Chapter 01 - Defining Marketing to the 21st Century

 

                                         
We are in the 21 st century where everything has changed as a result of globalization. Lot of improvements have taken place in almost every industry in order to compete with the prevailing competition and the increasing demands of the customers. As we all know, "Customer is the King", it is so much relevant to the present day context in the market. The reason is, today's marketers always try their best to deliver the best product or service to the customer which provides them with a higher value or their desired value. 

According to the book definition "Marketing is the process by which companies engage customers, build strong customer relationships, and create customer value in order to capture value from customers in return" (Kotler et al,.2018, p29). The term " Value" has given a significant weight in this definition also which alarms that the customer is not expecting just a product or a service from us, but they expect a certain level of value for their paid money on that. Hence, marketers always be mindful that marketing is not just selling the product, but something beyond that framework. 
 
Selling vs Marketing 

                                   


Every marketer should understand that marketing is not just selling. Selling is just one part of the process of marketing. The most important point here is delivering value to the customer. Then a marketer cannot just push the product to every customer in order to achieve the targets or the objectives of the organization. They must understand the real requirements of the customers as well as the perceived value they expect from the products and offer the most suitable product or service with the expected level of value for them. If the customers are satisfied, definitely they will do marketing on your behalf through "word of mouth communication", the most powerful marketing tool. It implies that marketers cannot focus only on selling concept, they have to focus on marketing concept also. Not only that, they have to think of product concept rather than thinking of production concept only, in order to deliver a quality product to the customer. 

Marketing Mix (7 Ps')

In order to provide the above mentioned desired value to the customer, marketers can think of adopting their marketing mix elements according to the expectations and requirements of their customers. If it is to think of the extended marketing mix which is 7 Ps' that can be applied to service industry also, the elements are:
  • Product                    
  • Price
  • Place                        
  • Promotion    
  • People                      
  • Physical evidence  
  • Process                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
               

            
It is significant to understand that not only the product market, but the service market is also very important for an economy. Specially, the unique characteristics of services lead the marketers to think of additional marketing mix elements to provide a quality service to their customers which differentiate them from competitors. Since this 21 st century is more towards digitalization, both product and service markets think about lot of aspects from the customers' point of view to understand their real needs and deliver the most suitable product with the desired value. As a result, there can be huge competition between rival companies to attract new customers and also to retain their existing customers over their competitors. In that case, marketers should take the strategic approach to reach new customers by understanding their real needs. And also, the correct segmentation and targeting will ease the marketer to position the correct product or service to the correct customer segment/s. 

Example 

Banking industry
Banking industry has diverted significantly during the past decade with the implementation of information technology. Almost all the banks in any country have moved from their traditional banking era to digital banking which made more comfort zone for the customers. There are few or a lot of banks operating in any country depending on the population of that country and all those banks are struggling to attract new customers in the market with their product line. All the banks have introduced digital platforms like: Online banking, Mobile banking, Payment gateways, E-statements etc for their customers to do their banking transactions from any where at any time as they wish. In one side, it will enhance the customer base of the bank by having user friendly banking apps. On the other hand it will reduce the administration cost of the branch since those digital platforms reduce the regular customer visits to the branches. 

As a result of huge competition, marketers in those respective banks will take different strategical efforts to reach potential new customers and retain their existing corporate and retail customers by regularly visiting them and providing financial advices to their businesses and other banking transactions. They invest lot of money on IT related software and also on promotional activities to make the people aware of their services and to provide hassle free digital platforms to cater their customers' banking transactions smoothly with high confidentiality. 

What ever the steps we take as marketer, we should be mindful to handle the customer requirements very carefully since today's customers are more diverse and knowledgeable about the products and services they want to buy and also about the companies they provided. Hence, dealing with customers should be done with extra care and withing the certain limitations. Other wise, If something goes wrong, it will badly affect to the image of the organization.   



References 
1. Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2018). Principles of Marketing, Seventeenth edition. Pearson.

2. Avgeropoulos, I. (n.d.). Marketing Planning: Defining Marketing for the 21st Century (PPT) 

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