Marketing Process
The marketing process is a process of analyzing the opportunities in the market, selection of the target
markets, and development of the Marketing Mix and management of the marketing efforts. Below are the 4
marketing process steps that involved in targeting the right audience in the market.
Marketing Process Steps
1. Analysis of the opportunities in the market.
2. Selection of the target market.
3. Development of marketing mix.
4. Management of marketing efforts.
1. Analysis of the Opportunities in the Market
The first component of the Marketing Process is to analyze the market in order to find the
opportunities that should be availed. These opportunities are related to the needs and wants of the
customers that are not properly satisfied by the competitors in the market. A company that is
initiating the marketing process focuses the opportunities that would be beneficial in the long run
success so that its performance would be effectively improved. For this purpose, the company gets
help from the marketing information system (MIS), which plays a significant role in providing
useful information about the market.
The company also conducts effective market research that would tell him the value able information
about the customers, competitors, general trends, and any extraordinary change occurred in the
market that can be useful for the company. Then company identifies the potential opportunities from
the collected information and split the whole market into different segment. These segments are
based on some factors like age group, geographical location etc. The company evaluates each
segment separately to check the potential of the segment in the light of its strengths and
weaknesses. Finally, it selects the target market segment to proceed further.
2. Selection of the Target Market
This is the most important step of the marketing process in which the target customers are selected.
For this purpose, the company conducts a careful analysis of the target markets in order to choose
the final customers. As it is obvious that the company do not satisfy the needs and wants of the
whole market therefore it must divide the whole market into different segments and choose the
segment that will best meet its strengths and opportunities. In this regards, there are certain step
you need to follow.
Market Segmentation:
The process in which the whole market is split into different units of consumers, each unit having
similar wants, characteristics and behavior of consumers which need different marketing mixes and
strategies.
Market Targeting
In this process the targeted segments of the total market are evaluated to ascertain the
attractiveness of each segment so that the one or two most suitable and potential segments should
be selected and entered. The simple rule of selecting the target unit or segment is that it must
provide the opportunity to the company to create potential customer value in the long run. Another
important rule is that a certain company has the option to satisfy the needs and wants of one or two
segments. In this case the company focuses on that relevant segments and develops its products and
strategies for them only. Such small segments are called niches. The company has also another
option to split the whole market into different segments and offers different products and marketing
mixes to each segment of the market. But the most effective method is to focus on one or two
segments and after succeeding in those segments, further new segments should be targeted.
Market Positioning:
This concept relates to the positioning of the product of a company in the minds of the customers as
compared to the products of competitors. In other words the company tries to maintain a clear and
specific perception in customers about its products. When a company wants to position its product, it
first specifies the competitive edge for which it offers competitive advantages to its target customers.
The whole marketing program of the company should concentrate its identified positioning strategy.
The positioning is effective when the company truly provides the efficient, competitive offering to its
customers in order to give them maximum value as compared to the offering of competitors.
3. Development of Marketing Mix
After setting of a complete marketing strategy of a company, then it is ready to initiate the
planning of its marketing mix.
Marketing Mix
Marketing Mix is composed of certain variables of markets that are mixed by the company in order to
generate certain desired response in the targeted segments.
In fact the demand of the product is influenced by the use of certain activities of the marketing mix.
The marketing mix is composed of the following four Ps.
01- Product: means any offering (goods or services) to the market by the company.
02- Price: means the money paid by the customers to obtain the product.
03- Place: means the efforts which ensure the availability of the product in the market to
customers.
04- Promotion: means all the efforts by the company that ensure the sale of products to
customers through better provision of information about the advantages of the product.
A company develops an effective marketing program in which a suitable combination of marketing
mix is blended so that they are efficiently coordinated into a useful program to provide the greater
customer value in order to accomplish the companys objectives.
4Ps of marketing mix are from the seller perspective. In certain cases the 4Cs are replaced by
the 4Ps which are
1. Product means Customer Solution
2. Price means Customer Cost
3. Place means Convenience
4. Promotion means Communication
4. Management of Marketing Efforts
This is actually the action phase of the development marketing program in which a suitable
marketing mix is set for a target market. For the management of marketing efforts four functions are
adopted which are as follow.
01- Analysis of the Market in which the company identifies the internal strengths and weaknesses
along with the external opportunities and threats.
