Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling the product or service. It is a critical business function for attracting customers.
According
to the American Marketing Association,
“Marketing
as the “performance of business activities that directs the flow
of
goods and services from producer to consumer or user’.
According
to Philip Kotler,
“Marketing
as “a human activity directed to satisfying process”.
According
to William J. Stanton,
“Marketing
as “a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and
distribute want satisfying goods and services to the present and potential
customers”.
The
above definitions provide us an idea on the nature
of marketing.
The
features in the above definitions are that
a)
Marketing, is an exchange process.
b)
Covers a variety of functions to be carried out in an integrated manner, and
c)
is directed to satisfy the needs/desires/wants of the consumer.
Marketing
is an activity. Marketing activities and strategies result in making products
available that satisfy customers while making profits for the companies that
offer those products.
What Activities
are Included in Marketing?
Marketing
activities are numerous and varied because they basically include everything
needed to get a product off the drawing board and into the hands of the
customer. The broad field of marketing includes activities such as:
·
Designing the
product so it will be desirable to customers by using tools such as marketing
research and pricing.
·
Promoting the
product so people will know about it by using tools such as public relations,
advertising, and marketing communications.
·
Setting a price
and letting potential customers know about your product and making it available
to them.
Functions of Marketing:
To
achieve success in your marketing effort you
need to have glimpse of the big pictures and the activities you need to perform
in achieving your set marketing objectives, these activities is referred to as
The function of marketing. It refers to those
specialize activities that you as a marketer must perform in order to achieve
your set marketing objectives.
(1)Research function: the research function of marketing is that function
of marketing that enables you to generate adequate information regarding your
particular market of target. You must carry out
adequate research to identify the size, behavior, culture, believe, genders
etc. of your target market segment, their needs and want, and then develop
effective product that can meet and satisfy these market needs and want.
(2)Buying function: the function of buying is performed in order to
acquire quality materials for production. When you design a good product
concept, you should also ensure you're buying the essential materials for the
product. This function is carried out by the purchase and supply department,
but your specifications of materials goes a long way in assisting the
purchasing department to acquire the necessary materials needed for production.
(3)Product development and management: product development is an essential function of
marketing since it was the duties of the marketing department to identify what
the market need or want and then design effective product based on the
identified need and want of the market.
(4)Production function: production is the function performs by the production
department. Though, this is interrelated to the department of marketing,
because your product must possess the essential characteristics that can meet
the target market
needs and want as identified during your market research, such characteristics
as in your product Test, Form, Packaging etc.
(5)Promotion function: promotion is one of the core functions of marketing
since your finish product must not remain in the place of production, hence,
you as a marketer
must design effective communication strategies to informing the availability of
your product to your target market.
(6)Standardization and grading: the function of standardization is to establish
specified characteristics that your product must conform to, such standard as
in having a specify test, ingredient etc. That makes your product brand so
unique.
Grading comes in when you sort and classify your
product into deferent sizes or quantities for different market segment while
maintaining your product standard.
(7)Pricing function: you perform the function of pricing on your product
offerings by designing effective pricing systems base on your product stage and
performance in the product life cycle. Price is the actual value consumers
perceive on your product, so you as a marketer should ensure that your value of
your product is not too high or too low to that of your costumers.
(8)Distribution function: the function of distribution is to ensure that your
product is easily and effectively moved from the point of production to the
target market, the kind of transportation system to employ e.g. Road, rail,
water or air, and ensures that the product can be easily accessed by customers.
(9)Risk bearing function: the process of moving a finished product from the
point of production to the point of consumptions is characterized with lots of
risks, such risks as in product damaging, pilferage and defaults etc.
(10)Financing function: financing deals with the part of marketing to
providing incomes for your business. It refers to how you can raise capital to
start operation and remain in business. It refers to your modes of payment for
the goods and services transferred to your costumers.
(11) After sales-service: in a more complex and technical product, you as a
marketer should make provision in order to assist your customers after they
have purchased your product. In terms of machines or heavy equipment product
that requires installation or maintenance, most marketing organization renders
such services like installing the machine or maintaining it for stipulated
periods on time for free or by a little service charge.
Elements of Marketing:
Marketing
encompasses a number of different activities such as product design, pricing,
strategies, advertising and others. However these are just activities which
have to be done in the process of marketing. There are also some crucial
elements of marketing which are very necessary for the success of marketing and
they form the backbone of marketing. There four elements are as follows.
1) Research – If
you want to launch your own company or a product what will you do? The first
thing that you will do will be market research. You will like to determine what
the market actually wants. Similarly, during marketing too, market research is
needed to determine what message should the company adopt and which
medium will be best, what positioning needs to be achieved to target the right
segment. By doing market research, we can gather data which can
help us in analysis and action.
2) Strategy – Once you have your data ready, you know
where your product stands and also the standing of your company in the market
in terms of strengths and weaknesses. You also have an idea of what
strategies will need to be implemented and what factors will need to be
adopted by the company to beat competitors and succeed in the market.
Thus, after research, strategies decide the vision of the company, its
goal, its mission and in general where the company wants to be. The
strategic plan needs to be well thought of by realistically considering all
possibilities.
3) Planning – Now
that you know, Where you want to be, naturally you have to plan How
you are going to reach there. That is the job of the marketing planning
department. The marketing plan involves sales
forecasting, financial planning, communications strategy and many such
benchmarks which define how the company is going to achieve its strategic goals
in the future. The planning department also keeps a track of the timeline so
that time to time we can determine whether we are on track with the strategic
plan or not.
4) Tactics – Where
planning happens at the topmost level, tactics are the street smart, short term
plans you implement to attract customers, beat your competitors, increase
sales, provide a better value for your customers or for any other short term
objective which needs to be achieved. Giving an offer such as “Buy 1, get 1
free” is a sales tactic. Lessening the price of your product during festival
time is a promotional tactic. Several such tactics can be implemented by the
company to make sure that it is inline with the planning done in the earlier
stage. Some industries, such as FMCG and consumer durable, mainly survive on
time to time tactics that the implement. Due to the competitive nature of these
industries, smart tactics ar absolutely necessary to achieve good revenues and
for customer acquisition.