Marketing

Definition of Marketing

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Definition of Marketing Research

Marketing research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information–information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.

Research Marketing

Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications. 

Definition of Brand

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.

Branding

ISO brand standards add that a brand “is an intangible asset” that is intended to create “distinctive images and associations in the minds of stakeholders, thereby generating economic benefit/values.

Segments of Marketing

The two major segments of marketing are business-to-business (B2B) marketing and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. 

B2B marketing

business-to-business marketing refers to any marketing strategy or content that is geared towards a business or organization. 

Any company that sells products or services to other businesses or organizations (vs. consumers) typically uses B2B marketing strategies.
Examples of products sold through B2B marketing include:

• Major equipment
• Accessory equipment
• Raw materials
• Component parts
• Processed materials
• Supplies
• Business services

The four major categories of B2B product purchasers are:

• Producers- use products sold by B2B marketing to make their own goods (e.g.: Mattel buying plastics to make toys)
• Resellers- buy B2B products to sell through retail or wholesale establishments (e.g.: Walmart buying vacuums to sell in stores)
• Governments- buy B2B products for use in government projects (e.g.: purchasing contractor services to repair infrastructure)
• Institutions- use B2B products to continue operation (e.g.: schools buying printers for office use) 

B2C marketing

Business-to-consumer marketing, or B2C marketing, refers to the tactics and strategies in which a company promotes its products and services to individual people.
Traditionally, this could refer to individuals shopping for personal products in a broad sense. More recently the term B2C refers to the online selling of consumer products.

C2B marketing

Consumer-to-business marketing or C2B marketing is a business model where the end consumers create products and services which are consumed by businesses and organizations. It is diametrically opposed to the popular concept of B2C or Business- to- Consumer where the companies make goods and services available to the end consumers.

C2C marketing

Customer to customer marketing or C2C marketing represents a market environment where one customer purchases goods from another customer using a third-party business or platform to facilitate the transaction. C2C companies are a new type of model that has emerged with e-commerce technology and the sharing economy.

Differences in B2B and B2C marketing

The different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, number of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.

• Demand: B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.
• Purchasing volume: Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.
• Number of customers: There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.
• Customer concentration: Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.
• Distribution: B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.
• Buying nature: B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers, while B2C purchasing is informal.
• Buying influences: B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.
• Negotiations: In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.
• Reciprocity: Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.
• Leasing: Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.
• Promotional methods: In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.

Types of Marketing

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing

According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), influencer marketing focuses on leveraging individuals who have influence over potential buyers and orienting marketing activities around these individuals to drive a brand message to the larger market.
In influencer marketing, rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, a brand inspires or compensates influencers (which can include celebrities, content creators, customer advocates, and employees) to get the word out on their behalf.

Relationship Marketing

According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), relationship marketing refers to strategies and tactics for segmenting consumers to build loyalty.
Relationship marketing leverages database marketing, behaviora advertising and analytics to target consumers precisely and create loyalty programs.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing

Viral marketing is  marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.
Nicknamed “viral” because the number of people exposed to a message mimics the process of passing a virus or disease from one person to another.

Green Marketing

Green marketing

Green marketing refers to the development and marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe.
This term may also be used to describe efforts to produce, promote, package, and reclaim products in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological concerns.

Keyword Marketing

Keyword marketing involves placing a marketing message in front of users based on the specific keywords and phrases they are using to search.
A key advantage of this method is that it gives marketers the ability to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. For many marketers, keyword marketing results in the placement of an ad when certain keywords are entered.

Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing describes an unconventional and creative marketing strategy intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.

Internet marketing: 

Inspired by an Excedrin product campaign that took place online, the very idea of having a presence on the internet for business reasons is a type of marketing in and of itself.

Search engine optimization: 

Abbreviated "SEO," this is the process of optimizing content on a website so that it appears in search engine results. It's used by marketers to attract people who perform searches that imply they're interested in learning about a particular industry.

Blog marketing:

 Blogs are no longer exclusive to the individual writer. Brands now publish blogs to write about their industry and nurture the interest of potential customers who browse the internet for information.

Social media marketing: 

Businesses can use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and similar social networks to create impressions on their audience over time.

Print marketing: 

As newspapers and magazines get better at understanding who subscribes to their print material, businesses continue to sponsor articles, photography, and similar content in the publications their customers are reading.

Search engine marketing:

 This type of marketing is a bit different than SEO, which is described above. Businesses can now pay a search engine to place links on pages of its index that get high exposure to their audience. (It's a concept called "pay-per-click" -- I'll show you an example of this in the next section).

Video marketing:

 While there were once just commercials, marketers now put money into creating and publishing all kinds of videos that entertain and educate their core customers.

4 P’s of Marketing

Product

A product is defined as a bundle of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and uses) capable of exchange or use; usually a mix of tangible and intangible forms.
Thus a product may be an idea, a physical entity (a good), or a service, or any combination of the three. It exists for the purpose of exchange in the satisfaction of individual and organizational objectives.
While the term “products and services” is occasionally used, product is a term that encompasses both goods and services.

