Introduction

Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a
target market in terms of goods and services;[1][2] potentially including the selection of a target
audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; operation of
advertising campaigns; attendance at trade shows and public events; design of products and
packaging attractive to buyers; defining the terms of sale, such as price, discounts, warranty,
and return policy; product placement in media or with people believed to influence the buying
habits of others; agreements with retailers, wholesale distributors, or resellers; and attempts to
create awareness of, loyalty to, and positive feelings about a brand. Marketing is typically done
by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer.
(Marketing 2022)
Marketing is a crucial function in all businesses and organizations and is becoming increasingly
crucial to success in our modern global economy. This course, regardless of your industry
background, will teach you core concepts and tools to help you better understand and excel in
marketing.
(paul cubbon, Introduction to marketing 2022)
● The main objective of marketing is to create customer value.
● Marketing usually involves an exchange between buyers and sellers or between other
parties.
● Marketing has an impact on the firm, its suppliers, its customers, and others affected by
the firm’s choices.
● Marketing frequently involves enduring relationships between buyers, sellers, and other
parties.
● Processes involved include “creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging
offerings.”
Perner, L. (2018). INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING. Introduction to Marketing. Retrieved
October 29, 2022, from https://consumerpsychologist.com/intro.htm

11.2 Marketing Concepts

11.2.1 Definition, Nature, Scope and Importance of Marketing

11.2.2 Marketing Environment

11.2.3 Marketing Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

11.2.4 Fundamentals of Marketing Mix

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.[25] Marketing
and Marketing Concepts are directly related.
Given the centrality of customer needs, and wants in marketing, a rich understanding of these
concepts is essential:[26]
Needs: Something necessary for people to live a healthy, stable and safe life. When needs
remain unfulfilled, there is a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. Needs can be
objective and physical, such as the need for food, water, and shelter; or subjective and
psychological, such as the need to belong to a family or social group and the need for self-
esteem.
Wants: Something that is desired, wished for or aspired to. Wants are not essential for basic
survival and are often shaped by culture or peer-groups.
Demands: When needs and wants are backed by the ability to pay, they have the potential to
become economic demands.
(Marketing 2022)

"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". The
AMA reviews this definition and its definition for "marketing research" every three years.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, October 12). Marketing. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 29,
2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing#Concept

Marketing and its Importance

Effective consumer engagement: Businesses must engage customers, and herein, marketing
proves to be an effective tool. Customers can be engaged by telling them what they do not
know and creating good content around your products and services.
Building and maintaining reputation: The reputation of your business depends on how it grows
and what its lifespan is. This is where marketing comes across as a way to build the brand
equity of businesses. And this happens when the expectations of the customers are met.
Building relationships between customers and business: For any business to grow, it must build
a long-lasting relationship with its customers. Marketing is based on demographics,
psychographics, and consumer behaviour and therefore, gives an understanding of what
customers want.
Boosting sales: Since marketing utilizes different ways to promote products or services, it helps
in increasing the likelihood of better sales. Happy customers translate into a company’s brand
ambassadors automatically.
Staying relevant: Marketing helps a business to remain relevant to the customers and in its
domain. It helps in maintaining good relationships.
Making informed decisions: The basic questions that every business has are around the how’s
and why’s of producing products or delivering services. This underscores the importance of
marketing for businesses and the fact that it links a business and society.

Jaiswal, S. (2022, September 21). What is the importance of marketing for business?:
Emeritus India. Emeritus. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from
https://emeritus.org/in/learn/what-is-the-importance-of-marketing-for-business/

Nature of Marketing
The Nature of Marketing (or Modern marketing) may be studied under the following points:
1. Human activity: Originally, the term marketing is a human activity under which human
needs are satisfied by human efforts. It’s a human action for human satisfaction.
2. Consumer-oriented: A business exist to satisfy human needs, hence business must find
out what the desire of customer (or consumer) and thereby produce goods & services as
per the needs of the customer. Thus, only those goods should be produce that satisfy
consumer needs and at a reasonable profit to the manufacturer (or producer).
3. Art as well as science: In the technological arena, marketing is the art and science of
choosing target markets and satisfying customers through creating, delivering, and
communicating superior customer value. It is a technique of making the goods available
at right time, right place, into right hands, right quality, in the right form and at right price.
4. Exchange Process: All marketing activities revolve around commercial exchange
process. The exchange process implies transactions between buyer and seller. It also
involves exchange of technology, exchange of information and exchange of ideas.
5. Starts and ends with customers: Marketing is consumer oriented and it is crucial to know
what the actual demand of consumer is. This is possible only when required information
related to the goods and services is collected from the customer. Thus, it is the starting
of marketing and the marketing end as soon as those goods and services reach into the
safe hands of the customer.
6. Creation of Utilities: Marketing creates four components of utilities viz. time, place,
possession and form. The form utility refers to the product or service a company offers to
their customers. The place utility refers to the availability of a product or service in a
location i.e. Easier for customers. By time utility, a company can ensure that products
and services are available when customers need them. The possession utility gives
customers ownership of a product or service and enables them to derive benefits in their
own business.
 7. Goal oriented: Marketing seeks to achieve benefits for both buyers and sellers by
satisfying human needs. The ultimate goal of marketing is to generate profits through the
satisfaction of the customer.
8. Guiding element of business: Modern Marketing is the heart of industrial activity that tells
what, when, how to produce. It is capable of guiding and controlling business.
9. System of Interacting Business Activities: Marketing is the system through which a
business enterprise, institution or organization interacts with the customers with the
objective to earn profit, satisfy customers and manage relationship. It is the performance
of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to
consumer or user.
10. Marketing is a dynamic processe. series of interrelated functions: Marketing is a
complex, continuous and interrelated process. It involves continuous planning,
implementation and control.

