Who Markets

                                WHO MARKETS?

MARKETERS AND PROSPECTS A marketer someone who seeks a response-attention, a purchase, a vote, a donation-from another party, called the prospect. If two parties are seeking to sell something to each other, we call them both marketers.

  Marketers are skilled at stimulating demand for their products, but that's limited view of what they do. They also seek to influence the level, timing, and composition of demand to meet the organization's objectives. Eight demand states are possible:

1. Negative demand - Consumers dislike the product and may even pay to avoid it.

2. Nonexistent demand - Consumers may be unaware of or uninterested in the product.

3. Latent demand - Consumers may share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by an existing product.

4. Declining demand - Consumers begin to buy the product less frequently or not at all.

5. Irregular demand - Consumers purchases vary on a seasonal, monthly, weekly, daily, or even hourly, basis.

6. Full demand - Consumers are adequately buying all products put into the marketplace.

7. Overfull demand - More consumers would like to buy the product than can be satisfied.

8. Unwholesome demand - Consumers may be attracted to products that have undesirable social consequences.

  In each case, marketers must identify the underlying cause(s) of the demand state and determine a plan of action to shift demand to a more desired state.

  MARKETS Traditionally, a "market" was a physical place where buyers and seller gathered to buy and sell goods. Economists describe a market as a collection of buyers and seller who transact over a particular product or product class (such as the housing market or the grain market).

   Five basic markets and their connecting flows are shown in Figure 1.1. Manufactures go to resource markets (raw material markets, labor markets, money market), buy resources and turn them into goods and services, and sell finished products to intermediaries, who sell them to consumers. Consumers sell their labor and receive money with which they pay for goods and services. The government collects tax revenues to buy goods from resource, manufacturer, and intermediary markets and uses these goods and services to provide public services. each nation's economy, consists of interacting sets of markets linked through exchange processes.
  Marketers view sellers as the industry and use the term market to describe customer groups. They talk abbout need markets (the diet-seeking market), product markets (the shoe market), demographic markets (the "millennium" youth market), geographic markets (the Chinese market), or voter markets, labor markets, and donor markets.
  Figure 1.2 shows how sellers and buyers are connected by four flows. Sellers send goods and services and communications such as ads and direct mail to the market; in return they receive money and information such as customer attitudes and sales data. The inner loop shows an exchange of money for goods and services; the outer loop shows an exchange of information.
                                                                       
                                          [ Fig. 1.1 ]
                                        Structure of Flows in a modern exchange economy                     

KEY CUSTOMER MARKETS Consider the following key customer markets: consumer, business, global, and nonprofit.

CONSUMER MARKETS Companies selling mass consumer goods and services such as juices, cosmetics, athletic shoes, and air travel establish a strong brand image by developing a superior product or service, ensuring its availability, and backing it with engaging communications and reliable performance.

BUSINESS MARKETS Companies selling business goods and services often face well-informed professional buyers skilled at evaluating competitive offerings. Advertising and Web sites can play a role, but the sale force, the price, and the seller's reputation may play a greater one.

GLOBAL MARKETS Companies in the global marketplace navigate cultural, language, legal, and political differences while deciding which countries to enter, how to enter each (as exporter, licenser, joint venture partner, contract manufacturer, or solo manufacturer), how to adapt product and service features to each country, how to set prices, and how to communicate in different cultures.

NONPROFIT AND GOVERNMENT MARKETS Companies selling to nonprofit organizations with limited purchasing power such as churches, universities, charitable organizations,  and government agencies need to price carefully. Much government purchasing require bids; buyers often focus on practical solutions and favor the lowest bid, other things equal.

Core Marketing Concepts

To understand  the marketing function, we need to understand the following core set of concepts (see Table 1.1)

Fig. 1.2

A Simple Marketing System

Table  1.1  Core Marketing Concepts

Needs, Wants, and Demands

Target Markets, Positioning, and Segmentation

Offerings and Brands

Marketing Channels

Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

Impressions and Engagement

Value and satisfaction

Supply Chain

Competition

Marketing Environment