The Marketing Concept

The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organizational goals consists of being more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities toward determining and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets.

The marketing concept rests on four pillars: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability.

Target market

No company can operate in every market and satisfy every need. Nor can it always do a good job within one broad market.

Customer needs
Marketing is about meeting needs of target markets profitably.

The key to professional marketing is to understand their customers’ real needs and meet them better than any competitor can.

Some marketers draw a distinction between responsive marketing and creative marketing. A responsive marketer finds a stated need and fills it. A creative marketer discovers and produces solutions that customer did not ask for but to which they enthusiastically respond.

Integrated Marketing

When all the company’s departments work together to serve the customer’s interests, the result is integrated marketing.

Integrated marketing takes on two levels.

First, the various marketing functions-sales force, advertising, product management, marketing research, and so on – must work together.

Second must be well coordinated with other company departments.

The company is doing proper marketing only when all employees appreciate their impact on customer satisfaction. To foster teamwork among all departments, the company carries out internal marketing as well as external marketing. External marketing is marketing directed at people outside the company. Internal marketing is the task of successfully hiring, training, and motivating employees who want to serve the customers well. In fact internal marketing must precede external marketing. It makes no sense to promise excellent service before the company’s staff is ready to provide excellent service.

Profitability

The ultimate purpose of the marketing concept is to help organizations achieve their goals. In the case of private firms, the major goal is profit.

Marketing managers have to provide value to the customer and profits to the organization. Marketing managers have to evaluate the profitability of all alternative marketing strategies and decisions and choose most profitable decisions for long-term survival and growth of the firm.

Kotler, Philip (1997), Marketing Management, 9th Ed., Prentice Hall, New Jersey.