Cunsumers usually face a broad array of products and services that might satisfy a diven need. How do they choose among these many marketing offers? Customers form expectations about the value and satisaction that various marketing offers will deliver and buy accordingly. Satisfied customers buy again and tell others about their good experiences. Dissatisfied customers often switch to competitors and disparage the products to others.
Marketers must be careful to set the right level of expectations. If they set expectations too low, they may satisfy those who buy but fail to attract enough buyers. If they raise expectations too much, buyers will be disappointed. Customer value and customer satisfaction are key building blocks or developping and managing customers relationships. We will revisit these core concepts later in the next posts.
March 15, 2011
March 8, 2011
Understanding the Marketplace and customers Needs
As a first step, marketers need to understand customer needs and wants and the Marketplace within which they operate. We now examine five core customer and marketplace concepts: needs, wants, and demands; marketing offers (products, services, and experiences); value and satisfaction; exchanges and relationships; and markets.
Customer Needs, Wants and Demands
The most basic concept underlying marketing is that o human needs. Human needs are states of felt deprivation. They include basic physical needs for foods, clothing, warmth, and safety; social needs for belongings and affection; and individual needs for knowledge and self-expression. These needs were not created by marketers; they a basic part of the human makeup.
Wants are the form of human needs take as shaped by culture and individual personality. An american needs ood but wants Big Mac, rench fries, and a soft drink. A person in Mauritius needs food but wants a mango, rice, and beans. We are shaped by one's society and are described in terms of objects that will satisy needs. When backed by buying power, wants become demands. Given their wants and ressources, people demand products with benefits that add up to the most value and satisfaction.
Oustanding marketing companies go to great lengths to learn about and understand their customers' needs, wants and demands. They conduct customer research and analyze mountain of customer data. Their at all level - including top management - stay close to customers. For example, top executives rom Wal-mart spend two days each week visiting stores and mingling with customers. Harley-Dacidson's chairman and CEO regularly mounts his Harley and rides customers to get feedback and ideas.
At consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, top executives even visit with ordinary consumers in their homes and on shopping trips. "We read the data and look a the charts," says one P&G executive, "but to shop with customers and see how the woman is changing retailers to save 10 cents on a loaf of bread [so she can] spend it on things that are more important - that's important to us to keep front an center," says P&G CEO when the customer is boss, when you try to win the customer value equation, when you try to make the customer's lie better, then you're focused externally...and it's an absolutely huge difference.
Customer Needs, Wants and Demands
The most basic concept underlying marketing is that o human needs. Human needs are states of felt deprivation. They include basic physical needs for foods, clothing, warmth, and safety; social needs for belongings and affection; and individual needs for knowledge and self-expression. These needs were not created by marketers; they a basic part of the human makeup.
Wants are the form of human needs take as shaped by culture and individual personality. An american needs ood but wants Big Mac, rench fries, and a soft drink. A person in Mauritius needs food but wants a mango, rice, and beans. We are shaped by one's society and are described in terms of objects that will satisy needs. When backed by buying power, wants become demands. Given their wants and ressources, people demand products with benefits that add up to the most value and satisfaction.
Oustanding marketing companies go to great lengths to learn about and understand their customers' needs, wants and demands. They conduct customer research and analyze mountain of customer data. Their at all level - including top management - stay close to customers. For example, top executives rom Wal-mart spend two days each week visiting stores and mingling with customers. Harley-Dacidson's chairman and CEO regularly mounts his Harley and rides customers to get feedback and ideas.
At consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, top executives even visit with ordinary consumers in their homes and on shopping trips. "We read the data and look a the charts," says one P&G executive, "but to shop with customers and see how the woman is changing retailers to save 10 cents on a loaf of bread [so she can] spend it on things that are more important - that's important to us to keep front an center," says P&G CEO when the customer is boss, when you try to win the customer value equation, when you try to make the customer's lie better, then you're focused externally...and it's an absolutely huge difference.
March 7, 2011
What is Marketing?
