The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organizational goals consists of being more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities toward determining and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets. Today most firms have adopted the marketing concept, but this has not always been the case. It is the approach that companies adapt to persuade consumer’s needs, enhance sales, exploit earnings and beat the opposition in the market.
The marketing concept rests on four pillars: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability.
- Target market
First company segmented the total market according to some effective basis. No company can operate in every market and satisfy every need. Nor can it always do a good job within one broad market. Companies do the best when they choose their target market’s carefully and get ready tailored marketing program.
- Customer needs
Marketing is about meeting the needs of target markets profitably. The key to professional marketing is to understand their customers’ real needs and meet them better than any competitor can. Some marketers draw a distinction between responsive marketing and creative marketing. A company can carefully define its target market yet fail to correctly understand the customer’s needs. A responsive marketer finds a stated need and fills it. A creative marketer discovers latent needs (needs not stated but observed or inferred) and produces solutions that customer did not ask for but to which they enthusiastically respond. Customer-oriented philosophy requires the company to define client needs from the client point of view. Customer maintenance is more significant than customer attraction. The key to professional marketing is to meet the customer’s real needs better than other competitors.
- Integrated Marketing
When all the company’s department’s work together to serve the customer’s interests, the result is integrated marketing. Integrated marketing takes on two levels. First, the various marketing functions-sales force, advertising, product management, marketing research, and so on – must work together. Second, the marketing department must be well coordinated with other company departments. When all of the company’s departments work together to serve the customer’ interests, the result us integrated marketing. It makes no sense to assure exceptional service before the company’s employees are prepared to provide it.
- Profitability
The ultimate purpose of the marketing concept is to help organizations achieve their goals. In the case of private firms, the major goal is profit. Marketing managers have to provide value to the customer and profits to the organization. Marketing managers have to evaluate the profitability of all alternative marketing strategies and decisions and choose the most profitable decisions for long-term survival and growth of the firm. Private firms should plan to accomplish profits as an outcome of creating better customer assessment, by satisfying customer needs better than competitors. In the case of non – profit or public organizations, it is surviving and attracting enough funds to execute useful work.
Reasons for squeeze the Marketing Concept –
- The company’s assets have small worth without the reality of customers.
- The means company mission, therefore, is to draw and maintain customers.
- Marketing’s task is to expand a better contribution and distribute consumer contentment.
- Marketing needs to persuade these other departments to work together in delivering consumer pleasure.