Scope/Functions of Marketing
The term scope of marketing can be understood in terms of the functions of the marketing
manager. The major purpose of marketing manager is to generate revenue for the business by
selling goods and services to the consumers. It lies in insuring the customer needs and
converting them into product or services and moving the product and services to the final user
or customer, to satisfy the wants and needs of specific segment of customers with emphasis on
profitability and ensuring the optimum use of resources available with the organization. The
marketing manager has to perform the research functions and exchange functions.

GKToday. (2017, December 22). Nature and scope of marketing. GKToday. Retrieved
October 29, 2022, from https://www.gktoday.in/topic/nature-and-scope-of-marketing/

Marketing environment
A marketing environment encompasses all the internal and external factors that drive and
influence an organization's marketing activities.
Marketing managers must stay aware of the marketing environment to maintain success and
tackle any threats or opportunities that may affect their work.
A marketing environment is vast and diverse, consisting of controllable and uncontrollable
factors. A good grasp of your marketing environment helps to:
● Identify opportunities: Understanding your marketing environment helps you notice and
take advantage of market opportunities before losing your edge. For example, say your
marketing team sees an uptick in digital buying over in-shop sales. You may decide to
allocate more resources to your online marketing funnel to drive more sales.
● Identify threats: Studying your marketing environment alerts you to potential threats
which may affect your marketing activities. For example, a market leader could diversify
their product portfolio to compete with your organization. Foreknowledge of this can help
you restrategize your marketing efforts to maintain and grow your market share.
● Manage changes: Paying attention to the marketing environment also helps manage
changes and maintain growth in a dynamic economy. Marketing managers can forecast
and determine timely marketing campaign strategies by monitoring their marketing
environment.
 Udoagwu, K. (2022, May 25). What is a marketing environment? Wrike. Retrieved October
29, 2022, from https://www.wrike.com/blog/what-is-marketing-environment/#:~:text=A
%20marketing%20environment%20encompasses%20all,that%20may%20affect%20their
%20work.

Market segmentation is a process that consists of sectioning the target market into smaller
groups that share similar characteristics, such as age, income, personality traits, behavior,
interests, needs or location.
These segments can be used to optimize products, marketing, advertising and sales efforts.
Segmentation allows brands to create strategies for different types of consumers, depending on
how they perceive the overall value of certain products and services. In this way they can
introduce a more personalized message with the certainty that it will be received successfully.
Market segmentation can help you to target just the people most likely to become satisfied
customers of your company or enthusiastic consumers of your content. To segment a market,
you split it up into groups that have similar characteristics. You can base a segment on one or
more qualities. Splitting up an audience in this way allows for more precisely targeted marketing
and personalized content.

Developer. (2022, October 11). What is market segmentation? 4 types & 5 benefits.
developer. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from https://www.lotame.com/what-is-market-
segmentation/

Market targeting is a process of selecting the target market from the entire market. Target
market consists of group/groups of buyers to whom the company wants to satisfy or for whom
product is manufactured, price is set, promotion efforts are made, and distribution network is
prepared.
Market is segmented using certain bases, like income, place, education, age, and life cycle, and
so on. Out of them, a few segments are selected to serve them. Thus, evaluating and selecting
some market segments can be said as market targeting.

jaideep, s. (2015, April 15). Market targeting: Introduction, definition, procedure and
methods. Your Article Library. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from
https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/economics/market/market-targeting-introduction-
definition-procedure-and-methods/48609
Market Positioning refers to the ability to influence consumer perception regarding a brand or
product relative to competitors. The objective of market positioning is to establish the image or
identity of a brand or product so that consumers perceive it in a certain way.
CFI, T. (2022, October 28). Market positioning. Corporate Finance Institute. Retrieved
October 29, 2022, from
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/market-positioning/
Product, place, price & promotion have been used for ages to help businesses decide on how to
go to market their brand. These 4 P’s are so elemental to the idea of marketing that they
essentially go on to define it:
In order to create an effective marketing mix, you must understand your audience and tailor-fit
your campaigns based on their needs and preferences. The market will ultimately determine
your success based on how they respond to your mix.
In designing your marketing mix, it is important to keep in mind that the 4P's are closely
connected. They must not be discussed in silos; they must be addressed in relation to one
another. The mix must be balanced and must be specific to your target market.
For decades, the 4Ps served as guide to businesses (both small and large) as they design their
marketing strategy. Its usefulness cannot be doubted. But as the marketing landscape shifts
and the buying behavior of the audience drastically influenced by technology, the relevance of
the current marketing mix is being questioned.

