What is Marketing Concept ? – Learning the basics of marketing !

Marketing, the art of marketing of services and products, is a very broad topic. It includes, for example, discipline such as search engine optimization, content marketing, performance marketing and much more.

This diversity in the marketing mix led many marketers to lose themselves in each area or pulse acts that are not only short term. To avoid this error every company should create a marketing concept, according to which it directs the marketing activities or the marketing strategy.

The marketing concept provides companies with the centerpiece of the entire marketing apparatus. It has the task of making the marketing activities planned and controlled and to provide a single framework for each discipline.

BEFORE DEVELOPING THE MARKETING CONCEPT

Before a marketing concept is created, every company should answer some questions:

• Who is my audience?
• What needs does my target audience?
• Where is my company in comparison to the competition  ?
• How important is which marketing discipline for my business?
• What experiences have already been made by previous marketing activities?
• What goals is the company pursuing with which marketing activities?
• What factors have a high impact on customer loyalty?

From these answers to the first findings can draw and hold that are later in the creation of the marketing concept of great importance. One of the purposes of a marketing concept is to achieve goals in marketing faster and more efficiently and thus achieve maximized revenue.

We are therefore at an interface between marketing and controlling, which are linked by the concept. Accordingly, the orientation of the marketing concept is also not focused on one of the two areas but is composed of two views. The result is a base on which can be monitored, the marketing strategy and possibly adjusted. This must always be done if measures are not working the way it prescribes the marketing concept.

WHAT DOES A MARKETING CONCEPT INCLUDE?

A marketing concept is structured in 7 phases.

1. STATUS QUO ANALYSIS

First, a holistic view of the status quo must take place. This can be done eg by SWOT analysis (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). Without the status quo analysis, you run the risk of making wrong decisions due to incorrect or incomplete basic information in the following steps.

2. MARKETING GOALS

Once you know what your business is about, in phase 2, you must decide which marketing goals you want to achieve next. Typically, marketing goals are sales, market share or customers. Based on the overall corporate goals, marketing goals are derived and set. A clear separation of marketing and corporate goals is not always possible.

3. MARKETING STRATEGY

The third phase defines the ways in which the marketing goals are to be achieved. They are recorded in the marketing strategy, which in turn serves as the basis for the realization of the marketing concept. The marketing strategy includes information about the targeted markets, the performance that customers are expected to offer, and the competition and their marketing activities.

4. MARKETING INSTRUMENTS

After you’ve defined your marketing path in Phase 3, Phase 4 will identify the tools you need to follow these paths. Here we distinguish between the

1. Product Policy,
2. Distribution policy,
3. Conditions policy and the
4. Communication policy.

This outline is based on the 4P model of Edmund Jerome McCarthy , which considers the factors “Product”, “Place”, “Price” and “Promotion”. This model has been used by marketers worldwide since about 1960 for successful marketing. An advanced version is the 7P model . Both models are referred to as “marketing mix” because they form the framework for its creation.

In Phase 4, appropriate marketing tools must be defined according to these criteria.

5. MARKETING MIX

The marketing tools defined in Phase 4 will be merged into a marketing mix in Phase 5. You have to make sure that you do not lose sight of the long-term goals of the marketing concept (phase 2).

• Does the marketing mix fit into the concept?
• Is it compatible with the findings of the status quo analysis (Phase 1)?

6. REALIZATION OF THE MARKETING CONCEPT

After the previous planning phases, we now come to implementation. In phase 6, campaigns will be put in place, sales channels will be built up, markets opened up, and much more. Everything that was agreed in phase 3 – 5 will be implemented.

7. EVALUATION OF THE RESULTS

Once all planned measures have been implemented, we proceed to the evaluation of the results.

• What worked?
• What did not work?
• What goals have been achieved?
• Which one misses?
• Which processes can be optimized?
• What will we do differently next time?

Evaluation is one of the most important parts of a marketing concept because it provides basic insights into the following concepts and strategies that can be included in the status quo analysis to be performed.