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