what is marketing essay

what is marketing essay

Exploring the Fundamentals of Marketing: An In-Depth Essay

1. Introduction to Marketing

Business marketing, as this text will show, is a dense subject matter that itself has a dense relationship with and has implications for finance and human resources, operations management, engineering and business research, and development.

These concepts, presented in the form of descriptive “Whys” and pragmatic “Hows,” are applicable to both small and large businesses marketing to the small and large multinational businesses. So many aspects of business marketing depend on elements that are evident in some distinct, if indistinguishable, primary elements and actions that are such broad-based, significant, and important players. That is just why learners in the marketing and sales management course must think practically about business marketing in its diverse forms and situations even before they even think of stepping into the world of marketing and taking up professional practice.

In the competitive, resource-constrained, and environmentally challenging ’90s, every entrepreneur with an eye on success should adopt new marketing orientations, tools, and insights in order to make – and continue to make – maximum profits. This essay is not about marketing as a practice. It is rather focused on the managerial applications of the fundamental concepts and principles of technology, buyers, market offerings, distribution, pricing, sales, and marketing and sales management – in other words, this is a text on business marketing and not consumer marketing.

This is marketing at its niche, a practice that spans knowledge, products, and services that are reliable, energy-saving, user-friendly, and cost-effective. No company, no matter how rich or lush it may be, can survive – let alone grow – in today’s market that is characterized by fierce competition with indiscriminate pricing, poor and irregular quality, and lack of executives, as opposed to the belief that “others will buy from us because what we offer is the lowest price…or the highest in quality…or we have the largest market share and sell the most.”

In view of the rapidly increasing sophistication of business customers in the wake of increased offerings from competitors, leaner elements in their plant, and the workforce, an intensive marketing effort is required for success in the market. In providing the market with a set of offerings, technology now plays a key role in the process of marketing because it makes things easier to do, cuts costs, and rewards industry and business.

Business marketing generally involves longer sales cycles, multiple buying influences, and complex buying components and considers environmental influences such as global competition, fast technological change, and growing shortages in raw materials, energy, and skilled people. With the implementation of business marketing programs, customers are provided with a market offering consisting of a product, service, information, and personal assistance that, ideally, will provide higher levels of satisfaction than that offered by competitors.

This essay is aimed at providing an in-depth look into the fundamentals of marketing, specifically the principles and methods used for marketing products and services to the business customer. It also explores the business-to-business buying process, as well as why business buying differs from buying by final customers and patterns of interactions.

Marketing is defined as “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably”. The American Marketing Association, on the other hand, defines marketing as: “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” In simpler terms, however, marketing has been defined as the business process by which products are matched with market needs and through which the product is priced, promoted, and distributed to create sales revenue. The primary goal of marketing is to grow sales and generate profits.

Introduction

2. Key Concepts and Theories in Marketing

The reason that marketers care about the people’s wants and thoughts is actually based on a very simple issue. That being if your product is satisfying their wants, you are going to continue to have repeat customers and also produce and sell more products. Since both these results are what every business hopes to achieve, marketers develop strategies that will enable them to satisfy their customers’ needs in such a way that the consumers believe that they could not live without the products. This causes a lot of dilemmas for organizations because they are also required to develop products which are able to sustain changes in what people specifically want. Not only do they have to develop new products that people want, they have to develop these new products before their competition beats them to it. Another alternative way to do this is by seeking to capture the lion’s share of people’s minds and their continued following. But if they produce a product which is able to satisfy a need, all other competitors have to duplicate what was developed forever to always be imitating. This results in the fact that products are not unique, at least not for very long. And this is why marketing is a strategy which is viciously fought over. It is because once a person has captured a customer, it is much easier to continue with selling your products. This is why so many companies and businesses are seeking to develop strategies which will enable them to win the race of the first competing marketer. They are all seeking to develop the lead. For if the company has that up on their competitors, it is going to be very difficult to overcome and surpass them, and this is the reason the need to capture the market is going to be never-ending.

Marketing is a process that seeks to identify the needs and wants of the customer. They are also required to identify the demand for a product and then develop a product which will be able to satisfy that demand. The requirement to satisfy the wants of people is going to be never-ending. Therefore, whenever we as marketers are able to identify a want, it is going to be a win-win situation for both the company and the customer. This is because the customer is then having their wants and needs satisfied, and the company is having its products being sold. This is why marketing is something everyone is able to utilize. Marketing has subsequently grown to be something much larger than what was initially thought to be: to purvey a product or a service.

