Principles Of Marketing Overview Notes

What Is Marketing Summary

• Who marketers are where they work and marketing’s role in a firm - Marketers come from many different backgrounds and work in a variety of locations, from consumer goods companies to NGO’s to financial institutions to advertising and PR agencies. Marketing’s role in the firm depends on the organisation. Some firms are very marketing orientated whereas others do not focus on marketing, therefore no matter what firm marketers work in their decisions affect and are affected by other firms operations.

• What marketing is and how it provides value to everyone in the marketing process – Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders Therefore marketing is all about delivering value to everyone who is affected by a transaction.

• The range of services and goods that are marketed – Any good, service or idea that can be marketed is a product even though what is being sold may not take a physical form. Consumer goods are the tangible products that consumers purchase for personal or family use. Services are intangible products that we pay for and use but never own. Industrial goods are those goods sold to businesses and other organisations for further processing or for use in their own business operations. NGO’s, people and places can also be marketed.

• Value from the perspectives of the customers, producers and society – Value is the benefits a customer receives from buying a product or service. Marketing communicates these benefits as the value proposition for the customer. For customers the value proposition includes the whole bundle of benefits the product promises to deliver not just the benefits of the product itself. Sellers determine value by assessing whether its transactions are profitable, whether it is providing value to stakeholders by creating a competitive advantage and whether it is providing value through its value chain. Society receives value from marketing activities when producers and consumers engage in ethical, profitable and environmentally friendly exchange relationships. One of the newest developments in marketing is that consumers themselves are playing an increasingly better role in generating value on behalf of marketers in addition to consuming it.

• The basics of marketing planning and the marketing mix tools used in the marketing process – The strategic process of marketing planning begins with an assessment of factors within the organisation and in the external environment that could help or hinder the development and marketing of products, On the basis of this analysis, marketers set objectives and develop strategies. Many firms use a target marketing strategy in which they divide the overall market into segments and then target the most attractive one. Then they design the marketing mix to gain a competitive position in the target market. The marketing mix includes product, price, place and promotion. The product is what satisfies customer needs. The price reflects the customer assigned value or amount to be exchanged for the product. The place or channel of distribution gets the product to the customer. Promotion is the organisations efforts to persuade customers to buy the product,

• The evolution of the marketing concept – Early in the 20^th century, firms followed a production orientation in which they focused on the most efficient ways to produce and distribute products. Beginning in the 1930’s some firms adopted a selling orientation that encouraged salespeople to aggressively sell products to customers. In the 1950’s organisations adopted a consumer orientation that focused on customer satisfaction. This led to the development of the marketing concept. Today many firms are moving toward a New Era orientation that includes not only commitment to quality and value but also a concern for both economic and social profit.

Strategy and Environment Summary

• Explain the strategic planning process – Strategic planning is the managerial decision process in which top management defines the firm’s purpose and specifies what the firm hopes to achieve over the next five years or so. For large firms that have a number of self-contained business units the first step in strategic planning is for top management to establish a mission for the entire corporation. Top managers then evaluate the internal and external environment of the business and set corporate level objectives that guide decision making within each individual SBU. In small firms that are not large enough to have separate SBU’s strategic planning simply takes place at the overall firm level. For companies with several different SBUs strategic planning also includes making decisions about how to allocate resources for the whole organisation and developing growth strategies,

• Describe the steps in marketing planning – Marketing planning is one type of functional planning. Marketing planning begins with an evaluation of the internal and external environments. Marketing managers then set marketing objectives usually related to the firm’s brands, sizes, product features and other marketing mix related elements. Next, marketing managers select the target markets for the organisation and decide what marketing mix strategies they will use. Product strategies include decisions about products and product characteristics that will appeal to the target market. Pricing strategies state the specific prices to be charged to channel members and final consumers. Promotion strategies include plans for advertising, sales promotion, public relations, publicity, personal selling and direct marketing used to reach the target market. Distribution strategies outline how the product will be made available to targeted customers when and where they want it. Once marketing strategies are developed they must be implemented. Control is the...

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