Marketing is a broad term that can mean different things to different people. In its broadest sense marketing is any method of gathering and disseminating information to promote a product or service to the greatest possible number of customers. Marketing, therefore, encompasses many different disciplines including research, development, pricing, promotions, public relations, advertising, and sales. Marketing is a set of tactics and strategies used by organizations to promote their products and services to as wide an audience as possible. Marketing, therefore, is a broad term that can mean different things to different people.
Categories Of Marketing
Marketing, therefore, is an overall concept that can be divided into three categories. The first is that which deals with the consumer concept. In this category, marketing focuses on the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of consumers as they are shopping for a particular product or service. The second category of marketing focuses on the product concept, in this case defining a particular product or service in terms of how it meets or surpasses the needs of a particular group of consumers. Finally, there are marketing strategies used to address specific needs of groups such as ethnic or socioeconomic groups or demographics. A great example of tagreting demographic groups is influencer marketing on platforms such as TikTok. Marketers can choose to buy TikTok views in order to reach a younger audience because marketing research shows that the demographics breakdown of TikTok users is mostly Gen Z, or younger consumers.
Solving The Needs Of A Market
The first step in marketing myopia is defining a product or service in terms of its ability to solve a market need. For example, a clothing item must meet a need that it was not intended to fill when it was designed and sold to consumers. Marketers therefore must recognize and understand a customer’s need before they can sell them a product. This step in marketing myopia is perhaps the most important in the entire process because it is meant to prevent the product from being sold to a customer who does not need it. If marketing is not geared towards addressing the identified needs of consumers, then it will fail. Therefore, the marketing myopia of not addressing needs is the most important aspect of marketing.
Selling Need
The second step in marketing myopia is addressing the identified selling need or the selling motive of the product. When marketing management fails to do this, then it is time to re-evaluate the strategy. Sometimes, re-evaluation can involve changing one’s marketing concept in order to better address the unique selling proposition of a product or service. Marketing management should not be too close to selling because this could prevent a seller from being completely honest and open with the buyer. When selling a product, the seller must be totally honest with the buyer regarding all aspects of the transaction.
Marketing Management
The third step in marketing myopia is the implementation of appropriate marketing management strategies. Many successful sellers have employed social marketing techniques in order to increase their sales. In fact, some experts believe that marketing myopia has become so severe that the use of such marketing strategies is now required by law in some states such as California, which has been implemented in response to fraudulent marketing practices by unscrupulous retailers.
Monitoring And Evaluation
Once the marketing research has been completed and strategies have been developed, it is time to implement them. This is the fourth step in marketing myopia and basically involves the monitoring of the marketing activities to determine their effectiveness. It also involves the evaluation of the marketing efforts by evaluating the performance of the product and by evaluating the performance of the marketing system. Marketers may also conduct market research by sending questionnaires to customers, asking them about their buying decisions and what factors led to their purchase decisions. They can use this information to build their marketing campaigns. Marketers also can use technical analysis software and various non-invasive tools to help them determine the profitability of their products and to determine the effect of their marketing activities.
Other Strategies
There are many other marketing strategies that marketers may adopt to increase their chances of making more profit. One example is the use of consumer surveys to identify the marketing concepts that are best for specific consumers. This helps marketers identify what types of products and services are in high demand among certain target consumers and which ones aren’t.
Marketers should always remember that marketing should not stop with the development of the product or service itself. Marketing also includes other related activities like advertising, selling, and promoting. These other activities should be built based on the marketing concept that has been identified through market research.
Main Photo by The Coach Space.