Bouso, M. (2022). Marketing mix fundamentals. Next Collision: Inbound Marketing

Specialist & Hubspot Partner Agency. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from
https://www.nextcollision.com/blog/marketing-mix-101

11.3 Consumer Behavior

11.3.1 Meaning and Importance

11.3.2 Factors affecting Consumer Behavior

11.3.3 Roles of Buying Behavior

11.3.4 Stages of Buying Behavior

Consumer behavior is the study of consumers and the processes they use to choose, use
(consume), and dispose of products and services, including consumers’ emotional, mental, and
behavioral responses.
Consumer behavior incorporates ideas from several sciences including psychology, biology,
chemistry, and economics.
Studying consumer behavior is important because it helps marketers understand what
influences consumers’ buying decisions.
By understanding how consumers decide on a product, they can fill in the gap in the market and
identify the products that are needed and the products that are obsolete.
Studying consumer behavior also helps marketers decide how to present their products in a way
that generates a maximum impact on consumers. Understanding consumer buying behavior is
the key secret to reaching and engaging your clients, and converting them to purchase from
you.

Consumer behavior is often influenced by different factors. Marketers should study consumer
purchase patterns and figure out buyer trends.
In most cases, brands influence consumer behavior only with the things they can control; think
about how IKEA seems to compel you to spend more than what you intended to every time you
walk into the store.
There are three categories of factors that influence consumer behavior:
1. Personal factors: an individual’s interests and opinions can be influenced by
demographics (age, gender, culture, etc.).
2. Psychological factors: an individual’s response to a marketing message will depend on
their perceptions and attitudes.
3. Social factors: family, friends, education level, social media, income, all influence
consumers’ behavior.

Predoiu, O. (2022, October 3). Consumer behavior in marketing - patterns, types,

segmentation. Omniconvert Ecommerce Growth Blog. Retrieved October 29, 2022, from
https://www.omniconvert.com/blog/consumer-behavior-in-marketing-patterns-types-
segmentation/

It is a study of the actions of the consumers that drive them to buy and use certain products.
The study of consumer buying behavior is most important for marketers as they can understand
the expectation of the consumers. It helps to understand what makes a consumer buy a
product. It is important to assess the kind of products liked by consumers so that they can
release it to the market. Marketers can understand the likes and dislikes of consumers and
design base their marketing efforts based on the findings.

What is consumer behavior and why is it important? Clootrack. (2022). Retrieved October
29, 2022, from https://www.clootrack.com/knowledge_base/what-is-consumer-behavior

Consumers go through a set of sequential steps while buying a product. A buying process is the
sequence of steps that a consumer takes while making a purchasing decision. A normal
consumer purchase includes the recognition of needs and wants. Next comes the information
search, followed by an evaluation of all the choices. Finally, the purchase happens, and post-
purchase evaluation follows a purchase.
1. Identify the Problem
This is the first stage of the buying process. A consumer will not initiate a purchase without the
recognition of the needs or wants. When a consumer feels the need to buy a particular product,
he will go for a purchase decision. There is an unmet need or there is a problem that can be
solved by buying a particular product.
In this stage, the marketer should identify the needs of the consumers and offer the products
based on the desire.
2. Information search
At this stage, the consumer is aware of his need or want. He also knows that he wants to buy a
product that can relieve his problem. Therefore, he wants to know more about the product that
can relieve his problem. This leads to the information search stage.
Here, a marketer must offer a lot of information about the product in the form of informative
videos, demos, blogs, how-to-do videos, and celebrity interviews.
3. Evaluation of Alternatives
By now the consumer has done enough research about the kind of product that can solve his
problem. The next step is to evaluate alternative products that can solve his problem. Various
points of information gathered from different sources are used in evaluating alternatives.
At the end of this stage, the consumer will rank his choices and pick a product that best
matches his needs and wants.
4. Purchase Decision/Purchase
At this point, customers have already explored multiple options. They are aware of the pricing
and payment options available. Here, consumers are deciding whether to buy that product or
not. Yes, even at this stage they can still drop the purchase and walk away.
A marketer needs to step up the game. Start by reminding the customers of the reason behind
their decision to buy the product. Furthermore, give as much information regarding your brand
reiterating that you are the best provider of the product that can fulfill his needs.
Retargeting by simple email reminders can enforce the purchase decision.
5. Post-Purchase Evaluation
This is the last stage and is most often ignored by marketers.
After buying the product, customers compare products with their expectations. There can be two
outcomes: Either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Consumers will be happy after buying the
product if it has satisfied their needs. But in case the product was not up to his expectations, the
consumer will be dissatisfied. A consumer can be lost even at this stage.
A marketer has to make sure that the consumer will be satisfied with the product so that his
experience will lead to repeat customers. Brands need to be careful to create a positive post-
purchase experience.

What are the 5 stages of consumer buying behavior? Clootrack. (n.d.). Retrieved October
29, 2022, from https://www.clootrack.com/knowledge_base/stages-of-consumer-buying-
behavior