We explain what marketing is, what it is for and what it consists of. In addition, the types of marketing and their main characteristics.
What is marketing?
It is known as marketing (from the English market, “Market”) or marketing to the set of processes and institutions that allow the creation, communication and delivery of offers for the exchange of goods and services, which have a value for clients, companies and society in general.
In other words, it is a branch of the administration that focuses on the communicative direction of economic activities and commercials of a group or a person, that is, in how to identify and satisfy the needs of the target consumer market.
Marketing focuses on a two-way process: the exchange of goods and services between the different social and economic actors in a given region of the consumption spectrum. 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 carry out its analysis and formulate its results.
Marketing objectives can be summarized as take the customer 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 consumer 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, wants and demand. This is understood by the tension of search for what we need (or feel we need) that has motivated consumption and economic exchange since prehistoric times. Needs are linked to people’s physical well-being; wishes to their specific aspirations (social, intellectual, cultural, etc.); and demand is simply the desire to purchase a particular good or service from the supply.
- Value and satisfaction. Value is understood to be 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, competitive value and desired value.
- Exchange. It occurs when two or more parties are involved in an economic activity that involves giving something to receive something in return, thus managing to satisfy two needs or desires at the same time, in a relationship that, ideally, is long-term and mutually beneficial.
Marketing plan
A marketing plan is the result of a market study carried out by a company (or for a company) in order to better understand the consumption dynamics 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 market niche and later they offer solutions or recommendations to follow to maximize the financial year.
This includes four big points:
- Market analysis. A reading of the needs and requirements of the consuming public in a specific area, in which the positioning of the company that carries out the marketing plan is taken into consideration with respect to its competition and the image that consumers have of it.
- Goals. A way to go, a specific goal linked to the improvement of the company’s marketing conditions, which is always the result of prior analysis of the market.
- 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.
- Revision. A closing by way of conclusions and general recommendations.
Marketing mix
A marketing mix or commercial mix is the name given to a set of tools available for a company to move forward with its plan of marketing.
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, moment, etc. ) and promotion (advertising, public relations, effective communication, etc.).
Digital marketing
Digital Marketing (MD) is characteristic of the Internet era (1.0 or 2.0), and therefore has to do with making the most of the advantages that this type of information and communication technologies offer companies to position their products in the market.
This goes from using Community Managers for their social networks, bringing the customer closer to the brand (loyalty), even presence in search engines (Search Engine Optmization, SEO) and use of the different multimedia resources offered by this platform.
Direct marketing
Direct marketing is understood to be communication without intermediaries between the company and its customers or consumers, which occurs through a series of techniques and mechanisms whose purpose is to expand the customer base (capture new ones) and maintain the one already achieved (loyalty), guaranteeing the continuity of consumption of a specific product or simply adherence to a cause, a social organization or the sponsorship of a certain institution.