What is Marketing?

Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs. One of the shortest good definition of marketing is “meeting needs profitably.” When eBay recognized that people were unable to locate some of the items they desired most, it created an online auction clearinghouse. When IKEA noticed that people wanted good furnishings at substaintionaly lower prices, it created knockdown furniture. Those two firms demonstrated marketing savvy and turned the private or social need into a profitable business opportunity.

       The American Marketing Association offers the following formal definition: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating communicating and delivering, and exchange the offerings that have values for customers, client’s partners, and society at large. Coping with these exchange processes calls for a considerable amount of work and skill. Marketing management takes place when at least one party to potential exchange thinks about the means of achieving desired responses from other parties. Thus we see marketing management as the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value.

      We can distinguish between a social and a managerial definition of marketing. A social definition shows the role marketing plays in society; for example, one marketer has said that marketing’s role is to “deliver a higher standard of living.” Here is a social definition that serves our purpose:

          Marketing is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.

Managers sometimes think of marketing as “the art of selling products.” But many people are surprised when they hear that selling is not the important part of marketing! Selling is only the tip of marketing iceberg. Peter ducker, a leading management theorist, puts it this way:

          There is always, one can assume, be need of some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service its him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should results in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product and service available.

When Nintendo designed its Wii game system, when Canon lunched its ELPH digital camera line, and when Toyota introduced its Prius hybrid automobile, these manufacturer were swamped with orders because they had design the right product, based on doing careful marketing homework.  

11 New Marketing Realities.

Major Societal Forces:

Today, major, and sometimes interlinking, societal forces have created new marketing behaviors, opportunities, and challenges. Here are 11 key ones.

1.       Network information technology.

The digital revolution has created an Information Age that promises to lead to more accurate level of production, more targeted communications, and more relevant pricing.

2.     Globalization.

Technology advances in transportation, shipping, and communication have made it easier for companies to market in, and consumers to buy from, almost any country in the world.

3.     Deregulation.

Many countries has deregulated industries to create greater competition and growth opportunities. In India, the domestic airline industry has been grown up very rapidly after deregulation. Airlines are competing with each other by offering different and better services to the consumers.

4.     Heightened competition.

Intense competition among domestic and foreign brands raises marketing costs and shrinks the profit margins. Brand manufacturers are further buffeted by powerful retailers that market their own stores brands. Many strong brands have become megabrands and extended into wide variety of related product categories, presenting a significant competitive threat.

5.     Industry convergence.

Industry boundaries are blurring as companies recognizes new opportunities at the intersection of two or more industries. The computing and consumer electronics industries are converging, for example, as Apple, Sony, and Samsung release a stream of entertainment devices from MP3 players to plasma TVs and camcorders.

6.     Retail transformation.

Retailing on South Asia in general and in India in particular is undergoing a major transformation. Organized retailing in India, which includes supermarkets chains, departmental stores, and discount retailers, is expected to grow from about 5 percent of the total market to about 14 percent to 18 percent of the total retail sale by 2015.

7.     Disintermediation.

The amazing success of early dot-coms such as AOL, Amazon.com, Yahoo!,; eBay, E*trade, and others created the disintermediation in the delivery of products and services by intervening in the traditional flow of goods through distribution channels. These firms stuck terror into the hearts of established manufacturers and retailers. In response traditional companies engaged in reintermediation and become “Brick-and-click” retailers, adding online services to their offerings.

8.     Consumer buying power.

In part, due to disintermediation via the Internet, consumers have substantially increased their buying power. From the home, office, or mobile phone, they can compare product prices and features and other goods online, bypassing limited local offerings and realizing significant price savings.

9.     Consumer information.

Consumers can collect information in as much breadth and depth as they want about practically anything. They can access encyclopedias, dictionaries, medical information, movie rating, consumers report, newspaper, and other information sources in many languages from anywhere in the world. Personal connections and user-generated contents thrive in social media, such as Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Social networking sites bring together consumers with a common interest.

