Marketing: What Is It, What Is It for, Types, Features and Characteristics

We explain what marketing is, what it is for, and how it is classified. Also, what are its characteristics, and what is a marketing plan?

What is marketing?

Marketing (from English market, “market”) or marketing refers to the processes and knowledge that focus on the communication and transmission of offers for the exchange of goods and services. They provide a distinctive value to the promoted product or service, in the context of a specific market niche .

In other words, it is a branch of the administration that deals with communication with the consumer, which allows the economic and commercial activities of a company or professional. It focuses on how to identify and meet the promotional needs of the target market.

It is not the same as advertising, although it uses this and other disciplines or business techniques to perform analysis and provide results.

Marketing understands consumption as a two-way process, that is, a reciprocal exchange of goods and services between the different social actors that make up a given society. Thus, their interests have to do with facilitating this exchange, as a kind of promoter of supply and demand.

What is marketing for?

The raison d'être of marketing is to drive the customer to the limit of the purchase decision .

In other words, it tries to bring the customer as close as possible to deciding the purchase.

Marketing facilitates decision-making through visibility, driving, and other strategies.

Consequently, it favors the economic exchange between buyer and seller.

The ultimate goal is the benefit and satisfaction of both parties . Satisfaction is fundamental in economic exchange ( money for an object or service) and is the basis of the contemporary consumer system. If consumption is not satisfactory for either party, it is not produced again and the customer is lost to the competition.

Definition of marketing

Various authors and institutions have offered their definitions of marketing. Among them, the following stand out:

• Phillip Kotler (father of modern marketing). "The social and administrative process by which groups and individuals satisfy their needs by creating and exchanging goods and services."
• American Marketing Association (AMA). "Set of institutions and processes to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offers."

Marketing is currently one of the most popular disciplines in the business world and one of the most demanded tools professionally.

Main concepts of marketing

Marketing works based on a series of key concepts of its approach, such as:

• Needs wants and demands. This is the name given to the active search for what the consumer needs (or feels they need). It is what motivates consumption and economic exchange, since ancient times. These needs have to do with people's physical, social and emotional well-being.
• Value and satisfaction. The value is the relationship established by the consumer between the cost he has paid for the product (price) and the satisfaction that it provides him (enjoyment). This relationship is determined by four forms of value: expected value, received value, competitor value, and desired value.
• Exchange. This is the name given to the fact that two or more parties take part in an economic activity, giving something in exchange for something else, thus being able to satisfy their respective needs or desires at the same time, in a mutually beneficial way.

Marketing plan

The result of a market study is called a marketing plan , that is, the analysis carried out by a company (or for a company). Its objective is to fully understand the consumption dynamics that govern its target economic niche, that is, the rules of the game in the market in which it operates.

Marketing plans are born as an organized and punctual response to the said analysis. These are usually bulky and sketchy documents. They start from a diagnosis of the market niche to propose solutions or recommendations to follow. The latter encompasses four major points:

• Market analysis. The needs and requirements of the consuming public, taking into consideration the positioning of the company with respect to its competition, as well as the image that consumers have of it.
• Goals. The specific goal to be obtained, linked to the improvement of the company's marketing. They can be specific or general.
• Strategies to follow. Recommendations or even solutions that, in the opinion of those who make the plan, should be applied to improve the company's presence in the market.

Marketing types

Different types of marketing are usually identified. An approach according to the orientation that determines them would recognize the following types:

• Production oriented. It focuses its efforts on making the products or services attractive to the consuming public. It focuses on their generation characteristics: their ecology, their high standard, etc. It is the most limited type of marketing.
• Product-oriented. It focuses its efforts on the product, improving its features and its promotional nature. The objective may be to guarantee the perpetuation of the sale (especially in monopolistic cases) or to open up a field in a new market.
• Sales oriented. Your priority is to maximize the number of trades, generally through two strategies:

  • The nature of the market. It is proposed to shape the market, alter some of its characteristics or influence it.
  • The business brand. It focuses on the differentiation of the product based on its belonging to a business group or a certain quality, tradition, or membership standard.

There are other ways of classifying marketing, based on their specific scope of action, but they are too numerous to list them all.

Strategic marketing

One that focuses on long-term actions, facing the future, in order to maintain business profitability over time. Their market and company outlook are usually macro, that is, globalizing.

Marketing mix

A marketing mix or business mix is a set of business tools to move forward with a specific marketing plan. Its starting point is the sectoral understanding of the market: products or services, price, distribution, and promotion, etc.

Digital marketing

Characteristic of the digital age and the Internet. Leveraging these new technologies of information and communication offers companies to position themselves ahead of their consumers.

He is interested, for example, in the possibilities of Community Managers and social networks, brand loyalty, or presence in search engines ( Search Engine Optimization, SEO).

Direct marketing

Direct marketing deals with communication without intermediaries between company and customers or consumers . To do this, it applies a series of techniques and mechanisms that can be aimed at:

• Expand the customer base (have new consumers)
• Keep customers (build brand loyalty)

For this, only the nature of the company and the market are taken into account, to design a unique, personalized relationship.

Operational Marketing

Define your recommended actions in the short or medium term, being a much more immediate variant than strategic marketing. That is, an operational perspective is not concerned with the future of the organization , but with the scope of immediate needs or the satisfaction of medium-term objectives, at best.

The above content published at Collaborative Research Group is for informational and educational purposes only and has been developed by referring to reliable sources and recommendations from technology experts. We do not have any contact with official entities nor do we intend to replace the information that they emit.