Marketing, more than any business fonction, deals with customers. Although we will soon explore more-detailed definitions of marketing, perhaps, the simplest definition is this one: Marketing is managing profitable customer relationships. The twofold goal is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction.
Wal-mart has become the world's largest retailer company, by delivering on its promise, "Always low prices. Always!" At Disney theme parks, "imagineers" work wonders in their quest to "make a dream come true today." Dell leads the personal computer industry by consistently making good on its promise to "be direct." Dell makes it easy for customers to custom-design their own computes and have them delivered quickly to their doorsteps or desktops. These and other highly succesful companies know that if they take care of their customers, market share and profits will follow.
Sound Marketing is critical to the success of every organization. Large for-profit firms such as Proctor & Gamble, Sony, Wal-mart, IBM, and Marriott use marketing. But so do not-for-profit organisations such as colleges, hospitals, museums, symphony orchestra, and even churches.
You already know a lot about marketing - It's all around you. You see the results of marketing in the abundance of products in your nearby shopping mall. You see marketing in the advertisements that fill your TV screen, spice up your magazines, stuff your mailbox, or enliven your webpages. At home, at school, where you work, and where you play, you see marketing in almost everything you do. Yet, there is much more to marketing than meets the customer's casual eye. Behing it all is a massive network of people and activities competing for your attention and purchases.
This site will give you a complete and formal introduction to the basic concepts and practices of today's marketing.
Marketing Defined
What is marketing? Many people think of marketing only as selling and advertising. And no wonder - every day we are bombarded with television commerials, direct mail offers, sales calls, and. internet pitches. However, selling and advertising are only the tip of the marketing iceberg.
Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of a sale - " telling and selling" - But in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. If the marketer does a good of understanding customer needs: develop products that provide superior value; and prices, distributes, and promotes them efectively, these products will sell very easily. Thus, selling and advertising are only part of a larger larger "marketing mix" - a set of tools that work together to satisfy customer needs and build customer relationships.
Broadly defined, Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others. In a narrower business context, marketing involves building profitable, value-laden exchange relationships with customers. Hence, we define marketing as the process by which companies create alue or customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.
Wal-mart has become the world's largest retailer company, by delivering on its promise, "Always low prices. Always!" At Disney theme parks, "imagineers" work wonders in their quest to "make a dream come true today." Dell leads the personal computer industry by consistently making good on its promise to "be direct." Dell makes it easy for customers to custom-design their own computes and have them delivered quickly to their doorsteps or desktops. These and other highly succesful companies know that if they take care of their customers, market share and profits will follow.
Sound Marketing is critical to the success of every organization. Large for-profit firms such as Proctor & Gamble, Sony, Wal-mart, IBM, and Marriott use marketing. But so do not-for-profit organisations such as colleges, hospitals, museums, symphony orchestra, and even churches.
You already know a lot about marketing - It's all around you. You see the results of marketing in the abundance of products in your nearby shopping mall. You see marketing in the advertisements that fill your TV screen, spice up your magazines, stuff your mailbox, or enliven your webpages. At home, at school, where you work, and where you play, you see marketing in almost everything you do. Yet, there is much more to marketing than meets the customer's casual eye. Behing it all is a massive network of people and activities competing for your attention and purchases.
This site will give you a complete and formal introduction to the basic concepts and practices of today's marketing.
Marketing Defined
What is marketing? Many people think of marketing only as selling and advertising. And no wonder - every day we are bombarded with television commerials, direct mail offers, sales calls, and. internet pitches. However, selling and advertising are only the tip of the marketing iceberg.
Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of a sale - " telling and selling" - But in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. If the marketer does a good of understanding customer needs: develop products that provide superior value; and prices, distributes, and promotes them efectively, these products will sell very easily. Thus, selling and advertising are only part of a larger larger "marketing mix" - a set of tools that work together to satisfy customer needs and build customer relationships.
Broadly defined, Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others. In a narrower business context, marketing involves building profitable, value-laden exchange relationships with customers. Hence, we define marketing as the process by which companies create alue or customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.
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