10.Consumer participation.

Consumers have found an amplified voice to influence peer and public opinion. In recognition, companies are inviting them to participate in designing and even marketing offerings to heighten their sense of connection and ownership.

11.  Consumer resistance.

Many consumers today feel there are fewer real product differences, so they show less brand loyalty and become more price- and quality- sensitive in their search for value, and less tolerant about undesired marketing. A Yankelovich study found record levels of marketing resistance from consumers; a majority reported negative opinions about the marketing and advertising and said they avoid products they feel are over marketed.

Marketing Right and Wrong….!

The Ten Deadly Sins of Marketing:

1.      The company is not sufficiently market focused and customers driven.

2.     The company does not fully understands its target customers.

3.     The company needs to better define and monitors its competitors.

4.     The company has not properly managed its relationship with its stakeholders.

5.     The company is not good at finding new opportunities.

6.     The company marketing’s plans and planning process are deficient.

7.     The company’s product and policies need tightening.

8.     The company’s brand—building and communications skill are week.

9.     The company is not well organized to carry on effective and efficient marketing.

10. The company has not made maximum use of technology.

                                                                                                                                     

The Ten Commandments of Marketing:

1.      The company segments the market, chooses the best segments, and develops a strong position in each chosen segments.

2.     The company maps its customers’ needs, perceptions, preferences, and behavior and motivates its stakeholders to obsess about serving and satisfying the customers.

3.     The company knows its major competitors and their strengths and weaknesses.

4.     The company builds partners out of its stakeholders and generously reward them.

5.     The company develops systems for identifying opportunities, ranking them, and choosing the best ones.

6.     The company manages the marketing planning system that leads to insightful long-term and short-term plans.

7.     The company exercises strong control over its product and services mix.

8.    The company builds strong brands by using the most cost-effective communication and promotion tools.

9.     The company builds marketing leadership and a team spirits among its various departments.

10.The company constantly adds technology that gives its competitive advantages in the marketplace.

Marketing in an Age of Turbulence

The severe economic recession of 2008-2009 caused marketers to rethink best practices of management. Phillip Kotler and John Caslione see management a new Age of Turbulence in which chaos, risk and uncertainty characterize many industries, markets and companies. According to them turbulence is the new normal, punctuated by periodic and intermittent spurts of prosperity and downturn-including extended downturns amounting to recession, or even depression. They see many new challenges in the foreseeable future and unlike past recessions, they may be no assurance that a return to past management practices would ever be successful again.

According to the Kotler and Caslione, markets should always be ready to activate automatic response when turbulence whips up and chaos reigns in. They recommend marketers to keep these 8 (Eight) factors in mind as they create “chaotic marketing strategies”.

1.     Secure your market share from core customer segments:

This is not a time to get greedy, so get your core customers segments firmly secured, and be prepared to ward off attacks from competitors seeking your most profitable and loyal customers.

2.     Push aggressively for greater market share from competitors:                                                                     

All companies fight for market shares, and in turbulence and chaotic times, may have been weekend. Slashing marketing budgets and sales travel expenses is a sure sign a competitor is buckling under pressure. Push aggressively to add your core customer segments at the expense of your weakened competitors.

3.     Research customers more now, because their needs and wants are in flux:

Everyone is under pressure during the time times of turbulence and chaos, and all customers—even those in your core segments whom you know so well—are changing. Stay close to them never before. Research them more than ever. Don’t find yourself using old, tried-and-true marketing messages that no longer resonate with them.

4.     Minimally maintain, but seek to increase, your marketing budget:

 With your competitors aggressively marketing to your core customers, this is the worst time to think about cutting anything in your marketing budget that target them. In fact, you need to add to it, or take money away from forays into totally new customers segments. It’s time to rescue the home front.

5.     Focus on all that’s safe and emphasize core values:

When turbulence is scaring everyone in the market, most customers flee to higher ground. They need to flee the safety and security of your company and your products and your services. Do everything possible to tell them that continuing to do the business is safe, and to sell those products and services that keep making them feel safe.