3. Marketing Strategies and Techniques

This analysis sheds light on the major themes arising and touches upon the marketing implications of mobile apps. Marketing fundamentals introduce marketing terms, concepts, and techniques basic to nonprofit marketing programs at all stages of marketing. A systematic process, called the marketing microcycle, is described which provides a feedback loop between the concepts discussed, the planning and implementation of various marketing strategies, and their eventual adjustment/replacement which is based on the observed outcomes of these strategies. Examples of the planning of specific nonprofit marketing programs illustrate how marketing fundamentals apply to the entire range of nonprofit organizations.

To truly hold the heart and soul of your organization in a positive light, to build and spread the word about your programs and amazing results, and to ensure that overall financial health is robust, marketing cannot be neglected. Every nonprofit – large and small – should set aside time and resources in order to immerse itself in a strong marketing and communication plan. This process is vital to ensuring that an organization goes about spreading the word of how it is helping and making an impact in the most efficient and effective manner possible. The ideas and advice offered in this research were shaped by extracting key themes across six focus group sessions with nonprofit executives that described initial explorations into using mobile marketing to enhance charitable giving. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations have limited resources for marketing and that they often find it difficult to track the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.

4. The Role of Marketing in Business Success

1. Marketing in a business context In a business context, marketing has been defined as an ‘organization function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in a way that benefits the organization and its stakeholders’. Other definitions have an even stronger customer focus, such as a ‘social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others’. Another definition builds on this perspective but highlights the additional ingredients in the marketing process, stating that marketing is ‘the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer, or user, to provide what the consumer, or user, wants, and when and where that person wants it, at a price that reflects value consumed and benefits those organizations detailed at the interface between the operations to the business and generate the sales that is essential to every entity delivered.

Marketing has attracted much interest from businesses and non-profit organizations. In the case of profit-oriented enterprises, much of the attention has a direct link with the pursuit of success. In the case of other organizations, it is frequently argued that they should adopt and apply marketing concepts and principles in order to realize their social and political goals. Indeed, the chairman of Harvard University, Charles P. Taft, has suggested that marketing philosophy might be the only force that will permit other institutions not only to survive but to grow and prosper as well. Marketing can influence organizational activities in such fundamental areas as product development, distribution, communication, and pricing. It can also help avert costly errors in the stage at which decisions are taken.

5. Emerging Trends and Future Directions in Marketing

A review of future marketing trends resulting from technological environmental change leads to 10 trends and potential directions for future marketing. These are the post-marketing concept; reengineering marketing; pushing rather than pulling strategies; front-line technology; the customer link; the performance link; marketing information as a strategic survival tool; customer and market focus as strategic foundation building; reclassification of consumer groups; and finally, creating new marketing strategies. Critical to an organization’s positioning in a specific marketing environment are the marketing intelligences, which provide senior marketing management with the necessary insight into the driving forces shaping the market, competitive environment, customer purchasing decisions, and growth directions. Critical to management’s marketing strategic plans is the reliability and validity of the future insights provided by the environment-driven marketing intelligence.

Technological change and information revolution insiders, increasingly powered by personal and workgroup computers and the combination of telecommunications and the merging of voice, sound, text, and graphics in the form of electronic publishing, represent but one aspect of the dynamics of the marketing environment. The ability to use multimedia through networks will have several profound implications for all organizations. First, the productivity of the organization and individual will become increasingly dependent on the use and mastery of microcomputer technology. Second, excellence, quality, and customer service increasingly will be by-products of front-line workers equipped with technology, the information, and decision-making tools. Finally, all workers must take responsibility for continuous learning, particularly in the areas of critical thinking and customer relationship-building skills. These technological and environmental changes show that marketing must be fluid, not static; forward, not reactive; and creative, not stagnant.

Emerging trends and future directions in marketing include: the new marketing concept; reengineering with customers; no pull strategies; front-line technology-driven marketing activities; quality increasingly linking the customer and organizations; information as a survival strategy; return to a focus on customers and markets; reclassification of consumers; the global economy and global marketing; and future directions in marketing.

What does the future hold for marketing? It is difficult to predict because of the rapidity of changes in the technological environment, as well as in consumer expectations and behavior. Using the past as prologue, however, it is possible to project several general trends that seem certain. They include changes in the marketing environment, the marketing mix concept, and strategies and strategic marketing planning.