WHAT NEW COMPANIES SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MARKETING - PART 1. By Tom Gabriel

PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING.

 WHAT IS MARKETING?
   
Marketing, more than any other business function, deals with customers.
Although we will explore more detailed definitions of marketing later in this chapter, perhaps the simplest definition is this one: Marketing is the delivery of customer satisfaction at a profit. The two goals of marketing is to attract new customers by promising them superior value and to keep old customers by delivering satisfaction.
   
Wal-mart has become the world’s largest retailer by delivering on its promise, “ALWAYS LOW PRICES - ALWAYS”. FedEx dominates the U.S. small package freight industry by consistently making good on its promise of fast, reliable small-package delivery. Coca-Cola, long the world’s leading soft drink, delivers on the simple but enduring promise, ”ALWAYS Coca-Cola” – always thirst-quenching, always good with food, always cool, always part of your life. These and other highly successful companies know that if they take care of their customers, market share and profits will follow.

You already know a lot about marketing, it’s all around you. You see the results of marketing in the abundance of products in your nearby shopping mall. You see marketing in the advertisements that fill your TV, spice up your magazines, stuff your mail box, or enliven your internet pages. At home, school or where you work, you are exposed to marketing, yet there is much more to marketing than meets the consumer’s casual eye.

Many people think of marketing only as selling and advertising. It is no wonder everyday we are bombarded with television commercials, newspaper adverts, direct mail campaigns, internet pitches and sales calls. However, selling and advertising are only the tip of the marketing iceberg. Although they are important, but they are only two of many marketing functions and are often not the most important ones.
Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making a sale- “telling and selling” – but in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. Selling occurs only after a product is produced. By contrast, marketing starts long before a company has a product. Marketing is the homework that managers undertake to assess needs, measure their extent and intensity, and determine whether a profitable opportunity exists.

Marketing continues throughout the product’s life, trying to find new customers and keep current customers by improving  product appeal and performance, learning from product sales results, and managing repeat performance. If the marketer does a good job of understanding consumer needs, develops products that provide superior value, and prices, distributes, and promotes them effectively, these products will sell very easily. Thus, selling and advertising are only part of a larger “marketing mix” – a set of marketing tools that work together to affect the market place.

Thus, we can define Marketing as a social and managerial process whereby individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.                           

WATCH OUT FOR PART 2.

Twitter.com/realtblaize

www.tomblaize.blogspot.com