The Main Elements of Marketing

Marketing is a four step process that begins with analyzing and defining a qualified universe of potential users or buyers. After this first phase in the marketing process, a marketing professional succeeds in capturing theattention of the intended buyers within the targeted universe. Third, systematic effort must be put into getting the prospects to accept the concepts or propositions. Finally, with all three of the previous steps achieved, the marketer must convert the prospective buyer into the actual buyer by getting them to take the desired action (purchase, rent, call, download, subscribe, refer, sell, follow the law, become a member, etc.).

Marketing methods are used by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Marketing research supports these activities.

In popular usage, the term “marketing” refers to the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning that recognized that marketing is customer centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets ofactivities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language. The Four Ps are:

— Product — the product management aspect of marketing deals with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user’s needs and wants.

— Pricing — this refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts.

— Promotion — this includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.

— Place or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer, for example, retailing.

These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix. A marketer will use these variables to craft a marketing plan. Industrial products, services, and high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or b2b marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions.

For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the Four Ps must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don’t want is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers depend on marketing research to determine what consumers want and want they are willing to pay for. Marketers hope that this process will give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management is the practical application of this process.

Most companies today have a customer orientation (also called customer focus). This impliesthat the company focuses its activities and products on customer needs. Generally there are two ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach and the product innovation approach.

In the consumer-driven approach consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no point spending funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs.

In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market segments exists for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. It is claimed that if Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation.

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