Understanding Marketing and Scope of Marketing

There are many definitions of marketing but no single definition can justify the marketing objective. The majority of definitions stress upon customer orientation and satisfaction of customer needs.?

According to American Marketing Association (AMA, 2004), “Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders”.?

More recently, in 2007, AMA revised the definition of marketing to consider it as an?‘activity’ instead of a ‘function’ so as to position marketing as a broader activity in the organization and not just the role of a department.?

The marketers are recognizing unmet needs and desires. They identify measures and calculate the size of the defined market and its potential for profit. The marketers also focus on selecting segments that the company is capable of serving best and thus designing and promoting the products and services that are appropriate. Marketing is typically the role of an organisation’s department. However, the marketing activities must not be carried out in a single department; instead they should be reflected in all the activities of the organization. Marketing’s key processes are:?

1. Opportunity identification?
2. New product development?
3. Customer attraction?
4. Customer retention and loyalty building?
5. Order fulfillment?

• Scope of Marketing - The early marketing ideas emerged from economics. It helped to clarify the theoretical disparities left by economists in the United States in the first part of the twentieth century. Marketing is considered to be both an art and a science. There is a marketing formulated and innovative side of it. The formulated part discusses conceptual models, established facts etc. Knowing and applying the formulated marketing concepts is important, as it helps marketers produce interesting findings through ?marketing ?analysis, ?market ?modeling ?and ?predictive ?analytics. ?Creativity is equally important and leads to marketing success many times over. Therefore marketing activities for efficient, effective and socially responsible marketing should be carried out in a thoughtful way.?

What is marketed??

There are 10 main types of entities that are marketed. They are -

1. Goods - The goods constitute the bulk production and marketing efforts of a business. For Example: Laptops, Televisions, Soaps, etc.
2. Services - As economies advance, a growing proportion of their activities are also focused on the service production. The superstructure of developed economies today consists of 70-30 services-to-goods mix. Services include hotels, ?airlines, ?repair ?and ?maintenance ?and ?the ?professional ?services ?by?accountants, lawyers, etc. Most market offerings consist of a variable mix of goods and services.
3. Experiences ?– ?A ?firm ?can ?create, ?stage, ?and ?market ?experiences ?by combining several services and goods. For Example – Disneyland in Europe and USA, Esselworld in Mumbai, etc.
4. Events - Marketers promote time-based events, like trade shows, Olympics, sports events, and artistic performances.
5. Persons - Celebrity marketing has become popular with popular personalities being ?marketed ?like ?- ?artists, ?musicians, ?CEOs, ?physicians, ?high-profile lawyers and financiers, etc.
6. Places – Destination marketing is also becoming very popular with states, cities, regions, and also nations competing to attract tourists, factories, headquarters of companies, and new residents. Place marketers can include economic? development? specialists,? commercial? banks,? real? estate? agents, local business associations, and advertising and public relations agencies.
7. Properties - Properties are intangible rights of ownership of either real estate or ?financial ?properties ?such ?as ?Stocks and ?Bonds. ?Properties ?are ?bought and sold involving marketing effort by real estate agents and investment companies and banks for securities.
8. Organizations - Organizations actively work to build a strong and favourable image in the mind of their audience. Similarly, universities, museums, and performing arts organizations boost their public images to compete more successfully for audiences and funds.
9. Information - The production, packaging, and distribution of information is an important entity that is marketed. Among the marketers of information are Schools and Universities; publishers of Encyclopedias, nonfiction Books, and specialized magazines, CDs makers and Internet Web sites.
10. Ideas - Every market offering has a basic idea at its core and in essence, products and services are platforms for delivering some idea or benefit to satisfy a core need. For Example – creating awareness about HIV/ AIDS, discouraging alcoholism and smoking, etc.