Outline of marketing

Overview

Marketing refers to the social and managerial processes by which products, services, and value are exchanged in order to fulfill individuals' or groups' needs and wants. These processes include, but are not limited to, advertising, promotion, distribution, and product management. The following outline provides an overview and topical guide to the subject:

Marketers may sell goods or services directly to consumers, known as business to customer (B2C marketing), commercial organizations (known as business to business marketing or B2B), the government, not-for-profit organizations (NFP) or some combination of any of these.

Actors and relationships

At the center of the marketing framework lies the relationship between the consumer and the organization with the implication that marketers must manage the way the organization presents its public face.

Consumer: Typically, the consumer refers to the end-user, but this may be an individual or group such as a household, family unit or organization. In addition, marketers may need to consider the roles of influencers such as opinion leaders who increasingly use means such as social media to develop customer to customer networks of influence. Organization: may be represented by many different actors, including various sales personnel: agent, broker, sales representative, merchant, retailer, street vendor or vendor. Selling situations: Depending on the nature of the business operations, many different types of actors are involved in a variety of selling situations involving a variety of sales personnel, who perform varied sales roles. Sales activities involve many different types of customer relationships—from simple transactional exchange to long-term, enduring customer relationships.

Customer demand

Marketers typically begin planning with a detailed understanding of customer needs and wants.

A need is something required for a healthy life (e.g. food, water, shelter, emotional bonding). A want is a desire, wish or aspiration; when needs or wants are backed by purchasing power, they have the potential to become demands.

Exchange

Exchange, the act of giving or taking one thing of value in return for another, is central to marketing activities. Not all exchange involves financial transactions, but exchange may involve barter, contra dealing or other forms of trade. The object of exchange can include: goods, services or experiences, concepts or ideas, and causes, and may even involve celebrity marketing.

Perception of value

Traditional thinking around the concept of value was that marketers created value through innovation, product design and manufacture, and that utility was embedded in products or services offered for sale. In this type of thinking, a marketer's objective was to communicate a value proposition to potential buyers. However, recent thinking has changed the traditional perspective and now recognizes that consumers may participate in the co-creation of value in a variety of ways. Consumers may derive value through usage and experience, known as value-in-use or may be involved in product design, known as participatory design.

Economic concepts

Given that marketing has its roots in economics, it shares many foundation concepts with the discipline. Most practicing marketers will have a working knowledge of basic economic concepts and theories.

Competitive and comparative advantages

Businesses seek to compete by achieving competitive advantages or comparative advantages. Competitive advantages often focus on reducing costs through achieving one or more of the following: economies of scope, economies of scale, experience effects and first-mover advantages. Alternatively, a business may seek to develop uniqueness through product differentiation or developing unique competencies such as market sensing, rapid market response or delivering superior customer value.

Competition types

Different types of competitive markets can be identified: duopoly, monopoly, monopolistic competition, imperfect competition, and oligopoly.

Demand

Understanding demand and supply is essential for determining market size and market potential as well as in the price-setting function.

The basic mechanics of consumer demand include: demand curve, demand-led growth, demand response, law of demand, law of supply and transaction costs. Different types of demand functions include: derived demand and inverse demand function.

Economic systems

In Western economies, the capitalist economy dominates. However, other types of economic systems such as barter economies and the sharing economy can be identified.

Markets

Market Monopsony Oligopsony

Value

Value-in-ownership Value-in-use Marketing ethics