Summary Book ‘Marketing – Concepts
and Strategies’ 7th edition
Lecture 1 – Introduction to marketing, Chapter 1 : The marketing Concept
Marketing’s primary aim is the identification of target markets and the satisfaction of these customers,
now and in the future.
Effective marketing involves an analytical process combining marketing analysis, strategizing and the
creation of marketing programmes designed to implement a designated marketing strategy.
Marketing strategy is the formation of a target market strategy and a basis for competing in order to
focus on the opportunities prioritized by the organization.
Marketing is responsible for:
Understanding markets, developing market insights and being the eyes and ears for an
organization. In terms of identifying threats and new business opportunities, tracking
competition and staying on top of changing customer expectations.
Shaping an organization’s strategy in terms of the selection of which opportunities to pursue,
target market decisions and competitive positioning.
Managing brands and creating compelling product value propositions.
Managing customers’ experience in order to maximize revenue.
Campaigns, advertising, brand strategy and marketing research.
An organization with a marketing orientation has a sound understanding of customer needs, buying
behaviour and the issues influencing the purchasing choices of customers. Has an appreciation of
competitors and external marketing environment forces and trends. Ensuring that the organizations’
strategy and capabilities are modified to reflect not just current market requirements but also future
market conditions.
A marketing orientation is of significant benefit to an organization as it facilitates a better
understanding of customers and helps a business to prepare for external market developments, threats
and opportunities.
Marketing consists of individual and organizational activities that facilitate and expedite satisfying
exchange relationships in a dynamic environment through the creation, distribution, promotion and
pricing of goods, services and ideas.
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer
requirements profitable.
The forces of the marketing environment: factors that may affect customers’ views and the activities
of organizations operating in a particular market; external changing forces within the trading
environment social trends, technological enhancements, economic patterns and changes in the legal
and regulatory area and political influences.
In developing unique marketing programmes for individual market segments (groups of customers) an
organization must prioritize which particular groups of customers it has the ability to serve and which
will provide satisfactory returns.
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,In deciding which segments to target, an organization must be clear about the image (brand
positioning) it intends to offer to each group of customers.
ASP of the marketing process: Analysis first, then Strategy decisions with the formulation of marketing
Programmes.
Definitions of marketing:
Marketing consists of activities marketing of products/services requires many activities. Only
the activities aimed at facilitating and expediting exchanges.
Marketing is performed by individuals and organizations businesses as well as not-for-profit
and public-sector organizations perform marketing activities. Also for example politicians.
Marketing facilitates satisfying exchange relationships for an exchange to take place, four
conditions must exist
1) Two or more individuals, groups or organizations must participate
2) Each party must possess something of value that the other party desires (products and/or
financial resources)
3) Each party must be willing to give up its ‘something of value’ to receive the something of
value held by the other party. The objective of a marketing exchange is to receive something
that is desired more than that which is given up to get it. Reward in excess of costs.
4) The parties to exchange must be able to communicate with each other to make their
something of value available.
An exchange will not necessarily take place just because there four conditions exist.
An exchange should be satisfying to both the buyer and the seller.
Customer satisfaction is the most important concept in a definition of marketing a state
that results when an exchange meets the needs and expectations of the buyer.
Marketing occurs in a dynamic environment the marketing environment consists of many
external changing forces within the trading environment.
Marketing involves products, distribution, promotion, pricing and people.
Marketing focuses on goods, services and ideas.
- Product = a good, service or idea
- Good = a physical entity that can be touched
- Service = the application of human and mechanical efforts to people or objects in order to
provide intangible benefits to customers
- Idea = a concept, philosophy, image or issue
An organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value
to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and
its stakeholders.
The marketing process: analysis of market conditions, the creation of an appropriate marketing
strategy, the development of marketing programmes designed to action the agrees strategy and finally,
the implementation and control of the marketing strategy and its associated marketing programmes.
The importance of marketing:
Marketing activities are carried out in many organizations should enable an organization to
understand its customers and stakeholders better, address competitors’ activities and market
developments, and effectively harness its capabilities.
