MARKETING KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL COMPETITIVE EXAMS

MARKETING KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL COMPETITIVE EXAMS

NATURE AND SCOPE OF MARKETING

Marketing can occur any time a person or organization strives to exchange something of val e with another person or organization. Thus, at its core marketing is a transaction or exchange. In this broad sense, marketing consists of activities designed to generate and facilitate exchanges intended to satisfy human organizational needs or wants.

Definition of Marketing : Marketing is a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote, and distribute want satisfying products to target markets in order to achieve organizational objectives. This definition has two significant implications :

William J. Stanton has defined marketing as "a total system of interacting business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products and services to present and potential customers.

Nature of Marketing

1. Marketing is both consumer-oriented and com Jetitors-oriented.

2. It starts with consumers and ends at consumers by satisfying their needs.

3. Marketing is the most important function of management. .

4. The long-term objective of marketing is profit maximisation through customer satisfaction.

5. Marketing is an integrated process which is based on strateQies and models.

6. Marketing must deliver goods and services in exchange of money.

FUNCTIONS OF MARKETING

Functions of exchange :

(i) Buying Function.

(ii) Assembling Function
(iii) Selling Function

Functions of physical distribution

(i) Transportation

(ii) Inventory Management. It includes :

- Short-term sales forecasting

- Product mix at stocking points

- Number, size and location of stocking points

- Just in time (JIT) or push or pulls strategies.

(iii) Warehousing. It includes the following functions:

- Space determination

- Stock layout and design

- Stock placement

(iv) Material handling

Functions of facilities 

(i) Financing

(ii) Risk-taking

(iii) Standardisation

(iv) After-sales Services

Mass Marketing: Mass marketing was the greatest innovation of the twentieth century. Mass marketing techniques were invented to sell the mass produced goods when the Industrial Revolution took off.

Many factors were favourable for mass marketing to be successful is this century. One of the major contributing factors was the emergence and growth of mass media. All this resulted in the institution of marketing itself. The interaction between the seller ami the buyer was reduced to a mere economic transaction.

Niche Marketing : Niche marketing is a technique where marketing plays a specialist role in a particular segment. There are several examples of Niche Marketing:

(i) Quality Specialist
(ii) Service Specialist

(iii) Product Line Specialist

Strategic Marketing : Strategic marketing is a decision-making process that involves the analysis of internal capabilities and external environments of a firm in order to efficiently and efficiently use marketing resources to achieve organisational objectives ..

STIMULATION MARKETING

Under a no demand state, people are not interested in purchasing the product. Special offers, therefore, have to be made to create a demand by stimulating the people who were indifferent.

Synchro marketing : Synchormarketing indicates irregular demand. Under this state, the demand is more than supply:

Demarketing : Under demarketing, the demand for a product exceeds the supply ; and this is known as overfull demand.

Remarketing : Remarketing is associated with what. is known as "faltering demand", which is invariably found for all kinds of products, services, places, organisation, etc. In such a situation, a further decline in demand for the product is possible, if no remedial action is taken to revitalise the target market.

TYPES OF GOODS

(a) Producer Goods/Industrial Goods: Goods are not purchased for self-use; but for organisational use. Unit price is high. These goods are used to produce other goods in an industry. Unit required is few, e.g., laths, shaper, planer, motor, etc.

(b) Consumer Goods: As the name suggests, the goods are directly used by the consumers. Quantity required is large and price is not the criteria. Need is the main criteria.

(c) Durable Goods :It can be new demand altogether or demand may arise due to expansion or after some time the replacement demand arises. If 10% of the existing cars are to be replaced every year, then it may increase annual car population say by 5% only.

(d) Derived Demand: Many a time, the demand of product A is derived/linked with the demand pattern of another product b. Demand of T.V. antenna is totally dependent on the sale of new. T.Vs. This is derived demand.

(e) Convenience Goods/Staple Goods: These goods are purchased frequently and immediately. The buyer does minimum comparison immediately and makes least buying efforts.

Examples are Cigarettes, Tea, Coffee, Soap, Hair Oil, Toothpaste, Newspapers, Magazine etc.

(f) Emergency Goods: Ice Cream, Butter, Biscuits, Nuts, Toffies, etc. are examples of emergency goods. These are purchased in emergency only like umbrella in rains.

(g) Shopping Goods : Here consumer normally compares price, quality, delivery, etc. Spends time in purchasing like furniture, clothes, major households appliances etc.

(h) Speciality Goods : Here consumer is brand conscious ar;ld he makes special effort to buy them like special type of Cars- Sports, Car, Gameras, Fashion goods etc.

Focus : The entire system of business activities should be customer-oriented. Customers' wants must be recognized and satisfied.

Duration : Marketing should start with an idea about a want satisfying product and should not end until th~ customers' wants are completely satisfied, which may be some time after the exchange is made.

The Mareting Concept: Managers who adopt a mar¬ket orientation recognize that marketing is vital to the succes of their organizations. This realization is reflected in a fundamental approach to doing business that gives the customer the highest priority. Called the marketing concept, it emphasizes customer orientation and coor¬dination of marketing activities to achieve the organization's performance objectives.

The Marketing concept is based on three beliefs :

- All planning and operations should be customer¬oriented ..

- All marketing activities in an organization should be coordinated.

- Customer-oriented, coordinated marketing is es-

sential to achieve the organization's performance ob-jectives.

Today the marketing concept is being applied in a number of other ways. Several of the most important developments are introduced below.

The value of a good relationship is not a new idea.

However, it is only recently that organizations, with the benefit of extensive data, have made a concerted effort at customer relationship management (CRM) - estab¬lishing multidimensional connections with a customer such that the organization is seen as a partner.

Applying this concept to their marketing programs, many firms are dedicating much of their marketing ef¬fort to building lasting relationships with selected customers.

Mass Customisation. The modern marketing sys¬tem was built on identifying a need experienced by a large-number of people (a mass market), and using mass production techniques and mass marketing (relying heavily on network television advertising) to satisfy that need.

Mass marketing is being challenged by mass customization, that is, developing, producing and delivering affordable products with enough variety and unique¬ness that nearly every potential customer can have exactly what he or she wants.

The movenent toward mass customization is made possible by the tremendous advances in information, communications and manufacturing technology. Firms are now able to learn a lot more about their current and prospective customers, and use that information in de¬signing products, manufacturing, and distribution.

Thus the marketing concept and a company's social responsibility are compatible if management strives over the long run to
(1) satisfy the wants of its product buy¬ing customers,
(2) meet the societal needs of others affected by the firm's activities, and
(3) achieve the company's performance objectives.

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