The Intercosmografica's idea of marketing
It would be simplistic and very difficult to reduce the marketing path to a page of a blog, today we try to introduce you into the world of intercosmografica marketing trying to summarize our thinking in a few lines and involving you in a topic that nowadays plays a fundamental role within the company organization.
Many confuse marketing with promotional activities, others with sales. Let's clarify! Many pay for marketing and get only advertising. It would be like buying a tree to get a branch delivered, perhaps full of flowers, but still and only a branch.Marketing People
Marketing is probably one of the most effective modern disciplines dealing with people, individuals or groups of individuals and making decisions. This explains why companies have successfully adopted it for decades because they study in Economics courses. But it's not just business stuff. It concerns people, in every area of their lives - including personal life.
This is why it is an excellent support also for the non-profit! Marketing allows those who have to make decisions (managers - including those who are themselves managers) to do so economically¹ compared to limited resources, maximizing the satisfaction of the individuals involved.
A good definition of marketing...to us...
A good marketing definition would read: "marketing is a social process (that is, it concerns people) and managerial (that is, it helps to make decisions) for which individuals and group of individuals get what they want and need through creation and exchange of value ". This is the vision of marketing that we have. There are many other marketing definitions. The American Marketing Association proposes a definition that speaks of "organizational function", "consumers", "customers". But why limit marketing to the organizational sphere when it can even become a support to the individual, a way to build and maintain good relations with others.
An excellent definition of marketing could be the following: "Marketing is the set of strategies and techniques used to sell a product or service".
Needs and desires
Marketing is based on the idea that individuals perceive states of deprivation, a condition known as "need". Needs can be physical, such as food, clothing, heating and security; or social belonging and affection; and finally individual knowledge and self-realization. Needs are not an invention of marketing but a human condition.
Shaped by the person's culture and personality, needs are transformed into desires. Desires depend on the society in which we live and concern what is able to satisfy a need.
Desires can under certain conditions (purchasing power, motivation, etc.) give rise to behaviors such as purchase, donation, click ... or simply a smile.
Stop selling products
Some believe that the main motivation to purchase is linked to the goodness of their products or services. If so, all companies would succeed and there would be no unfaithful customers. The real reason people buy a product is for the benefits, for the benefits, for the experiences they offer. This short-sighted behavior leads organizations to focus on products or customers' desires, losing sight of the needs that generated them. This is a malicious approach because it neglects that the product is nothing but one of the many ways to solve a problem.
How to do marketing
A winning marketing strategy answers the questions:
1) To which target market we want to turn our attention (who are our customers).
2) For what (unique) reason they should believe our proposal.
There are three different stages within the marketing development process, each phase with a well-defined purpose:
- analytical marketing: deals with the analysis, a fundamental moment as it will then be based on the data collected in the analytical phase (analysis of the competition, the target audience, the market, etc) that the operational strategies will be elaborated;
- strategic marketing: this is the part in which strategies are defined which, subsequently, will compete not only with sales but also and above all with customer loyalty;
- operational marketing: it is the most practical part of marketing and is based on the four Ps that are the product, the price, the promotion and the point of sale intended not only as organization of the network but also as store management, visual marketing and merchandising.
It is important for a company to understand the added value that a good marketing strategy can offer and choose the right path to follow,
The marketing strategy, therefore, defines which customers to serve and how to create value for the target market. But marketing is not enough for the strategy, it is also necessary to build a good marketing program through a set of tools, known as four P: product, price, point of sale and promotion.
This applies to all organizations, even non-profit organizations. Thinking in terms of value proposition, in fact, the organization must create an attractive offer able to satisfy a need (service, product, etc.), must establish how much this offer will cost (price), it must make it available ( in a convenient way) to target customers and communicate with them (listen to them and convince them of the advantages).
Marketing is essential within a company that operates on the current market because its correct and scrupulous implementation reduces the margin of error and allows to win over the customer. The historical moment we are facing, in fact, is defined by the "saturated market" sector experts: this means that there is hardly a product that is purchased for the first time. "Everyone already has everything" and the products that are sold are almost always to replace the previous ones, now old or broken.
In this situation, and with a competition now ruthless and characterized by many subjects that produce the same goods, it is difficult to be able to retain a customer. The marketing, therefore, fills this gap as it helps to identify the right product, at the right price that will be communicated in the most effective way to the specific target audience.
Contact us for more information regarding the products and services that Intercosmografica offers.