What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers
Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs and desires of a consumer market by offering products or services that arouse public interest. Thus, Marketing manages to generate value for customers and also a profit for companies. What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers
Have you ever wondered how some companies manage to attract so many customers? What do they do to stand out in the market? Why do their products sell so much while others are stranded?
The secret to success certainly goes through marketing.
What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers. Those who dominate marketing know everything about the market. How to position themselves, how to win customers, how to deliver value to their audiences, and, of course, how to generate profit and competitiveness with this.
However, we are talking about a set of knowledge. It is not just about selling products. It encompasses a series of concepts, strategies, channels, and methodologies, which are constantly changing over the years to adapt to social transformations.
To dominate the market, then, one must master this science. That’s why we are now going to tell you everything you need to know from Traditional Advertising to Digital Marketing!
In this article, you will learn:
What is Marketing
Marketing Objectives
The Origin of Marketing
product life cycle
4 Ps of Marketing: Understand the Marketing Mix
types of marketing
marketing environments
Marketing Channels
What is market research?
How to create a good marketing plan
marketing tools
Marketing professional
Learn more about marketing
4 successful marketing cases
What is Marketing
Marketing is an area focused on generating value for the product, service, or brand of a business. With the objective of conquering and retaining customers.
To understand what marketing is, then, let’s turn to some representative names and institutions in the area.
The American Marketing Association, which represents marketers in the United States, provides the following definition:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for consumers, clients, partners, and society at large”.
This definition shows the scope of the marketing concept. Also note that the focus of this activity is not selling products to customers, as many might think.
Marketing works with the generation of value, and this must happen in the perception of different audiences about the cost-benefit that the company delivers.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing, which represents the field in the UK, defines marketing as:
“The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs at a profit”.
Therein lies an important contribution to understanding what marketing is: customer needs.
They are inherent to being human – marketing does not create them. However, this activity must know how to perceive people’s needs and awaken the desire to supply them.
This definition is in line with what Philip Kotler says. Who defines marketing as: “the science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target audience at a profit.
Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and wants. It defines, measures, and quantifies the market size and profit potential. It pinpoints which segments of the company are able to best serve and creates and promotes the most appropriate products and services.”
In a nutshell, he defines marketing as “meeting needs while generating profit”.
These definitions also do not miss the central objective of companies: profit. After all, this is what guarantees its survival and competitiveness in the market ― and this is one of the reasons for marketing exists.
But it is worth mentioning that marketing can also be adopted by non-profit organizations – public institutions and NGOs, for example. In these cases, marketing objectives turn to return in other ways, such as engagement or brand strengthening.
Now, since we’re talking about marketing objectives, let’s see a little more about them.
Marketing Objectives
Do you know what marketing is for? Anyone who thinks it’s just for selling products is wrong. Marketing objectives can be much broader and help to achieve different results for companies.
Let’s see some of them now.
1. Sell more
Sell: Yes, this is one of the main goals of marketing for organizations that place products or services on the market.
It is the role of marketing, then, to prepare strategies so that they meet customer needs and increase the chances of successful sales.
2. Build customer loyalty
But the role of marketing doesn’t end with selling. The company must remain close to the customer so that he does not forget the brand and buy again.
It is worth remembering a classic phrase: retaining customers is much cheaper than capturing new buyers.
3. Increase visibility
Another objective that marketing helps to achieve is to increase the visibility of the brand and its products.
However, it is useless to seek visibility with an audience that has nothing to do with the company. To optimize marketing investments, strategies must be focused on the right people: those who are most likely to become customers.
4. Manage a brand
Marketing is all about branding. Building a brand happens in the minds of consumers.
And for them to absorb the brand’s image, it needs to make its values and purposes tangible through marketing strategies ― in an advertising piece and in product pricing, for example.
5. Build good relationships
Marketing is also all about relationships. By strengthening ties with its audiences (not only customers but also partners, employees, etc.), a company can strengthen its brand.
Sales and loyalty are a consequence of this process.
6. Educate the market
Content production is at the heart of marketing today. Blog posts, magazine and newspaper articles, social media, and other channels help build brand authority while educating consumers about the solutions the company offers.
The intention is not to sell the product directly, but to show how it can be useful.
7. Engage employees
Marketing strategies don’t just aim outside the company. Within its borders, there is an audience that is essential for the success of the business: employees.
Therefore, marketing – or rather, end marketing – can also help to engage the internal public, make them happier with their work and make them propagators of the brand.
The Origin of Marketing
There is no official milestone for the emergence of marketing. But we can say that it exists – not yet as a field of knowledge. But in everyday practice – as long as people exchange goods with each other.
Marketing has been going on since the first civilizations. But it is at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Urban and Commercial Renaissance (around the 15th century) that cities begin to grow and consolidate commercial practices. What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers
Later, in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution began to radically transform society, the economy, and the ways of living in the city.
With the emergence of factories, some theories and methods of business administration also begin to appear, in search of greater efficiency and productivity.
From that moment on, with high production. The challenge was to find demand for the products. Thus, sales and distribution practices begin to be developed ― and then we begin to really get into the art of marketing.
But it is only in the 20th century, with the sequence of the Industrial Revolution and the consolidation of the market economy, that marketing takes hold.
The rise in competition, the demand for new products. And the growth of cities brought the need to establish a relationship between producers and buyers. Which stimulated demand for a company’s products.
