What is marketing?
We explain what marketing is, what it is for and what it is. In addition, the types of marketing and their main characteristics.
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What is marketing?
It is known as marketing (from the English market , “market”) or marketing to all processes and institutions that allow to create, communicate and deliver offers for the exchange of goods and services , which have a value for customers, companies and society in general.
In other words, it is a branch of the administration that focuses on the communicative direction of the economic and commercial activities of a group or a person, that is, on how to identify and meet the needs of the target consumer market.
Marketing focuses on a two-way process: the exchange of goods and services between different social and economic actors in a given region of the spectrum of consumption . This does not mean that it is equivalent to advertising , although it does use it and other disciplines or techniques, such as business models, to conduct its analysis and formulate its results.
The marketing objectives can be summed up in taking the client to the limit of the purchase decision , thus favoring the economic exchange between the parties (buyer and seller) so that both obtain a benefit or satisfaction.
Satisfaction in economic exchange (one thing for another, money for an object or service, for example) is the basis of the consumption system of modern society , since if it is not satisfactory for either party, it will not occur again.
In this sense, marketing evaluates a series of key concepts for its approach, such as:
- Needs, desires and demand . It is understood by this the tension of searching for what we need (or we feel we need) that motivates consumption and economic exchange since prehistory . The needs are linked to the physical well-being of people; the desires to their specific aspirations (social, intellectual, cultural, etc.); and demand is simply the desire to acquire a particular good or service from the offer.
- Value and satisfaction . Value is understood as the relationship established by the consumer between the cost of the product and the satisfaction it provides, and it exists based on four possibilities: expected value, received value, competition value and desired value.
- Exchange . It occurs when two or more parties intervene in an economic activity that involves giving something to receive something in return, thus satisfying two needs or desires at the same time, in a relationship that, ideally, is long-term and mutually beneficial.
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Marketing plan
A marketing plan is the result of a market study conducted by a company (or for a company) in order to better understand the dynamics of consumption of its economic niche, that is, the rules of the game of its target market.
Marketing plans are usually schematic, analytical documents that diagnose the niche market and subsequently offer solutions or recommendations to be followed to maximize the financial year.
This includes four major points:
- Market analysis . A reading of the needs and requirements of the consumer public in a specific area, which takes into consideration the positioning of the company that carries out the marketing plan with respect to its competition and the image that consumers have of it.
- Objectives . A way to go, a specific goal linked to the improvement of the marketing conditions of the company, which is always the result of previous market analysis .
- Strategies to follow . The set of recommendations or “solutions” that must be applied, in the opinion of those who prepare the plan, to improve the presence in the market or to maintain or consolidate it.
- Review . A closure by way of conclusions and general recommendations.
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Marketing mix
A marketing mix or commercial mix is the name that receives a set of tools available for a company to move forward with its marketing plan .
Part of a sectoral understanding of the economic segments of the market: product or service (life cycle, nature, etc.), price (forms of payment, credit, discounts, etc.), distribution (distribution channels, timing, etc. ) and promotion ( advertising , public relations , effective communication , etc.).
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Digital marketing
Digital marketing (MD) is characteristic of the Internet era (1.0 or 2.0), and therefore has to do with taking full advantage of the advantages that this type of information and communications technologies provide companies to position in Market your products.
This ranges from the use of Community Managers for their social networks , emotionally approaching the client to the brand (loyalty), to presence in search engines ( Search Engine Optmization , SEO) and use of the different multimedia resources offered by this platform.
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Direct marketing
Direct marketing means communication without intermediaries between the company and its customers or consumers, which is given through a series of techniques and mechanisms whose purpose is to expand the customer base (capture new ones) and maintain the already achieved (loyalty) ), guaranteeing the continuity of the consumption of a specific product or simply the adhesion to a cause, a social organization or the sponsorship of a certain institution.