MARKETING

Marketing is the term given to all the different activities intended to make and attract a profitable demand for a product. The practice of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself. A market was originally simply a gathering place where people with a supply of items or capacity to perform a service could meet with those who might desire the items or services. Such meetings embodied many aspects of today's marketing methods, although sometimes in an informal way. Sellers and buyers sought to understand each other's needs, capacities, and psychology, all with the goal of getting the exchange of items or services to take place.

The rise of agriculture undoubtedly influenced markets as the earliest means of 'mass production' of an item, namely foodstuffs. As agriculture allowed one to grow more food than could be eaten by the grower alone, there was likely motivation to seek out others who could use the excess food, before it spoiled, in exchange for other items.

Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers and the expansion of relationships with existing customers.

Marketing methods are informed by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Anthropology is also a small, but growing, influence. Market research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it is also related to many of the creative arts.

For a marketing plan to be successful, the mix of the four "Ps" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers in the target market. Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for it. Marketers hope that this process will give them a competitive advantage.

The four Ps are:

Product: Identifying consumer needs and wants in order to develop the product. The Product management and Product marketing aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants.
Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or service, e.g. time, or attention.
Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold, which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.

These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix. A marketer can use these variables to make a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low-value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high-value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions.

A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing. It typically tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.

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