Essay of JAVIER MANSO CARREIRA

JAVIER MANSO CARREIRA

DEFINITION OF MARKETING

Marketing is an essential function of management that is needed to create demand for a product.
The main functions are:

1. Understanding the needs and desires of customers and prospects:
Sometimes we assume that our personal needs are the same as those of others. Understanding what customers really want is to discover and recognize their needs and desires can be very different from ours.

2. To Select and develop products that better meet those customers within the limits of available resources of the company:
Having identified the needs and characteristics of various markets, we must decide which will be served according to their size, earnings potential and the goals and resources available to the company. Markets are different, so you will have to come up with different uses of the product to meet the requirements of each one of them.

3. Develop a program to inform customers about product utilities:
Once you develop the right products for different markets, they must decide how to report on the profits of each product. Could use the promotion, advertising and media. These are the tools of marketing.

4. Ensure that products reach customers:
Getting the product the customer means offering it in the right place at the right time and right price. Customer means making it easy to find and buy theproduct.

The American Marketing Association defines Marketing as “the process of using the marketing mix.”
The Marketing Mix is the variables that a business person can control, modify and use to influence their clients. The variables that make up the Marketing Mix are four: Product, Price, Promotion and Place, is distribution.
• Product:
A product is designed to meet consumer needs. The product strategy includes decisions about their uses, quality, features, brand name, style, packaging, warranties, designs and options.
Decisions are needed on changing the product characteristics, as it progresses through its life cycle.

• Price:
Besides being the major charged for the product to the customer, the price covers the management systems of discounts, rebates, credit terms, payment periods, etc.

• Promotion:
The promotion is to inform and persuade the target market about the value of the product. Its main tools are advertising, personal selling, public relations, and dissemination through sales promotion. An important part of the promotion is the choice of media.

• Location:
Place a product means supplying the right place at the right time. Distribution strategies include decisions on issues such as location and size of business premises, inventory levels, shelf distribution, type of transportation, etc.

 

SALES vs. MARKETING

Many companies have no marketing strategy because they believe that marketing is just a sale. But the two concepts are very different. According to the concept of sale, the company makes the product first and then tries to persuade the consumer to buy it. The sales function is simply to promote and sell the product of the company.
Instead, it connects the concept of marketing a company discovers first what the customer needs or wants and then develops the product. The marketing department is committed to both the beginning and end of loop through the product. The purpose of marketing is to make the concept sale is not unimportant, but, in practice, the sale always remains a part of the overall marketing strategy.

 

 

 

PLANNING, SETTING GOALS AND MARKETING STRATEGIES

The marketing strategy identifies the current status of your business, and sets goals short and long term future. Without a marketing plan, marketing efforts are likely to be more reactive than proactive.
Can be described strategic planning as a means to an end, anticipating the future and determining the necessary course of action. Planning requires that a business knows where it is now, where would you like and as proposed to get there.
A marketing plan is a working document that will be used in the business steadily. It is an abstract work that is produced and stored on the shelf. A marketing plan is aimed at assessing the mode of action, to know how it worked before and should be different in the future. Most marketing plans are reviewed every year. A business can change rapidly and generate the need to be supplemented by quarterly or semi-annual action plans.

Each sector of a company should plan its annual goals; their plans must be consistent with the overall business strategy. A marketing plan helps you make decisions on matters such as selection of media, promotion, advertising, distribution, product development and related services, staffing requirements, professional training and disbursements for the year next.

 

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

It is more profitable to sell to actual customers than new customers; the goal of every business should be to create long term relationships with their customers. Relationship marketing is the new trend that allows customers to learn more.

Relationship marketing (or relationship management) is a philosophy of doing business, a strategic orientation that focuses on maintaining and promoting existing customers rather than acquiring new ones. It is a philosophy that assumes that consumers prefer to maintain a long relationship with the organization to continually change the search provider of value.

Companies often focus on attracting customers, but pay little attention to what they must do to maintain them.

Until the entry into the crisis, many employers felt they mind losing a customer because it would be difficult to replace by two new companies. The current reality shows that it is very expensive to get new customers and further remove them from the competition. This statement is particularly true for developed economies. In developing countries it may be easier to conquer new customers because, as the economies of these countries develop, grow income per. capita and, consequently, the potential demand of individuals.