Satisfying Customers Needs And Wants Marketing Essay

Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers needs and wants. Critics however maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before, According to these critics, marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they really do not need.

Marketing process can be explained as creating value for customers and building customer relationship by doing this the organisation makes profit

The various elements of marketing process can be classified as follow

Fig 1

Understanding the market place and customers’ needs and wants is achieved through in-depth market research and thereby identifying a product gap or needs gap. This will involve trends , how to make things easier , comfortable, better and user friendly. In the early 80’s there were few or no mobile phones. A thorough market research has created the need for mobile phones, then came the massive first generation mobile phones.

This were later followed by smaller ones and these days we can see the smart phones with inbuilt cameras, time online movies and news ability to actual work from your mobile Samsung note to the new tablets.

Every day specialist market research companies, innovators, technicians and scientist all work hand on hand to create a new niche market or brand that makes our lives much more comfortable. Even the pay as you go concept became apparent as people could not continue to pay the incredible high cost then been charged by manufacturers who were looking at ways to cover the cost of their research and development. So the critics may not be far from the truth but the ideal is marketers coming with ways and products that makes our lives easy.

Design a customer driven marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is a long term means of achieving a corporate objective. If we take the example of the mobile phone industry where the likes of Samsung, IPhone, Nokia are in serious competition each as to design a marketing strategy to capture a share of the market. Like a military personnel will define the art of going to warfare.

Marketing program that delivers superior value : This refers to the marketing mix that is the 4ps Usually referring to E. Jerome McCarthy’s [1]  4 P classifications for developing an effective marketing strategy, which encompasses: product, price, placement (distribution) and promotion. When it’s a consumer-centric marketing mix, it has been extended to include three more Ps: people, process and physical evidence, and three Cs: cost, consumer and competitor. Depending on the industry and the target of the marketing plan, marketing managers will take various approaches to each of the four Ps.

The benefits and cost of marketing orientation

Market orientation is the understanding of customers’ requirement and creation of marketing mix which will meet these needs. Market driven means the firms capability to understand, attract and keep valuable customers

G. Armstrong and P. Kotler define marketing as social and managing process

by which the individuals and groups procure what they need by creating and exchanging values with others. [2] 

A market-oriented company is in a position to achieve competitive advantage

thanks to its unique innovative approach to customers. In addition to this,

according to the opinion of P. R. Dickson, a competitive advantage should be

understood in the sense of dynamics of competition. He expresses disagreement

with the standpoint of neoclassic theory of market equilibrium and claims

that the main characteristic of the market is its disequilibrium. He sees marketing

as a science and skill of creating changes (disequilibrium) in the market in

the manner that would provide for the changes that are beneficial for the company.

Various responses of salespersons and customers to changes in supply and

demand, thinks Dickson, create possibilities that could be used by the company

that understands market. He underlines the importance of adjusting company

to the market occurrences. [3] 

Benefits and cost of market orientation

Figure 2: Customer relationship groups

Source: G. Armstrong, P. Kotler, Marketing: An Introduction, 7. ed., Pearson/Prentice-Hall,

Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2005, p. 25.

The above summaries the benefits and cost of market Orientation other advantages and disadvantages.

Responding to Demand

Building Customer Value

Disadvantages

Extensive and Expensive Research and Increased cost.

Micro and Macro environmental factors that affect marketing Decision

The micro environmental factors are factors that can be controlled by the organisation and relates directly with the business these are considered using the factors in fig 3

Micro Environmental factors

Fig 3

Fig 4 shows how different public affects organisation. The public that affect the marketing decision of the yet they can be controlled and are regarded as micro are the relation with the following members of this public e.g Financial public this is based on say for example the organisation’s annual returns.

Fig 4

Macro Environmental Factors

The Target market for mobile phones companies and IT companies are more likely to be the high income earning spectrum of the society or the new graduates and the city bankers and young people in the top echelon of society who will be able to afford the integrated packages that are about to be launched into the market very soon The package will include home entertainment, office package, security package, phone and video calls and financial/banking package all launched as one integrated hand held device.

Market segmentation, and Target is followed by positioning, this should be developed and implemented by creating an image for the product, profiling the target market,

High Tech gadgets like this integrated hand held device will be bought based on the technical specification what comfort or ease of doing a task it provide.

Buying Behaviourur is the way and act of people involved in buying and using products. To understand these we need to consider, why a buyer will make a purchase, what factors influence will influence a buyer to buy a certain product.

Buying Behaviour refers to how people will behave when buying a certain product.

A firm needs to consider and study buying behaviourur and people’s reactions to the organisation marketing strategy has this will have great impact on the firm’s success.

The marketing concept show how a marketing mix (MM) that satisfies (gives utility to) customers, hence it important to understand the what, where, when and how consumers buy.

Stages of the Consumer Buying Process

There are Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions).

Problem Recognition

Information search

The evoked set.

Evaluation of Alternatives

Purchase decision-

Post Purchase decision

Buying behaviour is often determined by the level of consumer involvement in the purchase decisions, the importance and level of interest the consumer decisions is determined by the motivation to seek information about the product or service. High involvement purchase such as buy a luxury car or other expensive items. Also the element of risk involved in the use of the product that is the social risk and the economic risk.

The four type of consumer buying behaviour:

Routine Response/Programmed Behaviourr, Limited Decision Making, Extensive Decision Making/Complex, impulse buying, Routine Response/Programmed behaviour– this are low involvement very little or no decision effort is required E.g. A can drink .

Limited Decision Making- This are product bought occasionally example are like clothing but not brands

Extensive Decision Making/Complex: This involves unfamiliar, expensive and infrequently bought goods. It involves a high degree of economic performance, and psychological risk. e.g. cars, homes, computers, it also involves a lot of time seeking information and deciding. and consumers will go through all six stages of the buying process.

Impulse buying, this are purchase which are unplanned it like buying chewing gum in the Conner shop without actually thinking about it. Also prices at time lead to impulse buying. They are usually low valued items.

Ethan Lyon said “The goal of market positioning is to find the ideal opportunity in the market based on customer needs, market forces and financial and strategic considerations”. Once the market opportunity is identified then the organisation can further develop its product and elevate its brand to deliver outstanding value. To clarify the market position, the firm will need to find an overarching theme, then define the details. (sparxoo.com)

Brand Idea-The idea is an aspirational concept it defines the idea of what the company. For example the Samsung note goes with the concept of designed for human

Value Proposition- A customer or a consumer buyers the Samsung note they see high value and high quality

Differentiating Attributes-Samsung has distinguished itself from Apple by targeting the main stream yet providing quality and comparable or better phones than those provided by Apple

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