Approach and Concept
Marketing is far more than just selling, although higher sales are obviously the ultimate aim. Rather, marketing is a whole collection of activities including advertising, selling and sales promotion, marketing research, introduction of new products, pricing, packaging, distribution and after sales service.
Approaches to Marketing
One approach to marketing is to regard it as the process of finding customers for goods which the firm has already decided to supply. In this case there is much emphasis on face to face customer contact, price cutting, heavy advertising and sales promotions. It might be assumed that customers will always want to purchase well-constructed items that are made available to them at low cost: that all a firm needs to do is offer for sale high quality, sound value product with many attractive features, provide effective after-sales service, and then the goods will ‘sell themselves’.
The Marketing Concept
Alternatively, the firm might seek to evaluate market opportunities before production, assess potential demand for the good, determine the product characteristics desired by consumers, predict the prices consumers are willing to play, and then supply goods corresponding to the needs and wants of target markets more effectively than competitors, business adopting the latter approach are said to apply the marketing concept.
Adherence to the marketing concept means the firm conceives and develops product that satisfy consumer wants. Note however that:
- consumers demand can be and frequently is created and manipulated through advertising campaigns
- unquestioning adoption of the concept could lead to the productions of items that are highly attractive to consumers but which nevertheless are expensive to supply and thus generate negligible profit.
Practical application of the marketing concept implies the full integration of marketing with other business activities (design, production, costing, transport, and distribution, corporate strategy and planning) so that the marketing department assumes extraordinary importance within the firm. Numerous conflicts with other functions arise from situation.
The Marketing Mix
In 1965 Professor N. H. Borden coined the phrase ‘marketing mix’ to describe the combination of marketing element used in given set of circumstances. Appropriate mixes vary depending on the firm and industry, and over time. Professor E. J. McCarty subsequently summarized the