Being a relatively young discipline, having emerged in the early 1900s, marketing has developed significantly as a science. Most issues which are now commonly associated with marketing were once assumed as being basic concepts of economics (e.g., price setting was viewed as a simple supply/demand issue), advertising (well developed by 1900), or in most cases were simply not yet explored (e.g., customer purchase behavior, importance of distribution partners).
However if you look around the Internet you will find marketing defined in many different ways. Traditionally, it has been a term applied to the process of bringing together buyers and sellers. It is not only the act of satisfying the needs of a particular market but includes also most visible functional areas, such as advertising and product development. Despite the common misconception, marketing is more than advertising and promotion.
Whatever definition is used in order to clarify the term of marketing it should have an orientation that focuses on satisfying customers' needs which means that the goal of creating a relationship that holds value for customers and for the organization requires that marketers should use a diverse toolkit that includes:
Target Markets – those markets and target groups that possess needs which can be covered by the marketer and its product/services
Products/Services – solution to the market's needs
Promotion – means for communicating information about the marketing solution
Distribution – means used to allow the market to obtain the solution
Pricing – means of adjusting the solution cost to the market
Services – additional options that enhance the solution's value
Each option within the marketer's toolkit is tightly integrated with all other options so that a decision in one area could and often does impact on the decisions in other areas. For instance, a change in the price of a product (e.g., lowering the price) could impact the distribution area (e.g., increases shipments, generates higher store traffic).
Additionally, options within the toolkit are affected by factors that are not controlled by the marketer. These factors include economic conditions, legal issues, technological developments, social/cultural changes, and many more. While not controllable, these external factors must be monitored since these can potentially cause considerable harm to the organization and also change customer's demand and lead to missed opportunities in the market. As part of the strategic and tactical planning process discussed above research plays a significant role in all marketing decisions areas. This means that marketing decisions should not be made without first committing time to obtaining needed information.
Two major aspects of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management).
Acquisition marketing is a four step process that begins with analyzing and defining a group of potential users or buyers, called a target group. After this first phase in the marketing process, a true marketing effort succeeds in capturing the attention of the intended buyers within the target group. Third, systematic effort must be put into accepting the concepts or propositions, offered through the marketing effort. Finally, with all three of the previous steps achieved, the marketer must convert prospective buyers into an actual buyers (purchase, rent, call, download, subscribe, sell, become a member, etc.).
Marketing methods and most importantly - marketing research - are being backed up by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Through advertising, marketing is also related to many of the creative arts.
Once a customer has converted the perspective buyer, base management marketing takes over. The process for base management urge the marketer to build a relationship, enhancing mutual benefits and improve the products/service continuously in order to protect the business from competitive encroachments.
Today, most successful marketers know that building customers for the long term holds more value to the marketer than short term sales. They also are aware that current customers who are satisfied with the purchases they have made in the past are the best source for future sales because if they have been satisfied with past purchases, they probably trust the organization. Thus, convincing these customers to make more purchases requires significantly less effort when compared to efforts and costs needed to attract new customers.
