What is Marketing

Marketing

What is Marketing

Any successful business service organization requires a team with a sales force to drive its operations. With good analytical skills, a willingness to learn and good customer orientation, marketing involves an integrated set of strategies for selling products and services or ideas. Sincerely, Marketing is a social and managerial function associated with the process of researching, developing, promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service. The customer is the king and so marketing goes beyond selling and advertising. The right marketing team could build and develop the business and reap the rewards of any business opportunity.

The essence of marketing is to understand the customer needs and develop a plan that surrounds those needs. The most effective way to grow and expand any business is by focusing an organic growth. What increases revenue and profit is to acquire more customers. By acquiring more customers, the company increases customer base and then revenues come from a larger base.

How can you use marketing to acquire more customers?

  • Create a strategic marketing plan.
  • Guide your product development to reach out to customers you aren't currently attracting.
  • Price your products and services competitively.
  • Develop your message and materials based on solution marketing.

Feel the importance of a target market

When it comes to customers, its important to pitch your marketing efforts to the right niche market, to be successful and productive. Understand that only a proportion of the population is likely to purchase the product or idea. So, in order to save money and time, select the target market and position your product. It’s best to start by focusing on what your target demographic group needs have in common. This can be done by market research. What do they all want that your business can provide? What is important to them?

Once you've found the common denominating need you can determine what it is that they are in search of and develop your value proposition around that need. To be successful,

  • Create a strong differential between you and your competitors
  • Increase not only the quantity but the quality of prospective leads
  • Gain market share in your targeted segments
  • Improve your operation efficiency

Though marketing differs between small and larger business, the five basic questions that remain answered are:

For small business owners, budget is limited. A combination of sales activities with marketing tactics would be the accurate way to market a small business. By interacting with your prospective customers and clients, a research itself is possible, which is priceless.

  1. What is your Business (Mission)?
  2. Who is your client?
  3. What does the client consider value?
  4. What is the plan?
  5. What are our evaluation criteria?

A marketing plan can include the following:

  • Your associates can be invited to participate in co-op advertising
  • Make existing customers satisfied by buying incentives.
  • To boost business, maintain proper media relations. By way of publicity, the product or service can be better positioned.
  • Above all, when you spend money on marketing, make sure you create a way to track those marketing efforts.

Ensure that the product or service receives publicity by generating exposure in as many different media outlets. The key to generating the most media interest is media interaction over an extended period of time-weekly/monthly follow ups, prompt fulfillment of media requests etc. Though the client has a great product, the consumers may not be aware of it. The media should be notified of this interesting and remarkable product theta their readers or viewers would be interested in. Also, try to

What Marketing does?

  • Opportunity for long-term planning, promise of a positive and productive relationship with the clientele.
  • Analyses client needs.
  • Determines how the resulting product will be packaged, promoted and distributed.

Keys to Marketing

  • Segmentation

    Recognize the market clusters that exist in your target audience.

    What differentiates each group? What makes them unique?

  • Targeting

    Choose the group that will be the focus of your campaign.

  • Positioning

    What message do you want to convey?

    How do you want your audience to see you?

The 5 Most Important Questions

  1. What is your Business (Mission)?
  2. Who is your client?
  3. What does the client consider value?
  4. What is the plan?
  5. What are our evaluation criteria?

Marketing Tips

  • More than selling
  • Understand your client’s needs,
  • Develop plans that reflect those needs,
  • Support the Marketing function,
  • Develop a specialized program of training,
  • Find ways to sell / distribute products and services more efficiently.

Steps included in Marketing

  • Concept

    Marketing concept begins with the production and sales concept

  • Process

    Explanation of situation analysis, marketing strategy, marketing mix decisions and implementation and control

  • Situation Analysis

    Application of 5 C’s of marketing

    • Company
    • Collaborators
    • Customers
    • Competitors
    • Climate
  • Definition

    Defining the scope of potential, available, qualified, target and penetrated market

  • Segmentation

    Needs, requirements and base for segmenting industrial and consumer market

  • Analysis

    Analysis of the size, growth, profitability, cost structure, distribution channels, trends and key success factors

  • Target market

    Short list you 5 target market strategies

  • 4 marketing mix

    Application of 4 P’s of marketing

    • Product
    • Price
    • Place
    • Promotion
  • Brand equity

    Outline the aspects of building, managing and protecting brand equity

  • Pricing strategy

    Include the objectives and methods while pricing a product, service or idea.