Table of Contents
Introduction
Marketing research is a function that connects consumers, customers, and audiences to the marketer through information: information used to identify and define opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate assets; monitor performance; and improve understanding of it as a process.
Determines the information needed to solve these problems, designs the information collection methodology, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the results and their implications.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is a discipline with a historical foundation that should not be denied or hidden, linked to humanity’s economic development. In the 18th and 19th centuries, companies were Product-oriented (having many products to sell them) since they thought about the product and then were to offer it. At the end of the 19th century, a series of events gave rise to the birth of marketing. The market saturation made the products differentiate themselves, and they had to present unique characteristics to attract consumers.
A Bit of Marketing History
The 1929 crisis led to the development of market research. It evidenced the fragility of the methods used up to that time, so that year can be considered the end of production- and distribution-oriented marketing and the birth of consumer-oriented marketing. Sales.
In 1934 the American Marketing Journal appeared, which from 1936 became the current Journal of Marketing, and in 1937 the American Marketing Association (AMA) was founded to promote the scientific study of marketing.
The 1960s and 1970s, two new currents of thought appeared, service marketing and industrial marketing, which tried to answer this problem and also, served as the ideological basis for the subsequent emergence of relationship marketing.
In the 1980s, the strategic vision was introduce. A bold concept of control of the environment was proposed with marketing capable of creating or changing, and expanding its influence on the environment.
The 90s are characterized by customer orientation. After carrying out strategies focused on products and their sales force, companies realized that they were leaving aside the main objective of their business and marketing: the customer.
Marketing Philosophy
When Adam Smith described the term “consumer sovereignty”, it was not until 1969 that Levitt established that the purpose of a company is ” to create and maintain a customer”.It constitutes one of the company’s first statements of it philosophy (Levitt, 1969).
For Stanton, as a philosophy is a way of thinking while, as an organization, it is a way of acting. McCarthy and Perrault state that the philosophy ” implies that a company directs all its activities to satisfy its customers and in doing so makes a profit ” (McCarthy and Perrault, 1984).
For Kotler and Armstrong (2008), it is a management philosophy according to which “the achievement of the organization’s goals depends on knowing the needs and desires of its target markets and offering the satisfaction that its customers seek in a better way. The way competitors do.
According to Stanton, Etzel, and Walker, the Marketing Concept is Founded On Three Beliefs:
- All planning and operations must be customer-orient.
- All Marketing activities must be coordinate.
- Coordinated, customer-focused marketing is essential to achieving organizational performance goals.
Marketing Approaches
Regarding the approaches, various authors have delimit it, being relevant the conceptions develop by Kotler and Armstrong (2002) and Stanton, Etzel and Walker (2007), which allow us to group five different types:
The Production Approach
It is one of the oldest, where the user seeks availability and low cost.
The Product Approach
Seeks quality, results and innovative characteristics because users will opt for those products that present these characteristics.
Sales Approach
It maintains that the user pays attention to aggressively advertised and promoted, which forces the organization to develop aggressive sales and promotion policies.
Marketing Approach
It faces all of the above, focuses on the target audience’s needs, and also, provides competitive and profitable satisfaction. It rests on four pillars: market definition, customer orientation, it coordination and profitability.
Social Marketing Approach
Adds the social responsibility of the organization to the approach to preserve and enhance the well-being of users and society in the long term.
Holistic Marketing Approach
This approach is based on the development, design, and also, implementation of it programs, processes, and activities, recognizing the scope and interdependence of their effects. Holistic realizes that “everything matters” in marketing and that a broad, integrate perspective needs to be taken. (Kottler, P., Keller, K., 2006, p. 17).
Relational Marketing
That seeks to establish lasting or long-term relationships with the key consumers, suppliers and distributors, all to create a network and thus obtain more benefits.
Integrated Marketing
Involves numerous decisions in different areas to increase the value of consumers (Kottler, P., Keller, K., 2006, p. 19). The four P’s of marketing (product, place, price and promotion) emerge under this concept.
Social
Or socially responsible marketing is the part of holistic marketing that focuses on giving value to customers and making a profit for society in general.
Holistic marketing brings different benefits to the company:
- It allows organizations to create lasting relationships with their customers.
- Generate databases to offer innovative and also, effective alternatives to your target market.
- It creates a clear comparative and also, competitive advantage from the perspective of current and potential customers of a company.
- It not only focuses on generating sales but also on generating added value for its clients, both individually and for the society it operates.
- Establishes a comprehensive approach to the target market, generating a solid base to produce competitive advantages because it attracts, maintains and enhances customer relationships.
- It creates a business structure aimed at seeking satisfaction, which manages to materialize the efforts of mutual trust between the client and the organization in profits.
The Philosophy of Total Marketing Today
Total is a business philosophy characterize by a change of mentality in all company areas. It is based on actions aimed at all the protagonists related to the company. It is no longer just about selling or just getting and also, keeping customers.
There are several protagonists in the environment of an organization that must be consider simultaneously:
Providers are view as partners,
helping them improve their quality and also, performance. In some cases, the company itself trains its suppliers.
Dealer Targeted
This refers to establishing effective relationships with wholesalers, agents, retailers, and also, dealers, as the case may be.
Marketing to End Customers:
This traditional approach involves identifying, capturing, and also, serving a defined group of customers with excellence.
Staff-target
Employees are perceive as internal providers of services and also, internal customers. To this end, the hiring, training and development, motivation, compensation and evaluation processes are continuously improve.
Financial
This is about influencing the perceptions and also, attitudes of banks and other financial institutions through annual reports, press releases, business plans, or using different tools. It favors the corporate image and also, increases reliability in the company.
Political
All though, refers to actions that promote appropriate legislation for the sector in which the company operates. For this, it is important to belong to associations that fully defend the sector’s interests.
Alliance
Is aim at companies with which strategic alliances can be establish in a given situation. Sometimes it is necessary to ally with those that operate in other market sectors. Finding the right strategic partners, winning them over and also, keeping them is a problem.
Marketing aimed at the competition
In certain circumstances. It is advantageous to establish strategic alliances with companies with which it competes in the market.
Marketing aimed at the media
All though, in this case, it is essential to understand the needs of the different media and also, all through public relations to cultivate a friendly relationship.