Marketing

Is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large (The American Marketing Association, 2007).

It is a total system of business activity designed to plan, price, promote, and distribute want-satisfying products to the target market to achieve organizational objectives.

Advertising and promotion are an integral part of our social and economic systems. Traditionally, the objective of most marketing programs has been to sell products, which we define as goods, services, people, places, or ideas

Marketing Mix

The term marketing mix was introduced by Harvard advertising management professor Neil Border in 1953; the four Ps were popularized by Michigan State marketing professor E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960.

1.      Product - The focus of the Four Ps is the product. Design, performance, and quality which become a major point of differentiation from competitors are key elements of a product’s success.

2.     Pricing - The price a seller sets for a product is based not only on the cost of making and marketing the product but also on the seller’s expected margin of profit.

ü  Price/value proposition is the price of a product based on what the market will bear, the competition, the economic well-being of the consumer, the relative value of the product, and the consumer’s ability to gauge that value, which is referred to as the.

ü  Price copy is the focus of retail advertising, which refers to advertising copy devoted primarily to this type of information.

3.     Place (Distribution) includes the channels used to make the product easily accessible to customers. The choice of a distribution channel also sends messages.

·       Internet - “Clicks or bricks” is a phrase used to describe whether a product is sold online (clicks) or in a traditional store (bricks).

4.     Promotion. The last of the Four Ps is promotion, or what we call marketing communication (marcom, for short), which includes such tools as advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct response, events and sponsorships, point of sale, digital media, and the communication aspects of packaging, as well as personal sales, and several new forms of online and place-based communication that have emerged recently.

The Concept of Exchange

Marketing helps to create demand for a product leading to an exchange—that is, the act of trading something of value (money) for a desired product, either goods or service.

Key Players in the Marketing Industry

1. Marketer, also referred to (from the agency’s point of view) as the client, is any company or organization behind the brand—that is, the organization, company, or manufacturer producing the product or service and offering it for sale.

2. Suppliers or vendors refer to the materials and ingredients used in producing a product obtained from other companies, referred to as suppliers or vendors.

ü  Supply chain is used to refer to this complex network of suppliers who produce components and ingredients that are then sold to the manufacturer.

ü  Distribution chain or channel of distribution refers to the various companies involved in moving a product from its manufacturer to its buyers. Suppliers and distributors are also partners.

3. Distributors and Retailers – are intermediaries who help in the distribution of the product to the customer. They are also a partner in the communication process and their marketing communication often supports the brand.

4. Marketing Partners (i.e. Agencies) - have marketing relationships that involve cooperative programs and alliances between two companies that work together as marketing partners to create products and promotions.

Types of Markets

Market refers to the type of buyer of a certain product. The consumer is a general term for people who buy and use products and services, which is almost all of us and it is similar to the term general public. Customer, however, refers to someone who has purchased a specific brand or visited a specific retailer. The phrase share of market refers to the percentage of the total sales in a product category a particular brand has.

The four main market types are:

1. Consumer markets consist of people who buy goods and services for personal or household use.

2. Business-to-business (B2B) markets consist of companies that buy products or services to use in their businesses or in making other products.

3. Institutional markets include a wide variety of nonprofit organizations, such as hospitals, government agencies, and schools that provide services for the benefit of society.

4. Channel markets include members of the distribution chain, which is made up of businesses we call resellers, or intermediaries. Channel marketing, the process of targeting a specific campaign to members of the distribution channel, is more important now that manufacturers consider their distributors to be partners in their marketing programs.

The Promotional Mix: The Tools for IMC

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is the practice of unifying all marketing communication messages and tools as well as the messages from the marketing mix decisions so that they send a consistent message promoting the brand’s strategy.

Elements of Promotional Mix

1. Advertising is defined as any paid form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor.

2. Direct marketing is done by organizations by communicating directly with target customers to generate a response and/ or a transaction. Direct marketing is much more than direct mail and mail-orders catalogs. It involves a variety of activities, including database management, direct selling, telemarketing, and direct-response advertising through direct mail, online, and various broadcast and print media.

3. Digital/Internet Marketing is the new interactive media that allows users to perform a variety of activities such as receiving, altering, and sharing information and images; making inquiries; responding to questions; and even making purchases online.

4. Sales promotion is defined as those marketing activities that provide extra value or incentives to the sales force, the distributors, or the ultimate consumer and can stimulate immediate sales. Sales promotion is generally broken into two major categories: consumer-oriented and trade-oriented activities.

5. Public relations is defined as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Public relations generally have a broader objective than publicity, as its purpose is to establish and maintain a positive image of the company among its various publics. Publicity refers to nonpersonal communications regarding an organization, product, service, or idea not directly paid for or run under identified sponsorship. It usually comes in the form of a news story, editorial, or announcement about an organization and/or its products and services.

6. Personal selling is a form of person-to-person communication in which a seller attempts to assist and/or persuade prospective buyers to purchase the company’s product or service or to act on an idea. It involves direct contact between buyer and seller, either face-to-face or through some form of telecommunications such as telephone sales.