MGT301 Merged Themes 1-13 by Abdullah

Technical Articles – MGT301

Theme No.1: Understanding Marketing

It is expected that you have some knowhow about marketing. In one way or the other you are target by some marketing campaign. Let’s understand what is marketing?

Marketing has emerged from the word market. So it must have the meaning of the word market. Market is used both as noun and verb. If we take market as noun then it is the name of a place, process or thing. It is any place where buying and selling takes place.

We call certain places as market e.g. if you want to buy grocery you must be aware of some market where grocery is available. In economics, market is a mechanism where buying and selling is regulated. Other than this, market is the set of potential and actual buyers. So here market as a noun means set of actual and potential buyers. Therefore, in this course whenever the word market will be used it means set of actual and potential buyers.

Market as a verb means to take something to its potential customer/ buyers. So, in nutshell, generally marketing is a process of taking something to its market/ customer. Let’s have a look at the definition of marketing:

“Marketing is a process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value in return”.

Marketing is a set of activities which is a value creating process to offer it to those who need it and it is offered in such a way to build relationship with those to whom it is offered. And it is created to get something in return as well. It is all about exchange of values. Certain terms in marketing are very important such as need, want and demand.

We know marketers focus on needs of customers. Need is a state of felt deprivation. Whenever you feel there is some gap or you are deprived of something, you try to fulfill it. Like hunger, thirst. What is thirst? It is the feeling of lack of fluid in your body. Whenever there is lack of fluid in your body, you feel that you need to refill it. Needs can be physical or social or personal etc. Needs cannot be created but can be fulfilled by marketers.

Want is the form that a human need takes as shaped by culture and individual personality e.g. water and food. Whenever you are hunger you search for something to fulfill that need. The thing that you are searching is your want. All human in this world feel hunger but there wants are different as regions and cultures change. Needs are universal but wants are regional or local. When hungry some may take burger, some pizza, some rice etc.

Demands are human wants that are backed by buying power. Anyting that you want to have to fulfill your need and you have purchasing power to buy that thing is your demand. E.g if you are hungry(need) you have many options like burger, pizza, rice etc. suppose you want to buy pizza(want) and you do not have money to buy it, then it is not your demand. Needs and wants are important but demand is very crucial for marketers.

Customers\ consumers are important for marketers. Those who buy something\those who consume something are customers \consumers respectively but those who buy something and those who consume something can be same or different.

Value is something of importance or something having the ability to fulfill the gap or solve a problem. Marketers focus on values as marketing is exchange of values between buyers and seller.

Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired object. e.g. you want to have eggs in breakfast you will go to the nearby shop and ask for eggs by giving the price to the shopkeeper . In this case exchange has taken place. Transaction is an activity in which goods services or money is passed form account to another. Exchange when take place is called transaction. . Whenever you buy or sell something a transaction has occurred.

Marketing offering is any combination of products, services or information offered to the market to satisfy the need or want, for example banks offer services; news channels offer information and confectioners offer sweets. Marketing mix is a combination of tools/ 4P’s (product price place and promotion) used by marketers to deliver value to customers. There are four Ps from marketer’s point which must match the four Cs from customers point of view. Product is all goods and services that you design and it must match with the customer solution. Price is the value on which any company offers its product. Price must be such that it matches the customer cost. Then next P is promotion. It is making your market or customer aware of the product / offering. The corresponding C is communication. Promotion must be such that message is communicated to the customer properly. Place is the distribution. Place your product such that it reaches the customer conveniently. So convenience is the corresponding C for place.

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It has been discussed that demand is the essence of marketing. Marketing is used not only by businesses but also political parties, and charity organizations as well. Actual task of marketing is to manage demand. As demand of any product that is offered for selling is never ideal so marketers face different demand situations and resultantly make different strategies for different demand situations. Different demand situations are:

Negative demand is a demand situation in which your product is facing biased or negative views of potential customers. For example the society in which you are dealing with frozen food items, consider that only fresh food is good. Frozen food is unhealthy; there you are facing negative