Marketing: Yesterday And Today

Marketing by definition is the process of discovering the needs and wants of potential buyers and customers and then providing goods and services that meet or exceed their expectations. In order for a company to supply a product to the consumer, the company must first determine if there is a need for their product. Depending on the type of product a company is trying to sell will determine the market they target. For instance, if an automobile company wants to compete in today's market they must always try to stay on the cutting edge of technology. By doing this, they are more likely to come up with a product that will entice customers to want to buy their product.

Marketing concept is what many companies have developed to identify consumer needs and fulfill those needs with goods or services while making a profit. Marketing concept involves:

* Focusing on customer wants so the organization can distinguish its product from competitors' offerings.

* Integrating all of the organization's activities, including production, to satisfy these wants.

* Achieving long-term goals for the organization by satisfying customer wants and needs legally and responsibly.

During the Industrial Revolution, companies did not always follow the marketing concept. Between 1860-1910, firms worked off of what is called a production orientation. Production orientation meant companies worked to provide lower production costs without a strong desire to satisfy the needs of the customer. Even though production orientation helps the company determine how to increase productivity, it does not always determine that what the company is most efficient in producing will meet the needs of the marketplace.

Customer value is basically where a company believes that price is not the only thing that matters to a customer. BellSouth is this type of company. BellSouth relies on providing good customer service and having an established name. BellSouth uses its good name and reputation for good customer service to compete against other telecommunication companies that may have cheaper prices.

Creating a marketing strategy is also important to a company in today's ever changing market. There are four main components to developing a customer-focused marketing strategy: understanding the external environment, defining the target market, creating a competitive advantage, and developing a marketing mix. Understanding the external environment is where companies must collect and evaluate information about the environment that they are planning to target. By determining a companies target market, they are able to concentrate on a specific group of customers that are most likely to purchase their products. The next thing a company must do is create a competitive advantage. By creating a competitive advantage, a company is setting itself apart from similar companies based on cost, product or service differential, and niche. Once a company combines these three things to the best of their ability, they have created for themselves a competitive advantage.

The next, and possibly most important, part of the marketing strategy is developing a marketing mix. A marketing mix is the blend of product offering, pricing, promotional methods, and distribution system that brings a specific group of consumer's superior value. The marketing mix is based on the four P's: product, price, promotion, and place. If a company is successful in developing the right market mix, they are more likely to succeed in today's fast changing market.

Let's take a brief look at the four P strategies. Product strategy involves choosing a brand name, packaging, colors, warranty, accessories, and service program. Pricing strategy involves choosing a price for the product based on demand for the product. Promotion strategy involves the advertising and public relations. The final P, place, ensures that the product finds its way to the location it needs to be when it needs to be there.

By studying buyer behavior, marketing managers can better understand why people make purchases. Managers may use something called market segmentation to determine if a target market will be profitable for their company. Market segmentation is a process of separating, identifying and evaluating the layers of a market in order to design a marketing mix. The five basic types of market segmentation are: demographic, geographic, psychographic, benefit, and volume. Demographic uses categories such as age, gender, race and social class while geographic may use regional location and climate. Psychographic studies personality, values and interests, benefit are the benefits the product may provide and volume is the amount of usage.

Once a company has an established market, they look to increase their target market by doing what is commonly known as marketing research. Marketing research is planning, collecting, and analyzing data relevant to a marketing decision. If a company is having a marketing problem, the most important thing to do is define and understand what the problem is. If the problem is not properly defined, it can be the cause of wasted time and money.

To discover what customer's value most, many companies are starting to rely on innovative technology. For example, decision support system (DD) is an interactive and flexible computerized information system that allows managers to make decisions quickly and accurately. DDS is commonly used to analyze and forecast sales, evaluate advertising and keep tabs on market trends and competitors' actions. One of the fastest growing uses of DDS is database