Marketing

Marketing is a general term used to describe all the steps that lead to final

sales. It is the process of planning and executing pricing, promotion anddistribution to satisfy individual andorganizational needs.From this definition it is easy to seethat marketing is more than just the

process of selling a product or service.Marketing is an essential part ofbusiness, and without marketing, eventhe best products and services fail.Companies constantly fail becausethey do not know what is happening inthe marketplace and as a result, they are not fully meeting their customer’s needs. They mistakenly believe that with the proper amount of advertising,customers will buy whatever they

are offered.Marketing consists of making decisions on the four P’s:

• Product

• Place/Distribution

• Promotion

• Pricing

Before a business owner can make decisions on the four P’s, he/she must devise a plan. A plan provides a business with guidance on making decisions. This chapter includesdirections on how to devise a plan that will assist in making decisions about the four P’s. This type of plan is a sixstage process that is commonly referredto as strategic marketing; a strategicmarketing plan is an important part of a

business plan.

I can recall the following marketing concepts:

1.The selling concept

What is the selling concept?

According to this concept the company’s entire focus is onselling and hence making a lot of sales.The selling effort is backed by serious promotional activities and aggressiveadvertising.The company does not bother about the market demand,they just want to sell what they produce.

When is the selling concept adopted? This concept is practiced when the firm is into the business making products which the consumers do not know much about.We call theseunsought goods.The consumers do not consider or think about buying such products.A good example of such products is:Insurance Policies

Important Fact: This is adopted when the firm faces something which we...