We have heard the word marketing ever so frequently. Anyone attempting to sell is considered a marketer and the very act of selling is called marketing. Some see advertising as marketing and others opine that after sales service or relationship management is marketing. Many of us even disapprove of marketing considering it is manipulative, sometimes misleading and laden with lies and adds to the costs of product or service.
But what is ‘Marketing’ really? Is it as complex as it seems? Is it about fancy advertising budgets? Is it selling? When should I worry about marketing? How much is good marketing going to cost me? These questions pop up especially if you are running a small or medium size business or plan to launch your own business.
Marketing consists of all the activities any business would undertake in order to sell their products or services and earn a profit. It consists of a lot of other activities before and beyond advertising and selling. And most of these activities cost very little or nothing.
Marketing is a life skill. Every single person uses various principles of marketing in their day to day lives. Children, home makers, employees and business owners alike use aspects of marketing unknowingly. We would be able to use these techniques more skilfully if only we were aware.
Before you even start the marketing plan, you need to identify and distinguish certain core elements of your business. If you haven’t launched it, this is the best time to create your marketing plan.
What is it you aim to sell? What is your product or service? Who are your customers? Where are they located? How do you communicate to them? These are important decisions a business makes as a part of the marketing plan. But before this, it is important to answer an even more pertinent question. What ‘Need’ is the product/service going to fulfil for the buyer.
Every product/service always answers a need in the minds of the customer. It is imperative to understand that need as best as one can. It is the need that motivates the buyer to seek options to fulfil it, and then evaluate the benefits and costs of each and finally make a choice of the one that suits him/her the best. Even in impulsive buying, a buyer goes through all these steps – only at a very rapid pace.
Abraham Maslow has created a theory called the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is a pyramid with 5levels. At the base is Physiological Needs – Food, Water, Sex and Sleep; followed by Safety Needs- Clothing, House, Warmth, Protection, Employment ; Social Needs – Love, companionship, belongingness, intimate friendships; Esteem Needs- Social acknowledgment, Respect, Prestige and Self Actualisation Needs – Fulfilment in life/Accomplishment of the greater desires one has.
To master marketing, one should truly understand this theory and apply it to the current question. Every buying decision is motivated by a need. One has to look as to where does that need appear- for this buyer- in the hierarchy of needs.
For example, you might be a cake manufacturer. You make exclusive designs for your customers. So although you fulfil a physiological need of food, buying a certain exclusive designed cake may be the answer to a social or even an esteem need for your customer.
Example, a person may decide to buy a luxury brand of a car for his car hire business and not for his personal use. So that car may well be someone else’s esteem need, but for this person it is merely a safety need since it provides him employment.
Example, most of us eat out. Consider a fine dining restaurant, a decent eatery and a street-side eating joint. While all of these satiate only one need of food in the general sense, there is a world of difference where each appears in the hierarchy of needs for the same person. While, Mr A may eat regularly at the same eatery as a matter of his physiological need, he may treat his family to the fine dining restaurant to celebrate an occasion as an esteem need or the same person might end up eating at the street side joint to relive a childhood memory with old buddies as a social need.
Consider these very same places. The same fine dining restaurant may be the answer to someone else physiological need. Or the eatery where Mr A eats regularly at may be an esteem need for another person. When a marketer understands who he is selling to and what need does the product or service he is selling, fulfils, he will be in just the right place to make all the right decisions pertaining to product, place, price, promotion.