02- Marketing Planning in which certain marketing plans or strategies are developed so that the
overall objective of the marketing should be accomplished.
03- Marketing Implementation in which the developed plans and strategies are practically
implemented in order to achieve the marketing objectives.
04- Marketing Control in which the performance results of the marketing plans and strategies are
evaluated and necessary steps are taken to ensure the accomplishment of overall marketing objectives of the
company.
Organizational Market
All the individuals and companies who purchase goods and services for some use
other than personal consumption. Organizational markets usually have fewer buyers
but purchase in far greater amounts than consumer markets, and are more
geographically concentrated. Organizational markets are divided into four components:
industrial market, which includes individuals and companies that buy goods and
services in order to produce other goods and services; reseller market, which consists
of individuals or companies that purchase goods and services produced by others for
resale to consumers; government market, which consists of government agencies at all
levels that purchase goods and services for carrying out the functions of government;
institutional market, which consists of individuals and companies such as schools or
hospitals that purchase goods and services for the benefit or use of persons cared for
by the institution.
Product marketing
Product marketing is the process of promoting and selling a product to an audience. Product
marketing, as opposed to product management, deals with more outbound marketing or
customer-facing tasks (in the older sense of the phrase). For example, product management
deals with the basics of product development within a firm, whereas product marketing deals with
marketing the product to prospects, customers, and others. Product marketing, as a job function
within a firm, also differs from other marketing jobs such as marketing
communications ("marcom"), online marketing, advertising, marketing strategy, and public
relations, although product marketers may use channels such as online for outbound marketing
for their product.
A product market is something that is referred to when pitching a new product to the general
public. Product market definition focuses on a narrow statement: the product type, customer
needs (functional needs), customer type, and geographic area.
Role
Product marketing in a Business addresses four important strategic questions: [1]
What products will be offered (i.e., the breadth and depth of the product line)?
Who will be the target customers (i.e., the boundaries of the market segments to be served)?
How will the products reach those customers (i.e., the distribution channel and are there
viable possibilities that create a solid business model)?
At what price should the products be offered?
To inform these decisions, Product Marketing Managers (PMMs) act as the Voice of the
Customer to the rest of the product team and company. This includes gaining a deep
understanding ofand drivingcustomer engagement with the product, throughout their lifecycle
(pre-adoption, post adoption/purchase, and after churning). PMMs collect this customer
information through customer surveys and interviews, and when available, product usage data.
This frequently informs the future product roadmap, as well as driving customer product
education to ensure improved engagement.
PMMs answer these questions and execute on the strategy using the following tools and
methods:
Customer insights: interviews, surveys, focus groups, customer observation
Data analysis: product marketing managers are highly quantitative, particularly in internet
companies where results of marketing attribution to revenue is easily measured
Product validation: particularly for internet companies, teams often use marketing as a
channel to test and validate product ideas (the minimum viable product or rapid prototyping),
before engineering resources are committed to develop the product
Testing: optimal prices and marketing touch points are developed through exhaustive A/B
testing of language (copy), prices, product line-ups, visuals, and more
Comparison with product management
Product marketing frequently differs from product management in high-tech companies. Whereas
the product manager is required to take a product's requirements from the sales and marketing
personnel and create a product requirements document (PRD),[2] which will be used by the
engineering team to build the product, the product marketing manager can be engaged in the
task of creating a market requirements document (MRD), which is used as source for the product
management to develop the PRD.
In other companies the product manager creates both the MRDs and the PRDs, while the product
marketing manager does outbound tasks like giving product demonstrations in trade shows,
creating marketing collateral like hot-sheets, beat-sheets, cheat sheets, data sheets, and white
papers. This requires the product marketing manager to be skilled not only in competitor
analysis, market research, and technical writing, but also in more business oriented activities like
conducting ROI and NPV analyses on technology investments, strategizing how the decision
criteria of the prospects or customers can be changed so that they buy the company's product
vis-a-vis the competitor's product, etc.
One issue that faces Product Marketers is that they are chartered with developing much of the
content for the various constituents (sales, marcom, customers, blogs, etc.). Creating content
tends to be given more value than the actual research and thinking that is behind all the content.