6.     Drop programs that aren’t working for you:

Your marketing budget will always be scrutinize, in good times and bad times. If anyone is to cut your programs, let it be you, before anyone else sports any ineffective ones. If you’re not watching, rest assured someone else is, including your peers whose budgets couldn’t be produced from the axe.

7.     Don’t discount your best brands:

Discounting your established and most successful brands tells customer two things: your prices were too high before, and product won’t be worth the price in the future once the discounts are gone. If you to appeal more frugal customers, create a new brand with lower prices. This lets value-conscious customers stay close to you. Without alienating those still willing to pay you the higher-priced brands. Once the turbulence subsides, you may consider discounting the product line—or not.

8.     Save the strong; lose the week:

In turbulent market, your strongest brands and products must become even stronger. There’s no time or money to be wasted on marginal brands or products that lack strong value propositions and a solid customer base. Appeal to safety and value to reinforce strong brands and products and service offerings. Remember, your brands can never be strong enough, especially against the waves of turbulent economy.

7 Ways to Help Yourself (and Others) Be Successful

1 Give back.

There is an astute knowingness in understanding that we all have a limited perspective or lens. I have one, you have one and everyone who walks this earth has a limited perspective. And for a great many years, we as a collective have convinced ourselves that our differences are a hindrance, when in reality our differences are the very thing that makes each of us uniquely talented in ways other people are not. When we honor these differences and celebrate them for their uniqueness, we open up an entirely new kaleidoscope of possibilities we might not otherwise be able to see.

If everyone asked, “How can I help?” as opposed to “What can I get?” we would start to see a much different world take shape around us.

The universe aligns its bounty for a generous heart. We must take that first step toward serving the greater good. This is the greatest act of service we can offer. When we elevate one, we elevate all, and soon all of our common interests are met. Only then can we begin to transform the world. It is only then the better world we dream of becomes a reality.

It’s up to us to offer a helping hand to those struggling to climb the ladder. We stand on each other’s shoulders to elevate us to our ultimate accomplishments. This is a testament to a new tomorrow. We must clasp each other’s hands and take that first step together. It’s a step that every person, organization or institution can take together—if only we change our lens from competition to cooperation. From receiving to giving.

2 Surround Yoursel With People Smarter Than You.

Regardless of all your hard work, unique talent, good timing or good luck, success is largely a factor of the people you make a part of your journey.

When you first start, you pursue like-minded people in your social circle. But things change. You mature. Your circle widens as your interests shift from social to professional. Although you are initially drawn to people like yourself, now you start to gravitate to people who can offer alternative perspectives—the more unrelated and diverse the individuals, the more opportunity to fill in the gaps of your limited experience, which lowers your risk.

You must network, pay attention and seek out people who not only know more but are willing to challenge and push you. Because few things are as important as gaining new perspectives. It’s easy to get lost in your ideas. Alternate perspectives can eliminate the blind spots and bring you down from the clouds.

3 Find Mentor.

Mentorship is a service. How can you help this person? You need to care more about their goals than you care about your own. Actually, your number one goal is to help them with their goals.

Under promise and over perform. When you get an assignment, blow them away. Do more than expected. Make their life as easy as possible. Get them excited to work with you more.

Never stop seeking help from those who are where you want to be. At the same time, don’t neglect those who could use your help.

Never let a goal become more important than helping people. Help others generously, abundantly. Help others without expectation of a return favor. Serving others will turn you into a mentor yourself. And you will always find more joy in helping others succeed than in achieving your own success.

4 Be Influencer.

Influencers focus on helping one another without expecting anything in return. They give and balance with their own self-interests to make giving a win-win for all parties. Adam Grant, author of the best-selling book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Your Success, told me that “givers are not just philanthropists or volunteers… but people who enjoy helping others and often do it with no strings attached.” Grant explains that givers have the greatest opportunity to both succeed and fail in business because givers can often be taken advantage of, but the most successful givers thrive when they have their own self-interests aligned with giving.