Marketing activities are important to organizations and the economy marketing activities help
to sell an organization’s products. They generate financial resources that can be used to develop
innovative products. New products allow a company to satisfy customers’ changing needs more
efficiently, which in turn enables the company to generate more profits.
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, Marketing knowledge enhances consumer awareness help to improve quality of life. The need
for improvement and ways to accomplish changes can be determined.
Marketing costs consume a sizeable proportion of buyers’ incomes many marketing activities
are necessary to provide people with satisfying goods and services.
Business performance marketing puts an emphasis on satisfying customers. An organization
should benefit from customer loyalty and advantages over its rivals, while making the most
efficient use of resources to effectively address the specific requirements of those markets it
chooses to target. Marketing should provide a financial benefit and a greater sense of well-being
for the organization.
The marketing concept and its evolution:
Marketing concept: the philosophy that an organization should try to provide products that
satisfy customers’ needs through a coordinated set of activities that also allows the organization
to achieve its goals.
Customer satisfaction is the major aim of the marketing concept.
The marketing concept is not a definition of marketing, it is a way of thinking a management
philosophy guiding an organizations’ overall activities.
The philosophy of marketing concept emerged in the third major era in the history of business,
preceded by production era (1) and the sales era (2, products would have to be sold, viewed
sales as the major means of increasing profits). It took nearly 40 years after the marketing era
(3, first determine what customers wanted and then produce it) began before many
organizations started to adopt the marketing concept.
More advanced marketing-led companies have now entered the relationship marketing era
(4) in which the focus is not only on expediting the single transaction but on developing
ongoing relationships with customers to maintain lifetime share of wallet. Long-term mutually
beneficial arrangements in which both the buyer and the seller focus on value enhancement
through the creation of more satisfying exchanges.
Digital era (5) digital media, the surge in internet usage and the uptake of personal mobile
communications and information provision, have fostered changing consumer behaviour,
greater consumer-to-consumer influence on brands and purchasing decisions and business-to-
business interaction.
Digital marketing = the use of the web, computers and smartphones, radio and TV to attract,
engage and build relationships with customers and other target audiences.
Social marketing: uses tools and techniques from commercial marketing to make interventions
which encourage positive behavioural changes, such as quitting smoking, reducing alcohol
consumption, minimizing anti-social behaviours or reducing carbon footprint, to enhance the
health and well-being of individuals, society and the planet.
Critical marketing: involves challenging orthodox views that are central to the core principles
of the discipline. Sometimes this involves promoting radical philosophies and theories in
relation to the understanding of the economies, society, markets and consumers, which may
have implications for the practice of marketing.
The essentials of marketing:
Marketing analyses marketing personnel need access to good quality marketing intelligence
about customers, competitors, marketing environment forces and the organization’s capabilities,
marketing assets and performance.
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, Marketing strategy a marketing strategy involves the selection of new opportunities to pursue
and current activities to support, identification of associated target markets and competitive
positioning, in order to deliver the specified performance goals in the corporate strategy.
Articulates a plan for the best use of the organization’s resources and directs the required tactics
to meet its objectives.
Marketing opportunity analysis a marketing opportunity exists when circumstances allow an
organization to take action towards reaching a particular group of customers. An opportunity
provides a favourable chance or opening for a company to generate sales from identifiable
markets for specific products or services.
Internal organizational factors the primary factors inside an organization to be considered
when analysing marketing opportunities and devising target market strategies are organizational
objectives, financial resources, managerial skills, organizational strengths and weaknesses, and
cost structures.
Marketing environment forces the marketing environment surrounds the buyer (consumer)
and the organization’s marketing mix. Marketing environment forces:
- influence customers by affection or regulating their lifestyles, standards of living, preferences
and needs for products
- help determine whether and how a marketing manager can perform certain marketing
activities
- may affect a marketing manager’s decisions and actions by influencing buyers’ reactions to the
company’s marketing mix
- may provide an organization with a window of opportunity over rivals that fail to notice the
market development or that take no action themselves.
Target market selection a target market is a group of people for whom a company creates and
maintains a marketing mix that specifically fits the needs and preferences of possible markets to
see how entering them would affect the company’s sales, costs and profits. Target market selection
is crucial to generating productive marketing efforts.
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