In smaller high-tech firms or start-ups, product marketing and product management functions can
be blurred, and both tasks may be borne by one individual. However, as the company grows
someone needs to focus on creating good requirements documents for the engineering team,
whereas someone else needs to focus on how to analyze the market, influence the "analysts",
and understand longer term market direction. When such clear demarcation becomes visible, the
former falls under the domain of product management, and the latter, under product marketing.
In Silicon Valley, in particular, product marketing professionals have
considerable domain experience in a particular market or technology or both. Some Silicon Valley
firms have titles such as Product Marketing Engineer.
The trend that is emerging in Silicon Valley is for companies to hire a team of a product marketing
manager with a technical marketing manager. The Technical marketing role is becoming more
valuable as companies become more competitive and seek to reduce costs and time to market.
Another trend is to have one Product Marketing Manager per group of Product Managers. This is
the model that leads to the issue of PMMs being pressured to write content instead of connecting
with the market.
In health care marketing products are rarely purchased by the end user and are often purchased
or paid for by government, intermediaries, payors, healthcare professionals and healthcare
organizations, as a result in the Biotech/Pharmaceutical and Medical Device markets there are
"6" P's; the core 4: Price, Product, Promotion and Positioning as well as: Politics and Perception.
Product Levels
1. Core Product
This is the basic product and the focus is on the purpose for which the product is intended.
For example, a warm coat will protect you from the cold and the rain.
2. Generic Product
This represents all the qualities of the product.
For a warm coat this is about fit, material, rain repellent ability, high-quality fasteners, etc.
3. Expected Product
This is about all aspects the consumer expects to get when they purchase a product.
That coat should be really warm and protect from the weather and the wind and be
comfortable when riding a bicycle.
4. Augmented Product
This refers to all additional factors which sets the product apart from that of the competition.
And this particularly involves brand identity and image.
Is that warm coat in style, its colour trendy and made by a well-known fashion brand?
But also factors like service, warranty and good value for money play a major role in this.
5. Potential Product
This is about augmentations and transformations that the product may undergo in the
future.
For example, a warm coat that is made of a fabric that is as thin as paper and therefore
light as a feather that allows rain to automatically slide down.
The Classification of Products in Marketing
Product classifications help marketers focus their efforts using consumers buying behavior. Your
business can use these buying habits to design your marketing efforts for a clearly defined target
audience. Consumer products are often classified as convenience goods, shopping goods, specialty
products or unsought goods. Although these classifications are named as types of products, focusing on
how your customers buy these goods is equally important as you classify products and develop your
marketing campaigns.
Convenience Goods
Those products your customers buy often and without much thought or planning are classified as
convenience goods. Soap, condiments and toothpaste are common examples of convenience goods.
Consumers typically make a choice once on their brand preference for these products and repeat that
choice over many purchases. Making your convenience goods available for impulse or emergency
purchases can be particularly effective. Youll see this marketing tactic in the placement of candy near the
cash register of your grocery store for impulse buys. Another version is to place umbrellas, boots or snow
shovels near a store exit when sudden weather changes call for them.
Shopping Goods
Buying decisions are detailed considerations of price, quality and value for products classified as
shopping goods. Think about the amount of time you put into picking out a clothing purchase, a car or
appliances. Successful marketing of your shopping goods can come from positioning as a better buy than
your competitors -- for example, presenting better value with higher quality for the price or vice versa.
Products in the shopping goods classification tend to rely on heavy advertising and even trained
salespeople to influence consumer choices.
Specialty Products
Goods in the specialty products classification tend to promote very strong brand identities, often resulting
in strong brand loyalty among consumers. Examples include stereos, computers, cameras and the most
high-end brands of cars and clothing. While used cars are classified as shopping goods, a brand-new
Mercedes is classified as a specialty good. Buyers for your specialty goods generally spend more time
seeking the product they want than on comparing brands or products to make a value decision. Your
marketing of specialty goods can be successful by promoting what you have on hand and where your
costumers can find it.
Unsought Goods
The products classified as unsought goods are those that your consumers dont put much thought into
and generally dont have compelling impulse to buy. Examples include batteries or life insurance. Your
consumers essentially buy unsought goods when they have to, almost as an inconvenience rather than
the newest, latest, greatest product they cant wait to purchase. Marketing your unsought goods will likely
be most effective with lots of advertising and salespeople promoting the idea of unresolved need for your
unsought products.
