Understanding Marketing: The Backbone of Business Success

something. It addresses the issues of how to inform and stimulate interest in the target audience about the product or service.

Marketing as a Business Function
Marketing is indispensable if a company wishes to Bank on any of their products or services for Growth. This is therefore the back bone of any business organization.

Defining Marketing – is a broad based term. Marketing relates to a variety of processes including, information gathering about the market, designing products, fixing prices, choosing channels for delivering products and persuading customers to make purchases.

The Four Ps of Marketing

The quintessential approach that explains marketing is called The Four P`s, or simply the marketing mix. These consist of:

Product: This is all the goods or services which the business sells. In effective marketing, there must be the appreciation of the customers’ wants and needs and then the appropriate goods or services produced to satisfaction. This concerns design and features, quality and even packaging among others.

Price: This is how much customers will pay for the good or service. The pricing strategies that are devised for a particular product may affect the performance of that particular product. Issues of costs associated with production, prices set by other businesses and the worth of the item in the market have to be put into consideration. There are different pricing strategies that can be employed by a business such as penetration, skimming or competitive pricing.

Place: Also referred to as distribution, it is the aspect of ensuring that the consumers have access to the product. This entails identifying the appropriate places and types of customers who should be provided the product easily. This involves either having a physical shop that sells goods, using the internet to facilitate sales, or even both.

Promotion: This includes all those activities that provide information on the product characteristic and benefits and encourage the people to purchase. It addresses the problem of how to provide the target market a product or service and capture their interest.

The Evolution of Marketing

The Timeline and Stages of Development of Marketing as a Discipline
Marketing as a function has undergone great transformation over centuries owing to several factors including modern day technology, changes in customer behavior and current business practices. It is possible to identify the following major stages in its growth.

Production Orientation: In the past, companies emphasized mostly the creation of the product. This was because it was believed that the consumers would purchase anything as long as it was available and cheap.

Sales Orientation: With the emergence of competition, companies had to step up their game in selling their products and services. This period was characterized by aggressive selling or tactics to attract the purchase of the product or service.

Marketing Orientation: This approach rest on the premise of assessing whether and how it is possible to satisfy the needs and wants of existing and potential customers. It places more emphasis on market research and ability to produce goods advanced enough that they are of greater value compared to what currently exists in the market.

Societal Marketing Orientation: This is a relatively new perspective as it helps to understand customer needs without however overlooking the need to address the state of society. That is the profits of the company, satisfaction of the customers and the welfare of the society are all taken into account.

Contemporary Marketing Techniques

The marketing strategies of today are fast-changing and base on data, as they come into integration with the developments in technology and the worldwide web. These Marketing Strategies has the following tenets:

Internet Marketing: The process of marketing by using web-based channels. It includes all forms of marketing messages conveyed through the web such as social media, search engine optimization (SEO), content production and distribution, electronic mail advertisements, and PPC advertising.

Content Marketing: Content marketing is the strategy of attracting and engaging a target audience by creating and sharing relevant and valuable content that is consistent. The intention which is pursued with the help of blogs or videos or infographics and the like is the economic action of the customer.

Influencer Promotion: the act of having a person with many followers on social media, endorse different products. Primarily, such people help companies in exploring new markets and enhancing their image.

Customer Centric Approach: this is a strategy where there is a focused enduring effort to solict for support that is not only effective but also enhance the performance of a product or service, the individual or uses within its market.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM): the practice by which Customer Relationship Management systems are used, which involve planning for and managing current and future customer relationships, and data storage and analysis. CRM alleviates the workload on the business by always keeping a record of what each customer wanted.

Why Marketing is Very Important

Marketing is an inevitable business practice that makes it possible for a firm to achieve its goals due to the following factors:

Building Reputation Out Of the Marketing: enhances and sustains brand reputation which makes it easier for consumers to purchase a company’s goods than that of others

Customer Attack and Defense: Based on the needs of the customer and the appropriate value proposition, marketing gets customers and keeps them.

Profits and Earning: Every business activity has sales and marketing element which aids in earning profits for the business.

Unique Selling Strategy: Marketing enables a company to work in different ways than its competitors.

Is Responsive: Marketing gives information on the changes in the market and the consumption patterns of customers thus helping us to change with time and not be left out.

Conclusion

Marketing plays an essential role in linking enterprises to their clients. All effective marketing principles help the business to create value, develop a good relationship with customers and sustain success. It is important, however, not to become complacent in a dynamic marketplace. This is because knowing the current marketing trends and preparing strategies to improve them is important to remain competitive.