Marketing
Sometimes, a trade association or government agency (such as the Agricultural Marketing Service) advertises on behalf of an entire industry or locality, often a specific type of food (e.g. Got Milk?
[12] Once these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods of promoting the product,[5] including use of coupons and other price inducements.
[13] Marketing is currently defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA) as "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".
Recent definitions of marketing place more emphasis on the consumer relationship, as opposed to a pure exchange process.
In this context, marketing can be defined as "the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage".
[25] The "marketing concept" proposes that to complete its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of potential consumers and satisfy them more effectively than its competitors.
This concept originated from Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations but would not become widely used until nearly 200 years later.
[31][28] In addition, a great deal of advertising and promotion is designed to show how a given product's benefits meet the customer's needs, wants or expectations in a unique way.
[33] Any company that sells products or services to other businesses or organizations (vs. consumers) typically uses B2B marketing strategies.
The 7 P's of B2B marketing are: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence.
In this type of business model, businesses profit from consumers' willingness to name their own price or contribute data or marketing to the company, while consumers benefit from flexibility, direct payment, or free or reduced-price products and services.
One of the major benefit of this type of business model is that it offers a company a competitive advantage in the market.
The 4Ps refers to four broad categories of marketing decisions, namely: product, price, promotion, and place.
Certain marketing activities, such as personal selling, may be classified as either promotion or as part of the place (i.e., distribution) element.
Extensions of the four P's are often included in cases such as services marketing where unique characteristics (i.e. intangibility, perishability, heterogeneity and the inseparability of production and consumption) warrant additional consideration factors.
Other extensions include "people", "process", and "physical evidence" and are often applied in the case of services marketing.
[12] 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.
Moreover, with more diversity in the tastes of modern consumers, firms are noting the benefit of servicing a multiplicity of new markets.
The elements of DAMP are: The next step in the targeting process is the level of differentiation involved in a segment serving.
It consists of five tools: personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, advertising and social media: The area of marketing planning involves forging a plan for a firm's marketing activities.
Marketing objectives are typically broad-based in nature, and pertain to the general vision of the firm in the short, medium or long-term.
The PLC is based on a few key assumptions, including: In the introduction stage, a product is launched onto the market.
To stimulate the growth of sales/revenue, use of advertising may be high, in order to heighten awareness of the product in question.
During the growth stage, the product's sales/revenue is increasing, which may stimulate more marketing communications to sustain sales.
More entrants enter into the market, to reap the apparent high profits that the industry is producing.
During decline, demand for a good begins to taper off, and the firm may opt to discontinue the manufacture of the product.
