Chapter One – What is marketing and how does it differ from sales, advertising, and promotion?

Marketing is one of the most misunderstood and confusing terms used in business. How would you define it? Think about what you believe marketing is and write your definition down now:

Marketing is: ”_________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________”.

Save this definition to compare it to other definitions of marketing we cover later on.

Why is the term “marketing” surrounded by confusion?

First, the word ‘marketing’ means very different things to different people in different industries. For example, a coal producer in Kentucky just needs to understand what price the local buyer will be paying for the product and s/he can then plan to ‘market’ (or just sell) the coal produced to the local buyer. Second, think about how much different the above situation is from another case in which ‘marketing’ must be done. Let’s say that you are a product-marketing engineer at Agilent Technologies and your Product Marketing Manager has informed you that you will be responsible for ‘marketing’ a new product that has been conceptualized by engineers in the Research and Development (R&D) Department. Finally, assume a good friend of yours has invented a new way for people to wash their car. She has asked you ‘to market’ her product for her. In all three of these situations, the product has already been conceptualized and produced. It won’t help the individual marketer at all to consider how the market will react to the product. In situation one, the coal miner must simply extract the coal from the ground and deliver it to a local coal broker for sale. In situation two, the product manager at Agilent must first figure out what the new product will be good for and who might want to buy it. Finally, in situation three, your friend has already invented the product; it just remains for you to figure out who the people are who wash their own car and how to reach them. In all three situations, the marketer is faced with coming up with a way to sell what has already been produced. This definition of marketing, unfortunately, is how most people would define marketing, that is, “Marketing is how an organization or individual sells products or services.” Thus in this definition, marketing is relegated to finding and exploiting a market of buyers for the product or service.

But is that how marketing practitioners and people who teach marketing define it? Let’s review some alternate definitions of marketing from the business literature.

The American Marketing Association’s definition. The American Marketing Association is the leading organization in the U.S. representing the academic side of marketing. The organization is comprised of and primarily impacted by people who teach marketing at the college level. In 1948, the AMA defined marketing as follows:

“The performance of business activities directed toward, and incident to, the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user.”

(AMA, 1948).

Note that the definition above focuses on the DISTRIBUTION aspect of marketing and doesn’t really include the ‘Four P’s’: Product, price, promotion, place (distribution).

In 1985, the AMA definition had changed to “the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.” (AMA 1985)

Compare these two definitions: How are they similar and how do they differ? Why do you think the AMA made the change in the definition of marketing?

Now, compare the above discussion to YOUR definition of marketing. How do the definitions differ from yours? How are they similar?

Speaking of confusion, type in the key word “marketing” into your favorite search engine on the Internet and see what you find.

The Seven Steps in the Marketing Process

It is natural that people in different situations define marketing differently. However, we will approach the definition of marketing by first learning about the seven steps in the process of marketing. While this process is not always followed, it is important that any student of marketing understand what steps must be taken to be successful in a marketing effort. The marketing process can be described in the following seven steps:

A. Understand the market wants/needs of interest

B. Based on relative size and needs of the market, select certain segments of the market that are of the most interest to you and your organization

C. Thoroughly describe these segments based on their individual needs

D. Create a product or service that will meet the specific needs identified

E. Communicate the concept of the product or service to the targeted customer in a way that makes sense to the customer

F. Deliver the product or service to the targeted customer in a way that will be convenient to the customer

G. Solicit feedback from the customer about how your product or service could be improved to meet the customers’ needs even better

This process is applicable to most situations encountered by those wanting to market a product or service. The process of marketing can be divided into ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ activities. That is, steps A through C are all ‘upstream’ activities that should be performed before a product actually exists. Surely, there are many readers who will say, “Wait, this won’t work for me, I am like those people who you described at first, I already HAVE a product to sell, I just need to find somebody to BUY IT!” As marketers, we understand that many sellers don’t have the option or input to create a new product or service. However, this e-book is designed for people who want to do marketing the right way. If you must pick up the process after steps A, B, and C have already been performed, realize that some steps have already been done, and you should check to see if they have been done correctly.

Also note that marketing research plays an integral role in each of these stages. That is, the organization that is truly focused on customer needs must be driven by an active research effort.

Definition of marketing we will use in this book

Based on the seven-step approach to marketing, we will define marketing as:

“The conceptualization and profitable delivery of customer satisfaction” – the first part of this definition (conceptualization) would be covered in steps A through C in the marketing process above and the final aspect ‘delivery’ would be represented by steps D, E, F, and G. Of course, in order to deliver ‘customer satisfaction,’ one must do customer research, thus step G will provide feedback into the continuation of the seven-step marketing process over time.

