Marketing Philosophies

Marketing Philosophies

(Market Orientations)

Marketing management philosophies used by the businesses to guide their marketing efforts.

Let’s see why we need to select right philosophy?

-Marketing is a collection of activities which intends to have expected exchanges with interested parties.

-A expected exchange is a result of the successful completion of activities performed by a marketer.

-To identify the way that marketers think affects the success of marketing activities.

There we can identify five of major marketing philosophies;

1. The production concept
2. The product concept
3. The selling concept
4. The marketing concept
5. The social marketing concept

     1.The production concept

That concept came to the world soon after the world war II.

This is the oldest marketing philosophy.

Fundamental assumption;

- “available at lowest price & available from the most convenient place, then consumer will buy more & more products.”

Major emphasis;

-In order to produce something at a lowest cost, you can improve the efficiency of production.

-If it is available from nearest place, that would be a large & expanded distribution network.

Conditions to be satisfied to the success of the production philosophy;

-If there is a shortage of a particular product/ the demand of the product should exceed the supply. (excess demand)

-Higher productivity in the production should allow to bring down the high price to an affordable level. In order to bring the price down need to improve the efficiency.

When those conditions are met, this philosophy will be successful.

Drawbacks of the production philosophy;

-Under this philosophy marketers produce same products, offering a standard product assuming each & every customer’s needs & wants are identical.

But after the world war people do not prefer to consume standard products, they want to use different features of wants.

-There is a possibility to declining the quality of product because of marketers were tried to produce at lowest cost.

Therefore marketers began to think about another new philosophy because of the production philosophy did not give what the marketing people want, marketers were not successful.

     2. The product concept

The production philosophy’s failure because of the standard products, they thought about, if we can offer different products & if we can offer high quality products then people will buy.

That’s why the next philosophy was fundamental assumption of;

-“Consumer will buy more of a product if it is a supreme product”

Major emphasis;

Based on that philosophy, in order to produce & sell supreme products the kind of activities particular marketer will have to do;

-High quality product with high performance & also that product include new features.

-Continuous product improvement

When we need to improve quality, performance, & introduce many more features in order to develop product, engineer will help & responsible to it. (Science based person)

Those intending people would be the people in an organization where this philosophy followed who decide in terms of quality what is to be develop, in terms of new features, what should be the added to the product. Those decisions will be taken by engineers.

Therefore a belief "Engineers know what consumer want".

“How can the public know what kind of car they want until they see what is available”

-General Motor executive

“A better mousetrap will lead people to beat a path to its door”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those are the well-known statements supporting this philosophy.

If a business is unable to identify their business as a meeting of a particular need rather than providing a product or service, under this philosophy marketers have this experience is called, Marketing Myopia. 

In other words, that means shortsightedness.

Drawbacks;

-If it is high quality, high perform or with special features, But if it is not meet customer needs, people will not select even it is supreme product. That will be supreme for the marketers, not will be supreme for the customers.

-A few attention to competitor’s products/having a heathenism, your one is the best likewise.

Then they unable to catch up actual situation in the market.

Therefore time to time marketers understand those two philosophies are not working successfully. Then began to think another philosophy, based on the experiences of the failures of previous two philosophies.

      3.The selling concept

There they thought even though they produce at a lowest cost, available at nearest place, even though if it is a supreme product, if we do not encourage the people to buy they will not buy more.

Therefore in the selling concept,

Fundamental assumption;

-“Consumer will not buy enough or more unless they are encouraged to buy more of a product.”

Major emphasis;

-Hard advertising & extensive use of other promotional activities for encourage to buy.

Ex: -unsought goods

      -Insurance policy }  relatively higher selling effort

      -automobile

      - foods 

             etc.

This philosophy leads to more advertisements.

Nowadays we can see lot of companies following this selling-oriented concept.

The marketers who give priority to this, after face same problem. They advertise & use the other promotional activities more & more but they could not see much success in the market.

Drawbacks;

-Customers are persuaded to buy products manufactured by the firm without considering the customer needs & wants.

-Does not ensure post purchase satisfaction is neglected (just raw sales)/ Just to sell something.

-In the long run that will not be successful.

-Peter Drucker says that the goal of marketing people should be making the selling is superfluous/unwanted.

      4.The marketing concept

Fundamental assumption;

-“Organizations can be successful if they produce goods & services after having a better understanding of customer needs & wants & then delivering the satisfaction to customers efficiently & effectively than their competitors”

Because we are not an only one marketer in a market place.

That suggest, satisfying customers at a profit.

When customer meet their needs & wants, marketer also satisfy with their profit.

Business organizations at the top of the success practice this concept.

Such organizations who are the following this marketing concept, have expressed this in attractive & many colourful ways as slogans;

- “Love the customer, not the product”

- “You are the boss”

- “Meeting needs profitably” likewise

So, customers not really buying a physical product, that is a blind need or want of customers.

Ex: - People buy mosquito nets for protect from the mosquitoes.

There are four basic fundamental components of marketing concept;

• Identifying target marketer
  -A selected segment of market (a specific group of customers), that can be effectively satisfied.

• Understand customer needs & wants
  -Stated needs, Real needs, Unstated needs, Delight needs, Secret needs
  - It is a very important to attract new customers while retaining existence customers.
  -The most successful organizations try to deliver customer value than the customer expectations (Delighting customers)

• Should coordinate all the functions in organization, all the people who are related with marketing concept
  -Developing a coordination/relationship among all the departments of a company with an intention of satisfying the customers.

• Profit through customer satisfaction
  -There manager’s decisions keep the profit in mind as a reward for satisfying customers.
  -The duty of a marketer is to be making profitable customers. To do that, marketers must try to satisfy the customers better than their competitors.

Those can be used to show the difference between the marketing philosophy & other philosophies.

       05.The social marketing concept

There is a complaint against the marketers that the satisfy the needs & wants of profitable customers but do not consider the interest of the whole society.

Therefore nowadays concerning social welfare is one of the important factor for every & each company should highlight.

Ex: -CSR activities

      -Green concept

The societal marketing concept is a result of that trend.

This concept includes three aspects;

• Organization- Profit as a reward
• Customer- Satisfaction
• society- Human welfare

The societal marketing concept emphasizes;

-Marketer should consider not only the satisfaction of the company & its own customers but also satisfaction of the whole society.

                                                                                               Thank you!

    

                                                                                                           -MighTy-  👩