Understanding Marketing: Core Concepts & Applications

What is Marketing?

Marketing is fundamentally about identifying and profitably meeting human and social needs. It encompasses the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that hold value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Defining Marketing & Management

Marketing management is both an art and a science. It involves choosing target markets and then attracting, retaining, and expanding customer relationships by creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

Marketing vs. Selling: A Key Distinction

Managers sometimes mistakenly view marketing as solely “the art of selling products.” However, many are surprised to learn that selling is not the most crucial aspect of marketing. In fact, selling is often just the tip of the marketing iceberg. The true aim of marketing is to make selling almost unnecessary. It strives to understand the customer so thoroughly that the product or service perfectly fits their needs and essentially sells itself. Ideally, effective marketing should result in a customer who is already prepared to buy, requiring only that the product or service be made readily available.

What Can Be Marketed?

A wide array of entities and concepts can be marketed. These include:

• Goods: Tangible products created through production (e.g., cars, electronics, clothing).
• Services: Intangible offerings, often involving a performance or activity (e.g., haircuts, legal advice, banking).
• Events: Timed occurrences, less frequent than ongoing services (e.g., concerts, sports tournaments, trade shows).
• Experiences: Memorable, sporadic services that firms create and stage (e.g., theme park visits, adventure travel, immersive exhibitions).
• Persons: Individuals who market themselves or are marketed as brands (e.g., celebrities, politicians, influencers).
• Places: Locations marketed to attract tourists, residents, or businesses (e.g., cities, states, nations, tourist destinations).
• Properties: Intangible ownership rights, including real estate or financial assets (e.g., houses, stocks, bonds).
• Organizations: Entities that build strong, favorable, and unique images among their publics (e.g., corporations, non-profits, universities).
• Information: The creation, packaging, and distribution of data and knowledge (e.g., books, software, news, educational courses).
• Ideas: The fundamental concepts or benefits embedded in every market offering; products and services serve as platforms for their delivery (e.g., environmental conservation, healthy living).

Who Participates in Marketing?

Marketers and Prospects

A marketer is an individual or organization that seeks a response—such as attention, a purchase, a vote, or a donation—from another party, known as the prospect. If both parties are actively trying to sell something to each other, they are both considered marketers.

Understanding Demand States

Marketers must be adept at handling various demand states. Eight possible demand states include:

• Negative demand: A major part of the market dislikes the product and may even pay to avoid it.
• Nonexistent demand: Consumers are unaware of or uninterested in the product.
• Latent demand: Consumers share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by an existing product.
• Declining demand: The demand for a product is falling.
• Irregular demand: Demand varies on a seasonal, daily, or hourly basis.
• Full demand: Consumers are adequately buying all products put into the marketplace.
• Overfull demand: More consumers would like to buy the product than can be satisfied.
• Unwholesome demand: Consumers may be attracted to products that have undesirable social consequences.