Marketing and its Characteristics:
Goods and services do not move from market to users. There is a definite mechanism that facilitates exchange of money with goods or services for mutual benefit. Marketing connects the users and producers by a coordinated method. Marketing can be defined as follows.
Marketing is a business process by which products are matched with market and through which transfers of ownership are affected. Cundiff and Still.
Marketing is an administrative and social process through which individuals and groups obtain what they need and desire by the generation, offering and exchange of valuable products with others”. Philip Kotler.
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. American Marketing Association.
Characteristics of the marketing:
Some of the significant characteristics of marketing are discussed as follows:
- Customer-orientation: All commercial activities have to be bounded for creating and fulfill the customer needs. Emphasis at the wants and needs of clients maintains the companies at the proper track. All marketing selections have to be made on the idea of customer requirement. Consumer orientation should be the idea behind the business.
- Marketing Research: Under the marketing concept; know-how and understanding of customer’s needs, desires and requirement are very important. Therefore, a systematic marketing research programme is needed to hold the market. In addition, improvement and creativity are essential to match the goods of necessities of customers.
- Marketing Planning: The marketing idea requires a goal-orientated method to marketing. The overall goals of the organization must be the earnings thru satisfaction of consumers. On this base, the goals and guidelines of marketing and different departments must be described precisely. Marketing plans enables to inject the philosophy of consumer-orientation into the overall business systems and serves as a manual to the organization’s efforts.
- Integrated Marketing: Once the organisational and departmental objectives are framed, it will become essential to harmonize the organisational goals with the goals of the people employed in the organisation. The activities and operation of different organisational units have to be nicely coordinated to attain the described objectives. The marketing division have to broaden the marketing mix that is maximum suitable for conducting the framed goals via the contentment of customers.
- Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is the key to success of any business unit. The major aim should be the satisfaction of customers wants over the maximization of profit.