What Does Marketing Do For A Business? What Function Does It Perform?

Market leadership is when a business has the most customers/users due to their sales or service.

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders". (2005) Simply put, marketing is the process by which businesses assess the needs and desires of consumers in order to provide products and/or services to meet those needs in the most efficient and cost effective manner. Truly effective marketers do market research in an effort to understand their target market and create marketing strategies based on the characterization of those in the target area.

What is value? For everyone, it is different. In business, what do we value? Do we value our client? Do we value our company? Do we value our products? In respect to business world relationships and “good” relationships, they are built on trust—that is definitely a value (in my opinion), especially in the business world. As a Starbucks barista, customers value their barista. I have seen it, and I can say that I know a lot more about a customer’s personal life than I ever thought I would when I was first employed with the company. Customers will come in at the same time when the same barista is working because they are having service done by someone that they can trust. There is a value between the two, and the customer definitely sees the barista as a giver (a giver a great customer experience/service). In a greater perspective of this book, good business relationships are not built on the product, but more so the service that the company has to offer—they are built with the person that is offering whatever product it may be that the company is offering. Sure, products may be a value to someone else, but the extra added value would be the relationship; the seller needs to be able to add the extra

In developing an effective value strategy, a company should identify the values they can deliver to meet customer expectation. Building on past work on the theory and concepts of customer value creation, Smith & Colgate (2007) came up with a customer value framework that identifies four main types of values that are delivered by firms and organization to their customers which are functional value, experiential value, symbolic value and cost value. The

SIMULATION DESCRIPTION: Holden Evan, Inc., has long been the premium dog food market leader with its flagship Grand Champion brand. The brand targets breeders, trainers, and owners of purebred dogs willing to pay higher prices for superior nutritional and health benefits. During an economic downturn, the Grand Champion brand suffered a sharp and prolonged decline in sales. The Marketing Manager must re-evaluate the brand's marketing strategy and marketing management orientation to determine if they need revision.

| Societal marketing orientation is the idea that an organization exists not only to satisfy customer wants and needs and to meet organizational objectives but also to preserve individuals’ and society’s long-term best interests.

In contrast to both there is Sales Orientation, (Dunnett, 2014) which would be defined as focusing on the selling of the product. This prioritizes the selling of the product above the customers’ satisfaction. This orientation relies on the sales team in the pushing of the product or service using aggressive sales techniques to achieve high profits. Here the assumption that sale prices that are high in value equate to substantial profit. In comparison with customer orientated corporations where the customers’ needs and wants are met, the firm will focuses a lot less on the satisfaction of the customer as it is presumed that high value equals satisfaction. So the customer will get high value but that might not necessarily be what the customer is looking for. This is where the sales teams’ responsibility lies; they need to sell using aggressive sales techniques. Cold calling about PPI (PPICLAIMSADVICE, 2014) claims would be an example where a service is promoted for free to claim money for you, the value lies in the fact it’s free but it’s a service not many people need. If they fail to see what the customer wants it’ll in the long term ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction, loss of customer, loss of profit, and Leading the firm ultimately to bankruptcy.

The task of marketing is to identify consumers’ needs and wants accurately, then to develop products and services that will satisfy them. For marketing to be successful, it is not sufficient to merely discover what customers require, but to find out why it is required. Only by gaining a deep and comprehensive understanding of buyer behaviour can marketing’s goals be realised. Such an understanding of buyer behaviour works to the mutual advantage of the consumer and marketer, allowing the marketer to become better equipped to satisfy the consumer’s needs efficiently and establish a loyal group of customers with positive attitudes towards the company’s products.

Four competing philosophies strongly influence an organization’s marketing activities. These philosophies are commonly referred to as production, sales, marketing, and societal orientations.

An understanding of what customers need and value is central to marketing. Creating a marketing strategy and selecting the right marketing strategy will allow the firm to get the data on the right target. After finding the target market the firm can set up the marketing mix. Product, place, promotion and price all are essential to directing the firm to sell the product. The customer is not a part of the marketing mix because the customer should be the target of the marketing mix. Understanding what they customer needs and want will help improve the product and

This is another common business orientation. It holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the selling company’s products.  The organization must, therefore, undertake an aggressive selling and promotion effort.  This concept assumes that consumers typically show buying inertia or resistance and must be coaxed into buying.  It also assumes that the company has a whole battery of effective selling and promotional tools to stimulate more buying. Most firms practice the selling concept when they have overcapacity.  Their aim is to sell what they make rather than make what the market wants.

Organizations which utilize a sales orientation to set pricing are trying to increase revenue through an increase in the number sales of their offerings (Grewal, 2014, p. 429). An example of an existing organization which uses a sales oriented pricing strategy is Tiffany and Co. Tiffany and Co. is a

Thinking in terms of the market (not marketing) is essential in the highiy competitive arenas of today,

Value – is customer’s idea about value of the product. customer evaluate the benefit and cost of one product to another.

Marketing is a crucial activity for the survival and success of a business. Businesses today have more marketing opportunities than ever (Bresciani & Eppler, 2010). In small businesses, marketing relies heavily on word of mouth recommendations for customer acquisition.Today’s economy, distinguished by relationships, technology, and networks, favors some of the characteristics of SMEs (Walsh & Lipinski, 2009).