the segmentations by generating new product ideas
• Segmentations help provide insights for advertising
• Consumer buy products that address their needs
• Segmenting the Market, Targeting the user, and Positioning the products are three pillars of modern marketing strategy
• Market segmentation is the pillar to core marketing
• Market segmentation defines a grouping of shared customer needs.
• The goal is to understand what the market needs to create new products.

Importance of Segmentation

• No market is completely equal to create meaningful segments
• marketers understand different purchase combinations that satisfy the need
• It also assists in making the community more accurate
• Segmentation is important because the customer, which changes all the time, can change the environment

Market Targeting and Positioning

• Segmenting gives resource identification to help achieve organizational goals
• There needs to be a proper analysis of every step involved
• Understand 3 topics, base segments understand and target it effectively

Bases of Market Segmentation

• Market segmentation is a mirror for the population of customers in an industry to help divide and conquer

Types of Segmentation

• Geographic/ Demographics Segmentation groups known as geo demographics to define customers locations
• Important variables according to Geography can be global, national, regional
• A key benefit is that the approach helps to identify certain general patterns.