A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization first determines what its potential customers desire, and then builds the product or Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers service. Marketing Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers theory and practice is justified in the belief that customers use a product or service because they Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers have a need, or because it provides a perceived benefit.
Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers with existing customers Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers (base management). Once a marketer has converted the prospective buyer, base management Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers marketing takes over. The process for base management shifts the marketer to building a relationship, nurturing the links, enhancing the benefits that sold the Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers buyer in the first place, and improving the product/service Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers continuously to protect the business from competitive encroachments.
For a marketing plan to Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers be successful, the Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers mix of the four "Ps" must reflect the wants and desires of the consumers or Shoppers in the target market. Trying to convince a market segment to buy something they don't want Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers depend on insights from marketing research, both formal and informal, to determine what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for. Marketers hope that this Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers process will Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers give them a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers management is the practical application of this process. The offer is also an important addition to the 4P's theory.
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Within most Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers organizations, Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers the activities encompassed by the marketing function are led by a Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers Vice Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers President or Director of Marketing. A growing number of organizations, especially large US companies, have a Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers Chief Marketing Officer Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers position, Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers reporting to the Chief Executive Officer.
The American Marketing Association (AMA) states, �Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers society at large.".
Marketing methods are informed by many of Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Anthropology Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers is also a small, but growing influence. Market research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it is also related Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers to many of the creative arts. Marketing is a wide and heavily interconnected subject with Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers extensive publications. It is also an area of activity infamous for re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.
Many companies today have a customer focus (or Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers customer orientation). This implies that the Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the sense of Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers identifying market changes and the product innovation approach.
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In the Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers there is no point spending R&D funds Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers developing products that people will not Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers technological breakthroughs.
A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA[3] (Solution, Information, Value, Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers Access). This system is basically the four Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers Ps renamed Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers and reworded to provide a customer focus.
The SIVA Model provides a demand/customer centric version alternative to the well-known 4Ps supply side model (product, price, place, promotion) of marketing management.
In a product Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers primarily to ensure that a profitable market segment(s) exists for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers expect them Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers to tell us what they will buy in the future. However, marketers can aggressively over-pursue Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers product innovation and try to overcapitalize on a niche. When pursuing Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers a product innovation Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers approach, marketers must ensure that they Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers have a varied and multi-tiered approach to product innovation. It is claimed that Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers than inventing Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation (Such as Nintendo who constantly change the way Video games are played). Many purists Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers doubt whether Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers this is really a Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers form of marketing orientation at Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers all, because of the ex post status of consumer research. Some even question whether Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers it is Cheap Flights Paris Ebookers marketing. |
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