Definition of Marketing

The following definitions were approved by the American Marketing Association Board of Directors:

Marketing:
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. (Approved October 2007)

Marketing Research:
Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information--information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. (Approved October 2004) This replaces the previous definition, which still appears in the AMA's dictionary: "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable. The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. [4] It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors. The term developed from an original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches."

Further definitions
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." A different concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing is defined as "the management process that seeks to maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage." Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre- and post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.

Types of Market Research

Market research, as a sub-set aspect of marketing activities, can be divided into the following parts:

Primary research (also known as field research), which involves the conduction and compilation of research for a specific purpose. Secondary research (also referred to as desk research), initially conducted for one purpose, but often used to support another purpose or end goal.

By these definitions, an example of primary research would be market research conducted into health foods, which is used solely to ascertain the needs/wants of the target market for health foods. Secondary research in this case would be research pertaining to health foods, but used by a firm wishing to develop an unrelated product. Primary research is often expensive to prepare, collect and interpret from data to information. Nevertheless, while secondary research is relatively inexpensive, it often can become outdated and outmoded, given that it is used for a purpose other than the one for which it was intended. Primary research can also be broken down into quantitative research and qualitative research, which, as the terms suggest, pertain to numerical and non-numerical research methods and techniques, respectively. The appropriateness of each mode of research depends on whether data can be quantified (quantitative research), or whether subjective, non-numeric or abstract concepts are required to be studied (qualitative research).

INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING MANAGEMENT

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."- Martin Luther King, Jr. WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?

Management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the act(s) of management. Management can be seggregated or defined as shown by the following Diagram:

MARKETING MANAGEMENT: "Marketing takes day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master" - Philip Kotler, 1931 -, US marketing guru Marketing Management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities. Rapidly emerging forces of globalization have compelled firms to market beyond the borders of their home country making International marketing highly significant and an integral part of a firm's marketing strategy.

[1] Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand accepted definition of the term. In part, this is because the role of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business' size, corporate culture, and industry context. For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product [2] To create an effective, cost-efficient Marketing management strategy, firms must possess a detailed, objective understanding of their own business and the market in which they operate. [3] In analyzing these issues, the discipline of marketing management often overlaps with the related discipline of strategic planning.

To study marketing management 3 fundamental questions must be answered: 1. Why are we here? - (OBJECTIVES) 2. How will we go about? - (PEDAGOGY) 3. What will we cover? - (CONTENT)

Customer Perceived Value

Customer perceived value is the ratio of the Total perceived benefit by the customer, to the total perceived cost.

Where, CPV = Customer perceived Value TPC = Total perceived Cost TfB = Total functional benefit, i.e., the actual working benefits the product is going to provide to the customer. TsB = Total subjective benefit, i.e., the benefits like status symbol, brand image, that the customer is going to get along with the product. TfnC= Total financial cost NfnC= Non-financial cost
The main objective of the Marketing Department is to increase the value of CPV. This can be done by increasing the values of TfB, TsB and/or decreasing the values of TfnC, NfnC.

Satisfaction, Expectation and Performance

Attracting the customer is a difficult job, as there are a number of competitors. Customer has to perceive your message along with the messages of the competitors. With so many messages trying to persuade, sometimes the customer becomes confused. He thinks all these messages as noise. The job of the marketing manager is to separate his message from the rest of the competitors so as to create a positive brand image of the company to the consumer.

The next step after attracting a customer is to retain him. This is only possible if the customer is satisfied with the way the product has performed with respect to the promises made. We can describe Satisfaction to be a function of Expectation & Performance. S = f (E, P), Where S= Customer Satisfaction E= Customer's expectation of how the product is supposed to be. P= Practical experience of the customer

There are 3 possibilities: a. E = P Customer Satisfied. Assuming that the circumstances remain same, the customer is likely to come back. But in this dynamic market, smallest temptation by a rival brand will make the customer to move away from the product. b. E > P Customer dissatisfied. In the current market, Supply > Demand. The customer has choices, and he is likely to move. c. E < P Customer delightful. He/She is more likely to stay with the seller.

A few marketing management terms

1) Need and Want, Demand Needs and want are the drivers of human action which marketers need to identify, emphasize, and satisfy. All promotional efforts are organized around needs. Needs are more basic in nature than want Demand is the desire to buy certain goods and services, but only when the buyer has the capability to buy and the product is accessible to be bought. 2) Product, Service and Experience Product is a tangible good for sale. Services are Intangible products that are not goods, such as accounting, banking, cleaning, consultancy, education, insurance, know how, medical treatment, transportation. 3) Value It is the extent to which a good or service is perceived by its customer to meet his or her needs or wants, measured by customer's willingness to pay for it. It commonly depends more on the customer's perception of the worth of the product than on its intrinsic value.

4) STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) Segmentation is subdivision of a population into segments with similar characteristics, such as age, education, income. Targeting is the selection of potential customers to whom a business wishes to sell products or services. The targeting strategy involves segmenting the market, choosing which segments of the market are appropriate, and determining the products that will be offered in each segment. Positioning is Marketing strategy that aims to make a brand occupy a distinct 'position,' relative to the competing brands, in the mind of the customer. Firms apply this strategy either by emphasizing the distinguishing features of their brand (what it is, what it does and how, etc.) or try to create a suitable image (inexpensive or premium, utilitarian or luxurious, entry-level or high-end, etc.) through advertising. Once a brand is positioned, it is very difficult to reposition it without destroying its credibility. 5) Target Marketing - Mass Marketing: The Company produces in mass and sells in mass. The products will be of lesser variety, and will be cheap. Customers do not perceive brand recognition. This approach may work when the customer doesn't have any other option, i.e., seller's market. The advantage is 'economy of scale'. - 1:1 Marketing: Costs are exorbitantly high. This kind of marketing is done keeping in mind that every customer is unique. For eg: Designing of houses. - Group marketing: This approach of marketing is somewhere in between mass marketing and 1:1 marketing. The marketer provides a customized product to a group of people. This has the advantages of both Customized and Mass Marketing.