1.1 Key Concept

1.1.1 The Marketing Concept

In people’ s mind, the marketing is very easily to be understood. According to their life, marketing could be treated as acquaintance as a friend or neighbor. They can see it in the TV commercials, newspapers and magazines. In holiday, promotion appeares in store or supermarket around their community and any place where they go These functions of marketing have closely connected with you and your life; They provide a great insight into purchasing experience in shopping for product. Your attention and money easily became a kind of resource under a massive network of people and intense competition.

The professional people who mastered. The area of marketing could not define the marketing basing on their life background or shopping experience. They will not research the term marketing, basing on the old sense of making a sale-“selling”. From the professional description of marketing, the core meaning of marketing which scholars heinly interested in will change our old cognation. That is why we must learn the marketing in professional situation.

What is marketing?

What does the term marketing mean?

We define marketing as: “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.” (Philip Kotler, P10, Principles of marketing )

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as:“an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

To explain the Philip Kotler marketing definition, we examine the following key terms and original points of marketing: needs and wants, products and services; value and satisfaction; exchange, transactions and relationships; and markets.

On the other side, the explanation from the AMA’s concept is most near to the business environment. Their definition takes into account all items involved in the operation of marketing.

Although they explain the concept of marketing in different situations, they all mention one item at the terms of customer’s needs. All the business of people in marketing did just had one aim, understanding the consumer’s wants and needs, then tried to satisfy them.

How to distinguish the wants and needs? Is it really important to the whole marketing management? If you were a manager in market, could you satisfy your customers through an efficient way? These questions will follow our study in each chapter. The aim that lists these questions does not focus on solving the problems, but find a reasonable situation for our learning.

1.1.2 Wants, Needs and Satisfaction

Human need: A state of felt deprivation.

Human want: The form that a human needs to take as shaped by culture and individual personality.

The emphasis in marketing did not pay attention to the customers’ need at the early time since 1940s; they just focused on the “selling” or “advertising” which could make more profit in short time. However, the structure of marketing were not always fixable and following the ideal of business owners. Time is changing. The intensiue competition in marketing forced the companies to consider their strategy on marketing management. After the World War Ⅱ ended in 1945, business owners changed their tendency from the supply to finding demands. The issue how to satisfy those customers’ wants and needs emerged instead of annoying their thinking.

The concept of marketing on the science meaning had complete determination and it had three parts: a customer orientation, a service orientation and a profit orientation.

Knowing what customers need and want is will make gou get very close to your customers or potential customers, thus you should spend more time to understand them rather than to seek new people.

There are big differences between need and want although they closely connect with each other. People have complex needs; basic need like food and water, but their wants are unlimited. Actually, companies want to provide more want-satisfying products and services not only focusing on the customers’ needs. The reality is that they must recognize the environment of marketing. People in good living condition may pay more attention to develop objects that will satisfy their desires. People in poor living condition may hardly realize their desires and satisfy them with _{what is available.}

The marketing mix

Marketing mix: The ingredients that go into a marketing program: product, price, place, and promotion.(William G. Nickels, Understanding Business, P398)

One of the best ways for you to remember the basic elements of marketing is to call these factors as four Ps, product, price, place, and promotion. These four factors are call the marketing mix, and they call controllable factors under the control of the marketing department at same time.

The four Ps will appear in later chapter, but for now it is quite necessary for the process of marketing management. If you really want to understand the process of marketing, the four Ps would help you to compose the idea even include planning in the market. Professor E. Jerome McCarthy has published a useful shorthand reference:

Product：A good, service, or idea to satisfy the consumer’s needs.

Price：What is exchanged for the product.

Promotion：A means of communication between the seller and buyer.

Place：A means of getting the product into the consumer’s hands.