What is Marketing?
Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives (The American Marketing Association)
Marketing focuses on exchange. For exchange to occur, there must be:
1. Two or more parties with something of value to one another.
2. A desire and ability to give up something to other party
3. A way to communicate with each other.
Relationship Marketing:
Today, most marketers are seeking more than just a one-time exchange or transaction with costumers. The focus of market-driven companies is on developing and sustaining relationships with their costumers. This has led to a new emphasis on relationship marketing, which involves creating, maintaining, and enhancing long-term relationship with individual customers as well as other stakeholders for mutual benefit.
The Marketing Mix:
Marketing facilitates the exchange process and the development of relationships by carefully examining the needs and wants of consumers, developing a product or service that satisfies these needs, offering it at a certain price, making it available through a particular place or channel of distribution, and developing a program of promotion or communication to create awareness and interest.
These four Ps - product, price, place (distribution), and promotion-Are elements of the marketing mix.
The basic task of marketing is combining these four elements into a marketing program to facilitate the potential for exchange with consumers in the marketplace.
The Evolution of IMC
During the 1980s, many companies came to see the need for more of a strategic integration of their promotional tools. These firms began moving toward the process of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), which involves coordinating the various promotional elements and other marketing activities that communicate with a firm’s customers.
A task force from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (the”4As”) developed one of the first definitions of Integrated Marketing Communications:
“a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines – for example, general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations- and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communications impact.”
The Role of Promotion:
Promotion has been defined as the coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion to sell goods and services or promote an idea.
While implicit communication occurs through the various elements of the marketing mix, most of an organization’s communications with the marketplace take place as part of a carefully planned and controlled promotional program.
The basic tools used to accomplish an organization's communication objectives are often referred to as the promotional mix
Advertising:
Advertising is defined as any paid form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor. The paid aspect of this definition reflects the fact that the space or time for an advertising message generally must be bought.
Direct Marketing:
One of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy is direct marketing, in which organizations communicate directly with target customers to generate a response and or a transaction.
One of the major tools of direct marketing is direct-response advertising, whereby a product is promoted through an ad that encourages the consumer to purchase directly from the manufacturer.
Traditionally, direct mail has been the primary medium for direct-response advertising, although television and magazines have become increasingly important media.
Interactive/Internet Marketing:
Interactive media allow for a back-and-forth flow of information whereby users can participate in and modify the form and content of the information they receive in real time. Unlike traditional forms of marketing communication such as advertising, which are one-way in nature, these new media allow users to perform a variety of function such as receive and alter information and images, make inquiries, respond to questions, and, of course, make purchases.
Sales Promotion:
The next variable in the promotional mix is sales promotion, which is generally defined as those marketing activities that provide extra value or incentives to the sales force, distributors, or the ultimate consumer and can stimulate immediate sales. Sales promotion is generally broken into two major categories: consumer – oriented and trade oriented activities.
Public Relations/Publicity:
Public Relations is defined as the management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organization with the public interest, and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.
Publicity refers to nonpersonal communications regarding an organization, product, service, or idea not directly paid for or run under identified sponsorship. It usually comes in the form of a new story, editorial, or announcement about an organization and or its products and services.
Personal Selling:
The final element of an organization’s promotional mix is personal selling, a form of person-to-person communication in which seller attempts to assist and/or persuade prospective buyers to purchase the company’s product or service or to act on an idea. Unlike advertising, personal selling involves direct contact between buyer and seller, either face-to-face or through some form of telecommunications such as telephone sales.
