Part 1: Defining Marketing and the marketing process
Chapter 1: Marketing: Creating customer value and engagement
The goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow
current customers by delivering satisfaction. Messages reach you directly, personally and
interactively. Marketers want to become a part of your life and enrich your experiences with their
brands. Marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making a sale (telling and selling), but
in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. Selling and advertising are only part of a larger
marketing mix. So marketing is: the process by which companies engage customers, build strong
customer relationships and create customer value in order to capture value from customers in
return.
Marketing process
1. Understand the marketplace and customer needs and wants
a. Needs, wants and demands
Needs are states of felt deprivation (physical needs, social needs and individual needs). Wants are
the form human needs take as they are shaped by culture and individual personality (an American
needs food but wants a Big Mac). Demands are human wants that are backed by buying power.
b. Market offerings (products, services, experiences)
Consumers needs and wants are fulfilled through market offerings: combination of products,
services, information or experiences offered to a market to satisfy a need of a want. It is nog limited
to physical products, but include also services. Many sellers suffer from marketing myopia: the
mistake of paying more attention to the specific products a company offers than to the benefits and
experiences produced by these products. They are so taken with their products that they focus only
on existing wants and lose sight of underlying customer needs. They forget that a product is only a
tool to solve a consumer problem.
c. Value and satisfaction
Customers form expectations about the value and satisfaction of products and satisfied customers
buy again and tell others about their good experiences and vice versa. Marketers must be careful to
set the right level of expectations. If they set expectations too low, they may satisfy those who buy
but fail to attract enough buyers. If they set expectations too high, buyers will be disappointed.
d. Exchanges and relationships
Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired object from someone by offering something in return.
Companies want to build strong relationships by consistently delivering superior customers value.
e. Markets
A market is the set of actual and potential buyers of a product or service. These buyers share a
particular need or want that can be satisfied through exchange relationships. Creating relationships
takes work. Today’s marketers must also deal effectively with customer-managed relationships. A
company’s success at engaging customers and building profitable relationships depends not only on
its own actions but also on how well the entire system serves the needs of final customers.
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