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Marketing Management Essay

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"Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others." (Kotler et al, 2003:13). Marketing is a key aspect within a business and has several different functions. Some of these functions include, research, analysis, promotion, pricing and distribution. These functions lead into the evolution of the five alternative concepts under which organisations conduct marketing activities. The concepts include the production concept, the product concept, the selling concept, the marketing concept and the societal marketing concept.

The production concept focuses upon the improvement of production and distribution efficiency, …show more content…

The last concept is; the marketing concept. This is a relatively new business philosophy with an outside in perspective, which begins with the target market and works back. It is centred on achieving organisational goals and depends on determining the needs and wants of target markets. In order to achieve these goals the whole organisation has to take responsibility for building relationships with the customers and maintaining these. Within the organisation customer focus has to work from top down and bottom up. This means it has to be totally accepted by the whole work force and all staff committed to building lasting relationship with customers. This concept is the most widely used concept of all five because it has proved to be successful. This is mainly due to the reality that it focuses on the customer needs and wants, rather than on the internal organisations needs and wants.

In order for the organisation to adopt the marketing concept and give the customers what they want or need, they need to take a look at their target markets. Most organisations do this by using a process known as segmentation. “Market segmentation is dividing a market into distinct groups with distinct needs, characteristics, or behaviour who might require separate products or marketing mixes” (Kotler et al 2004:239). This means, building the RIGHT relationships with the RIGHT people. For example, there is no

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