Upstream and Downstream Marketing Activities in the Marketing Process

What marketing activities are performed and how they are performed will have a lot to do with how many choices you have in managing the steps of the marketing process and the focus of the organization’s marketing effort. The organization will view the marketing function’s responsibilities based on the history of the organization and its orientation to doing business. For example, there are several different orientations that organizations use to doing business or serving their customers. Usually, the firm does not specifically state this orientation. For example, if a firm defined its product policy as “research leading to creation of the most sophisticated, highest quality products and services in the world (for example, see http://www.schering-plough.com/) ” then it has decided to use a “Product or Production Orientation.” That is, the organization has decided for itself what customers want (sophisticated, highest quality products) and has ignored the first three steps in the marketing process we described above.

You are a consumer; do you think all customers want the most sophisticated, highest quality products and services? Do you as a consumer always seek out the most sophisticated, highest quality products and services?

Another approach or orientation to managing the marketing function can be called “Sales (or Promotion) orientation”. In this approach, the primary function of marketing is seen as personal selling and advertising, and marketing’s primary job in the organization is to ‘sell, sell, sell.’ In this approach, steps A through C of the marketing process are largely ignored and marketing resources are instead placed on generating more sales.

There is an approach to marketing called the “Customer as Monarch” (also known as the Marketing Concept approach). Although this philosophy has been applied under different names for centuries, it is still a good contemporary guide to managing marketing activities. It can be described by the slogans ‘we do it all for you,’ ‘have it your way’ a former Burger King slogan, or just by the simple saying which perhaps you have already heard, “find a need and fill it”. The Marketing Concept would rephrase this saying a bit, and be represented by an approach of “find a need, and fill it profitably and more effectively than the competition,” Yes, this is a demanding task, but we exist in an extremely competitive world. Note that this competition includes organizations in both the for-profit sector and the not-for-profit sector, with the latter being as competitive as the former.

The ‘Customer as Monarch’ and the ‘Marketing Concept’ are related to the Seven Step Marketing Process

The marketing concept can be thought of as having four parts as follows:

Part I – Understand and meet customer needs - said another way, provide satisfying products and services to your target customers

Part II – Meet organizational goals – this is applicable for both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. For-profit organizations should have goals other than profit, a for-profit goal being ‘make a fifteen percent return on investment’. A longer-term goal that is ultimately tied to profits but immediately is tied to customer satisfaction might be: “Be a recognized leader in customer satisfaction in our industry.” Not-for-profit organizations have goals for non-financial performance such as ‘provide thirty hours of client services per week consistent with our organizational mission.’

Part III – Integrate marketing activities – this part can be the most complex, but also the most critical. That is, when the organization has agreed on a marketing strategy, it must execute the strategy in an efficient and effective way. For example, “fifty-percent-off” coupons appearing in the Sunday newspaper will not reach the goal of inducing new product trial if the product is not available in stores due to a problem with product distribution or if sale catalogs are printed by a central office without coordination with local business outlets, there will be regular inventory understocks or overstocks.

Part IV – Satisfy customers better than the competition - As indicated above, EVERY ORGANIZATION has competition. If there are not similar product solutions that provide similar benefits available then there will be competing uses for expenditure of the customer’s income.

Like the Seven Step Marketing Process, the Marketing Concept serves as a guide for applying organizational resources directed at marketing. When an organization adopts the Customer as Monarch approach, we describe the organization as being ‘market oriented’ or ‘customer oriented.’ Thus, we have reviewed three ways in which an organization may be oriented to doing business: Product oriented, Sales (Promotion) oriented, or Market oriented. We will discuss each of these three concepts more as we progress through this course.

Chapter One Exercises:

1. Summarize on a one-page report what you find after you get on the Internet and search the keyword ‘marketing.’ Organize your answer according to the different categories you find in your search.

2. In a one-page essay, compare the different definitions of marketing discussed including your own definition. Has your definition of marketing changed? If so, how?

3. Identify an organization that you believe is fulfilling each step in the marketing concept. In your analysis, go step by step to better explain your answer.

4. Identify an organization that you believe is not fulfilling each step in the marketing concept. In your analysis, go step by step to better explain your answer.

5. Write a job description for a manager of the marketing function (that is, what would be his/her major responsibilities) in the following orientations: production orientation, sales orientation, market (customer) orientation.

6. In a one-paragraph answer, explain how you believe the personal selling effort should be related to marketing in a modern organization.

7. Given what you have learned in Chapter One, explain the difference between the terms “marketing” and “promotion.”

8. On the Internet, examine the following website: http://acnielsen.com/ Describe in a one-page report what you find. How would this information be helpful for a marketing person?

Chapter One Glossary

Marketing - “The conceptualization and profitable delivery of customer satisfaction”.

Upstream marketing activities – understanding, selecting, describing target markets, and creating a product or service to meet the needs of those target markets.

Downstream marketing activities – communicating a product or service concept to the chosen target market and providing customer satisfaction in the process by delivering that product or service.

Customer as Monarch, or marketing concept – a philosophy of doing business in which the organization places utmost importance on delivering customer satisfaction, meeting organizational goals, and outperforming the competition while integrating all marketing activities.