MC - What is Marketing? [LESSON]

What is Marketing?

Definition of Marketing

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." American Marketing Association.
Products can be goods, services, or information and ideas. Products are tangible items, like baseball gloves and balls. Services are intangible items that have value like getting your hair cut or having your car washed. Information and ideas are platforms that can be marketing like "Buckle up for Safety" or the texting and driving campaign "It Can Wait".

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is comprised of four marketing activities; product, price, promotion and place, also known as the 4P's.  A business tries to integrate these activities to satisfy the needs of consumers.

Marketing Strategies

A marketing strategy can be defined as a plan of action for the development, distribution, promotion and pricing products that meet the wants of specific consumers. In order to develop and manage marketing strategies, business must focus on selecting a target market, develop a marketing mix, evaluate environmental forces, and finally coordinating marketing efforts effectively.

A company must know their position in the market. For example, when Kia hit the US market they made a place for themselves by providing inexpensive cars. Now they have been able to introduce new cars and grow their market share.  Carspondent.com says "There is no doubt that Kia and Hyundai offer customers the best value in the industry, delivering what is essentially a luxury car at a much lower price." 

  • Position - The way consumers, users, buyers, and others view brands or products.
  • Market Share - The percentage of a market (defined in terms of either units or revenue) accounted for by a specific entity. 

Image of Nielsen's analysis of the market share of top US Smartphone Operating systems showing Android with over 1/2 of the market and Apple with 40% of the market, with others a small percentage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http//www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/whos-winning-the-u-s-smartphone-market-.html Links to an external site.

 

Kia manufacturing marketing share example:

Image showing Kia's market share of the total car market in the US.  Kia had 10.1% of the market when this graphic was made.

 

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