Answered Essay: Based on both your own experiences and what you've learned, what is YOUR definition of marketing?
Based on both your own experiences and what you’ve learned, what is YOUR definition of marketing? (Feel free to note how the text, our discussions in class, the book you’re reading or research you’re doing for your case study, or any other sources have influenced your definition). What distinctions, if any. would you make between marketing and marketing management? Describe an organization or situation that represents what you consider EXCELLENT marketing and relate it to Kotler’s “4 Pillars Model” discussed in class. Specifically, note what made it “excellent.” Define “cause-related marketing” and give an example of its use. How could this tactic offer bottom-line benefits for the organization? Thinking back on your consumer decision-making assignment, had you been exposed to cause-related marketing, how might it have influenced your decision? Kotler described three factors that have dramatically impacted the marketplace today. List these factors and, using the organization you work for now, give an example of each. What is Lifetime Customer Value (also referred to as “Customer Lifetime Value”) and why is it such an important business concept?
Expert Answer
1. Marketing is the process in which a product is intiated from an idea and it ends up at the customer’s end after being complete. There are several features of the product that are included in it to make it a complete product. These features are calles as the 4P’s of Marketing designed by Philip Kotler. The 4P’s include Product, Price, Place and Promotion. All the above 4 factors helps in designing of a product from its start to its completion and thereby presenting it to the end customer.
- The product is first identified, designed and produced.
- Once the product is produced, according to the costs incurred for producing the product and taking into considerations the competition pricing, the price of a roduct is decided.
- Post the fixation of the price, the channel through which the product needs to be distributed to present it to the end customer is decided. This is the factor called as Place.
- The final factor is the promotion. It includes the development and implementation of a strategy to attract customers towards the product.
The distinctions between marketing and marketing management are:
- Marketing is a process which starts from the concept of a product to the complete development of a product. On the other hand, marketing management is the management of the resources and the processes that go into the development of a product.
- Marketing is a concept which is developed to design the way in which the product needs to be produced, promoted and put forward in the market. Marketing Management is the practical implication of how the concept designed through marketing needs to be executed in the real world.
2. An organisation according to me with an Excellent Marketing technique is Apple. It has a marketing technique of its own and does not follow the traditional marketing technique which is what makes it even special.
Product: Apple is a company which designs its product with the best of the best technology. There is no doubt about the quality of product that Apple produces.
Price: It also prices the product which makes it a product of a different league. None of the competition companies have been able to match what Apple has given over the years. It creates a niche of its own in the market unlike other companies who depend on customer’s preferences.
Place: Apple has a very strong distribution network where the supplier’s depend on the company’s decisions. Such is the power of Apple with its diversified network of distributors and suppliers all around the world.
Promotion- The promotion strategy that Apple follows is one of its kind. It promotes the product in such a way that the customer’s preferences changes according to their features included in the product. Apple doe not depend on customer surveys while designing its product. It believes in giving something new each time it introduces itself with a new product in the market. The best example is the Ipod. The promotion strategy of Apple also revolves around the same concept of showcasing the new thing as the NEXT BIG THING