Price

Price is the formal ratio that indicates the quantity of money, goods, or services needed to acquire a given quantity of goods or services.
It is the amount a customer must pay to acquire a product.

Place (Or Distribution)

Distribution refers to the act of marketing and carrying products to consumers. It is also used to describe the extent of market coverage for a given product.
In the 4Ps, distribution is represented by place or placement.

Promotion

According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), promotion marketing includes tactics that encourage short-term purchase, influence trial and quantity of purchase, and are very measurable in volume, share and profit.
Examples include coupons, sweepstakes, rebates, premiums, special packaging, cause-related marketing and licensing.

4 P's of marketing

Segmentation

Market segmentation consists of taking the total heterogeneous market for a product and dividing it into several sub-markets or segments, each of which tends to be homogeneous in all significant aspects.The process is conducted for two main purposes: better allocation of a firm's finite resources and to better serve the more diversified tastes of contemporary consumers. A firm only possesses a certain amount of resources. Thus, it must make choices (and appreciate the related costs) in servicing specific groups of consumers. Moreover, with more diversity in the tastes of modern consumers, firms are noting the benefit of servicing a multiplicity of new markets.
Market segmentation can be defined in terms of the STP acronym, meaning Segment, Target, and Position.
Segmentation involves the initial splitting up of consumers into persons of like needs/wants/tastes. Commonly used criteria include:

• Geographic (such as a country, region, city, town)
• Psychographic (e.g. personality traits or lifestyle traits which influence consumer behaviour)
• Demographic (e.g. age, gender, socio-economic class, education)
• Gender
• Income
• Life-Cycle (e.g. Baby Boomer, Generation X, Millennial, Generation Z)
• Lifestyle (e.g. tech savvy, active)
• Behavioural (e.g. brand loyalty, usage rate)

Once a segment has been identified to target, a firm must ascertain whether the segment is beneficial for them to service. The DAMPacronym is used as criteria to gauge the viability of a target market. The elements of DAMP are:

• Discernable – how a segment can be differentiated from other segments.
• Accessible – how a segment can be accessed via Marketing Communications produced by a firm
• Measurable – can the segment be quantified and its size determined?
• Profitable – can a sufficient return on investment be attained from a segment's servicing?

The next step in the targeting process is the level of differentiation involved in a segment serving. Three modes of differentiation exist, which are commonly applied by firms. These are:

• Undifferentiated – where a company produces a like product for all of a market segment
• Differentiated – in which a firm produced slight modifications of a product within a segment
• Niche – in which an organization forges a product to satisfy a specialized target market

Positioning concerns how to position a product in the minds of consumers and inform what attributes differentiate it from the competitor's products. A firm often performs this by producing a perceptual map, which denotes similar products produced in the same industry according to how consumers perceive their price and quality. From a product's placing on the map, a firm would tailor its marketing communications to meld with the product's perception among consumers and its position among competitors' offering. 

Promotional Mix

The promotional mix outlines how a company will market its product. It consists of five tools: personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, advertising and social media

Personal selling

Public selling

Personal selling involves an oral presentation given by a salesperson who approaches an individual or a group of potential customers. Personal selling allows for two-way communication and relationship building that can aid both the buyer and the seller in their goals. Personal selling is most commonly seen in business-to-business marketing (e.g.: selling machinery to a factory, selling paper to a print shop), but it can also be found in business-to-consumer marketing (e.g.: selling cars at a dealership). 

Sales promotion

Sale Promotion

Sales promotion involves short-term incentives to encourage the buying of products. Examples of these incentives include:

• free samples
• contests
• premiums
• trade shows
• giveaways
• coupons
• sweepstakes
• games

Depending on the incentive, one or more of the other elements of the promotional mix may be used in conjunction with sales promotion to inform customers of the incentives. 

Public relations

Public relations is the use of media tools to promote a positive view of a company or product in the public's eye. Public relations monitors the public opinion of a company or product and generates publicity to either sustain a positive opinion or lessen or change a negative opinion.

Public relations can include interviews, speeches/presentations, corporate literature, social media, news releases and special events. 

Advertising

If the market is a wheel then the Advertisement is the spoke of this wheel

Advertising

Advertising occurs when a firm directly pays a media channel to publicize its product. Common examples of advertising include:

• TV commercials
• Radio commercials
• Radio ads
• Magazine ads
• Online ads
• Billboards
• Event sponsorship
• Direct mail ads
• Transit ads 

Social Media

Social media is used to facilitate two-way communication between companies and their customers. Social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest,Snapchat and YouTube allow brands to start a conversation with regular and prospective customers.

Viral marketing can be greatly facilitated by social media and if successful, allows key marketing messages and content in reaching a large number of target audiences within a short time frame. Additionally, social media platforms can also house advertising and public relations content..