Marketing

Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires and satisfies those needs and desires in the target market. Marketing entails an entire process that involves identifying opportunities in the market that have potential to make a profit, developing a new product, attracting the customer to the product or service, keeping the customers, building brand loyalty, and creating value for customers. Companies that do this well are successful marketers. Marketing is no longer just a [Page 1078]department in a company; various departments work together to market a product or service. Nowadays marketing starts even before there is a product. It is effective only if the company is successful in delivering the promised value and satisfaction.

In simple terms, marketing encompasses everything a company does to place its product or service in the hands of its target market. The target market is the potential customers of that product or service. People no longer just buy the product; they buy the ideas behind the product—ideas of what that particular product would do for them. Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks both sell coffee and both are successful chains. Dunkin Donuts' target market is serious coffee drinkers who need a quick inexpensive cup of coffee on their way to work.

Starbucks, on the other hand, is marketing not just coffee but an entire experience, lifestyle, variety, flavor, and music to its target market. The Starbucks target market is customers who want not just coffee but ambiance, a place to relax, read, work, meet friends, listen to new music, etc. At Starbucks, people are buying the concept of flavor, ambiance, and fun. Marketers today take time to discover who their target market is and how to reach them.

There are two types of marketing: lateral and vertical. Lateral marketing is to create a new market. In lateral marketing, an existing product is transformed to satisfy new customers. Cereal manufacturers realized that the market was saturated and there was no more room for growth. A European company took cereal and turned it into a healthy snack that can be eaten any time, not just for breakfast, and thus a new market for healthy cereal snacks was developed. In vertical marketing, potential customers are converted and a new market is developed. It is a niche market. An example is technology-oriented products. The real goal of marketing is to own a market rather than compete for a market. Apple, Ikea, Wal-Mart, and http://Amazon.com are all great examples of companies that realized that to invent a new market is better than competing for share.

Marketing decisions can be categorized as a mix of the 4Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. Professor Jerry McCarthy introduced the 4Ps framework in the first edition of his book Marketing, published in 1960. Marketers make decisions based on these 4Ps in the target market.

Product

The integral part of the marketing mix is the product. A product is anything that can satisfy the target markets needs and wants. A product includes more than a physical good or service. It can be a person (Tiger Woods, political figures, Madonna), a place (Niagara Falls, Disney World, Hawaii), an organization (Red Cross, Girl Scouts), and also ideas (quit smoking, drive safely). A product is designed, manufactured, and presented to the target market for sale. In order to decide what product to offer to the market, the marketer researches and thinks about what product will add value, provide a benefit, fulfill the end user's needs. A product can be an existing product line or a new product. Brand name, quality, style, features, functions, etc., have to be kept in mind in terms of the product. Characteristics of a product need to be defined.

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