Marketing is the process of getting people interested in your company's product or service.

This happens
through market research, analysis, and understanding your ideal customer's interests. Marketing
pertains to all aspects of a business, including product development, distribution methods, sales, and
advertising.

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.

the 4 P's of Marketing

Product

Product refers to an item or items the business plans to offer to customers. The product should seek to
fulfill an absence in the market, or fulfill consumer demand for a greater amount of a product already
available. Before they can prepare an appropriate campaign, marketers need to understand what
product is being sold, how it stands out from its competitors, whether the product can also be paired
with a secondary product or product line, and whether there are substitute products in the market.

Price

Price refers to how much the company will sell the product for. When establishing a price, companies
must consider the unit cost price, marketing costs, and distribution expenses. Companies must also
consider the price of competing products in the marketplace and whether their proposed price point is
sufficient to represent a reasonable alternative for consumers.

Place

Place refers to the distribution of the product. Key considerations include whether the company will sell
the product through a physical storefront, online, or through both distribution channels. When it's sold
in a storefront, what kind of physical product placement does it get? When it's sold online, what kind of
digital product placement does it get?

Promotion

Promotion, the fourth P, is the integrated marketing communications campaign. Promotion includes a
variety of activities such as advertising, selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing,
sponsorship, and guerrilla marketing.

Promotions vary depending on what stage of the product life cycle the product is in. Marketers
understand that consumers associate a product’s price and distribution with its quality, and they take
this into account when devising the overall marketing strategy.

Types of Marketing Strategies

Outdoor Marketing: This entails public displays of advertising external to a consumer's house. This
includes billboards, printed advertisements on benches, sticker wraps on vehicles, or advertisements on
public transit.

Print Marketing: This entails small, easily printed content that is easy to replicate. Traditionally,
companies often mass produced printed materials, as the printed content was the same for all
customers. Today, more flexibility in printing processes means that materials can be differentiated.

Direct Marketing: This entails specific content delivered to potential customers. Some print marketing
content could be mailed. Otherwise, direct marketing mediums could include coupons, vouchers for free
goods, or pamphlets.

Electronic Marketing: This entails use of TV and radio for advertising. Though short bursts of digital
content, a company can convey information to a customer through visual or auditory media that may
grab a viewer's attention better than a printed form above.

Event Marketing: This entails attempting to gather potential customers at a specific location for the
opportunity to speak with them about products or demonstrate products. This includes conferences,
trade shows, seminars, roadshows, or private events

The Nature of Marketing describes the power of social and consumer networking, and demonstrates the
tangible benefits of building brand experiences that leverage this phenomena. In order to build
sustainable desire and create demand, brands must be able to exert influence among these new kinds of
community.So Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what
they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. At its simplest,
marketing can be defined as exchange transactions that take place between the buyer and the seller.

Marketing is an essential part of a company’s promotion and the best way to acquire an audience and
customers, so let’s know about its nature:

Managerial Function: Marketing is all about successfully managing the product, place, price, and
promotion of a business to generate revenue.

Human Activity: It satisfies the never-ending needs and desires of human beings.

Economic Function: The crucial second marketing objective is to earn a profit.

Both Art and Science: Creating demand for the product among consumers is an art and understanding
human behavior, and psychology is a science.

Customer-Centric: Marketing strategies are framed with the motive of customer acquisition.

Consumer-Oriented: It practices market research and surveys to know about consumers’ tastes and
expectations.
Goal-Oriented: It aims at accomplishing the seller’s profitability goals and the buyer’s purchasing goals.

Interactive Activity: Marketing is all about exchanging ideas and information among buyers and sellers.

Dynamic Process: Marketing practice keeps on changing from time to time to improve its effectiveness.

Creates Utility: It establishes utility to the consumer through four different means; form (kind of product
or service), time (whenever needed), place (availability), and possession (ownership).

Functions of Marketing

Marketing is not just selling off goods and services to the customers; it means a lot more than that.

It starts with the study of the potential market, to product development, to market share capturing, to
maintain cordial relations with the customers.

Following multiple operations of marketing helps the business to accomplish long-term goals:

Market Research: Complete research on competitors, consumer expectations, and demand is done
before launching a product into the market.

Market Planning: A proper plan is designed based on the target customers, market share to be captured,
and the level of production possible.

Product Design and Development: Based on the research data, the product or service design is created.

Buying and Assembling: Buying of raw material and assembling of parts is done to create a product or
service.

Product Standardisation: The product is graded as per its quality and the quality of its raw materials.

Packaging and Labelling: To make the product more attractive and self-informative, it is packed and
labeled listing out the ingredients used, product use, manufacturing details, expiry date, etc.

Branding: A fascinating brand name is given to the product to differentiate it from the other similar
products in the market.

Pricing of the Product: The product is priced moderately keeping in mind the value it creates for the
customer and the cost of production.

Promotion of the Product: Next step is to make people aware of the product or service through
advertisements.
Warehousing and Storage: The goods are generally produced in bulks and therefore need to be stored in
warehouses before being sold in the market in small quantities.

Selling and Distribution: To reach out to the consumers spread over a vast geographical area, selling and
distribution channels are to be selected wisely.

Transportation: Transportation means are decided for the transfer of the goods from the manufacturing
units to the wholesalers, retailers, and consumers.

Customer Support Service: The marketing team remains in contact with the customers even after selling
the product or service to know the customer’s experience, and the satisfaction derived.