Concept of marketing

23 November 2008 - 13:06

In order to be able to apply marketing efficiently in a business, it is necessary that in the first place we have or the clear one which is its concept and which are their main functions or stages.

Many owners of business think that marketing is only related to the publicity or the promotion, when the truth is that marketing includes many other aspects.

In this summary we will see which is the definition of marketing and which are their main functions or stages so that, that way, knowing in clearly it, becomes easier to know to us how and when to apply marketing in our business.

Marketing (or marketing research) is the set of actions that can be realized for all the referring one to the relation that exists between the market (or the consumers) and a business or company. Action such as the compilation of information coming from the market (for example, to know needs or tastes the consumers), the product design (that are in charge to satisfy these needs or tastes), the information of the existence of our products to the consumers, the distribution of our products to the consumers, etc.

In other words, when we are compiling market information, when we are designing a product, when it we are publicitando and when it we are distributing (all of them referring actions to the relation that is between the market and a business), is that we are applying marketing.

Functions or stages of marketing

We see now which are the main functions or stages of marketing:

1. Analysis of the business opportunities

This function or stage consists of identifying and analyzing the business opportunities that can exist in the market. A business opportunity usually is related to the opportunity to create a first business, nevertheless, this function or stage can be given when or we counted on a business in march, in which case, business opportunities could be the opportunity to create new complementary products to which or we have, opportunity to penetrate in new markets, to bet by a new heading of business, to create new societies or alliances, etc.

2. Segmentation and selection of markets

This function or stage consists of dividing or segmenting the total market that exist for our product, in different homogenous markets (groups of consumers with similar characteristics), and then, to select among these resulting markets, the market or the markets that are more attractive to penetrate.

The reason of segmenting the market is that he is not profitable to penetrate in all the existing market for a product, most reasonable is to only focus to us in a certain type of consumer, to specialize us in him and, that way, power to be more efficient.

3. Analysis and prognosis of the demand

This function or stage consists of studying our public or objective market (which we have determined in the stage of market segmentation), we analyzed its tastes, its desires, its needs, its preferences of consumption, its habits of consumption, its behaviors of purchase (when they buy, why they buy, each how long buy), etc. and, simultaneously, we tried to foretell how many them they would be had to invest in our products or services, that is to say, how much could promote our sales for a period of certain time.

The analysis of the demand will allow us to know our objective public well and, that way, to be able to design our strategies of marketing that better adapt him.

Whereas the prognosis of the demand allows us to have an idea of how much they could promote our sales and, that way, to be able to realize our other budgets of purchases, production, expenses, etc.

4. Analysis of the competition

This function or stage consists of to study and to analyze to our competitors, to determine how many they are, which are the main ones, where they are located, which are their markets, which are their main strategies, which is its experience, their capacity, their strengths, their weaknesses, etc.

The analysis of the competition allows us to take advantage from the information that we pruned to collect of our competitors, for example, we can take like reference the strategies that are using and that are giving good results them, we can lead to us markets that they are not taking into account and which they could be attractive, we can choose to reduce our prices if we discovered that their production costs are high or they are not producing, etc.

5. Design of the marketing strategies

This function or stage consists of designing the referring strategies to four aspects of the business (product, price, place and promotion) according to the characteristics of our public objective (which we have determined in the stage of market segmentation, and studied and analyzed in the stage of the analysis of the demand) and to our competition (which we have studied and analyzed in the stage of the analysis of the competition).

In other words, this function or stage consists of formulating, evaluating and to select the marketing strategies that allow us to satisfy the needs or desires with our public or objective market, and that allows us to compete suitably with our competitors.

Examples of marketing strategies can be: launching of new products or services, reduction of prices, design of new vein channels or distribution, new advertizing techniques, new promotions, etc.

6. Organization and implementation

This function or stage consists of which, once already we have designed our strategies of marketing, we organized and we determined our objectives, the procedures, the means and the indicated people that they will be in charge to realize these strategies. And, next we implemented, them or we executed.

7. Control

This function or stage consists of which once already we have implemented our strategies of marketing, we made sure that they are being applied correctly, that the proposed objectives are being reached, we evaluated thus that the obtained results correspond with the proposed objectives and, in case of not being, we took the corrective measures.

Labels: Concepts, Marketing

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