And it was at this time, the beginning of the 20th century. That marketing was established as a discipline and the first correspondence and face-to-face courses were suggested at renowned universities, such as the University of New York, according to studies by Paul D. Converse (1945).
But you have to put yourself at that time: everything was still very new.
Therefore, marketing also did not have the vision it has today. Of knowing the public, segmenting the market, and satisfying needs. The intention was just to sell!
In this context, many malicious practices were adopted to deceive consumers, who ended up buying “cat in a poke”. And that created a negative image of what marketing is.
At this time, some scholars also began to analyze the effect of marketing and advertising.
Walter Dill Scott, for example, studied psychology applied to advertising and its persuasive (even hypnotic) character. He developed advertising strategies that were widely used by companies at the beginning of the century.
It was only later, with the maturation of consumers, that companies began to worry about consumer satisfaction.
Peter Drucker, is considered the father of modern management. Is one of the authors who directs the focus of business management to people, which already demonstrates that companies should not “sell at any cost”.
Philip Kotler, the biggest reference in current marketing, follows this line. In 1967, he launches his classic “Marketing Management”, which places this area as a central and vital point for companies.
They should be customer and market-oriented, not just look at their own production.
It is with this mindset, then, that marketing as we conceive it today arises. From there, the consumer becomes the center of attention.
But Kotler himself points out that marketing does not stop: it is constantly evolving, because it follows the changes in society’s behavior.
And if technology is increasingly increasing the speed of change, you can imagine that the pace of marketing is also accelerating.
Marketing history timeline
Now, let’s see the main facts that marked the history of marketing, which mixes with the history of technology and the media. Let’s go to our timeline:
1447: Gutenberg creates the printing press or typography. This invention revolutionizes the diffusion of information and ideas. Luther’s Protestant Reformation, for example, was propagated using the newly invented printing press.
1609: Germany publishes the first printed newspaper as a periodical. This means of communication will later be important to promote products and services in classifieds and other advertising spaces.
1730: Magazines also appear as periodicals and become another channel of information. Entertainment, and advertising.
1880: With the artistic vein of the Belle Époque. Posters become popular as a means of dissemination through the streets of cities. Later on, they will be important vehicles for wartime propaganda in Western Europe. The Soviet Union, and the United States. Following the posters, billboards also appear, in larger formats.
1920: Radio appears. At that time, many people questioned the print media, as radio was much more interesting and cheaper — they had no idea of all the technology that was yet to come.
1930: Open television broadcasts begin. If the radio was already a threat to print, TV was seen as the end point of newspapers and magazines (which definitely did not happen). In Brazil, transmissions only took place in 1950, at the hands of Assis Chateaubriand.
1941: The first TV commercial airs. In this media, advertising gains high power of penetration and persuasion.
1942: Nestlé opens an exclusive channel for communication with consumers. The Family Collaboration Service. It was the beginning of Customer Service (SAC) in Brazil.
The 1970s: Telemarketing becomes a common practice to sell products and services to consumers. PABX systems ( Private Automated Branch Exchanges ) allowed companies to have as many branches as needed to make calls. What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers
1981: IBM launches the first personal computer. The IBM PC 5150. Thus, the use of digital media by people and companies began to become popular. A little later, in 1984, Apple launches its first Macintosh, highlighting the legendary launch commercial that also went down in marketing history.
1991: Tim Berners-Lee creates the World Wide Web. The invention aimed to democratize knowledge. But the web went further: it eliminated the boundaries of communication and marketing and accelerated the speed of change in the world.
1995: Amazon and eBay are born, the first online sales sites. Which later became e-commerce giants.
1996: The world’s first webmail service, Hotmail, is launched. The service popularizes direct communication between companies and people, but it also makes the practice of spam explode.
1998: Google is born. It’s not the first search engine invented. But founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin innovate by using an algorithm ( PageRank ) that organizes pages by relevance. Instead of just sorting them alphabetically as their competitors did.
Google Founders
1998: Blogs appear. Initially, they look more like personal diaries. Later on, corporate blogs will become important Content Marketing tools for companies.
2000: Google launches Adwords to allow the insertion of sponsored links in search. This advertising format is a classic of paid internet media, which is still widely used today.
2003: The United States signs the Can-Spam Act, the first treaty against sending unsolicited email marketing.What is Marketing: everything you need to know about the art of winning and retaining customers
2004: Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook. A small university social network that would revolutionize social relationships and become a great business platform.
2005: YouTube is launched, which becomes the video giant for the internet. A year later, it is acquired by Google.
2007: Steve Jobs launches Apple’s first iPhone. This launch was a milestone for making smartphones better known and for the world to become more mobile.
2009: Google begins testing self-driving cars ― a milestone for the use of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
2015: Google launches RankBrain, a machine learning-based algorithm to qualify the delivery of search results to users.
2015: The concept of the Sharing Economy emerges ― represented by businesses such as Uber, Airbnb, and Netflix ―, which introduces a new business model and a new way of consuming.
phases
Philip Kotler explains in his books that marketing has gone through different phases. This happens because the activity follows the evolution of the market, society, technology, and, mainly, consumer behavior, with whom it must create a connection.
We are currently in the fourth phase, called Marketing 4.0. Therefore, we have already passed through Marketing 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Next, you will know what they are about.
However, do not think that one stage comes to replace the other. There are still companies living in the previous phases because they didn’t react to the changes.