5 Celebrate other’s success.

What does it mean to be just as happy for the success of others as for our own? It’s a matter of attitude. Adopting a praising and loving attitude will help you bask in the success of those you know and with whom you feel a personal connection. This might be difficult at times, but it’s a great way to help us lead more positive lives and get more in return.

By being courageous and selfless enough to embrace others’ success, we get the benefit of greater satisfaction. We feel fulfilled instead of bitter. For example, your best friend gets a job offer at a great company and you don’t know how to feel. You might feel happy but conflicted, especially if you feel less successful at the moment. But having the courage to celebrate your friend’s success as your own can lead to personal satisfaction when you think, OK, I now know someone who works at X company! Your inner circle of affiliations and acquaintances grows, and you can feel appropriately satisfied by that.

Not only does your inner circle of affiliations grow with others’ success, but you can also potentially find personal success. For example, say your best friend’s company is advertising for other positions. Now you have an internal referral that might benefit your own career should you desire working with the same company.

Beyond seizing an available opportunity where possible, our sense of embracing others’ achievements helps to expand our own willpower. American football player and coach Vince Lombardi said, “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, nor a lack of knowledge, but a lack of will.” Our own will can be awakened, in turn, when we see the success of others.

6 Spread positivity.

In director Christopher Nolan’s film Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a man named Cobb who uses futuristic military technology to steal people’s corporate secrets by digging into their subconscious while they sleep. Then a secretive entrepreneur named Saito hires Cobb to do something a little different: plant an idea—inception—instead of stealing one.

For inception to be successful, the idea that Cobb plants has to be simple, emotional and positive. As he explains to his team, “The subconscious is motivated by emotion, right? Not reason. We need to find a way to translate this into an emotional concept…. Positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time.” For Cobb, positive realities are much easier to transfer to others than negative ones because they create lasting change.

Out of the fantasy world and into the world of neuroscience and positive psychology, the research supports Cobb’s claim. Over the past several years, researchers have been investigating how perceptions and mindsets can be transferred to others. And as it turns out, the three best strategies for transferring positive genius to others are not that different from the ones Cobb employed

7 Find your motivation.

Successful people don’t become that way overnight. What most people see at a glance—happiness, wealth, a great career, purpose—is the result of hard work and hustle over time.

To be successful, you have to use each day as an opportunity to improve, to be better, to get a little bit closer to your goals. It might sound like a lot of work—and with a busy schedule, next to impossible. But the best part is, the more you accomplish, the more you’ll want to do, the higher you’ll want to reach. So as long as you have the hunger for success, you will always have the power within you to achieve it.

Use your ambition, drive and desire to make it happen.

15 Ways To Overcome Your Fears Of Writing A Book

Much of the population has aspirations of writing a book, but they’re held back by self-doubt and fear.

Not knowing where to begin, how to structure, and the steps to getting published has stopped many hopeful writers from turning their dreams into reality.

Fortunately, there are steps that anyone can take to successfully write a book and get it published.

The truth is, writing a book can help your entire career. It can turn you into an authority on your subject and put you on a road to a speaking career.

If you want to write a book, I am going to teach you 15 techniques to overcome your fear of writing, to get you going, and to get you to stop staring at a blank screen.

1) Write Often, Even When You Don’t Want To

One of the best ways to overcome your fears of writing is to write 1,000 words a day. The key to writing a book is to “Just Write!” It is one thing that you cannot get worse at by doing it.

2) Save Editing For The End

When you edit during the writing process it can hinder your creative flow. I will often write down my thoughts for my books without interruptions or editing. Get all the information out of your head and onto paper, you can go back and edit later.

3) Outline Your Book Before You Begin

 By having a strong outline it gives you a clear sense of purpose and direction. It also helps you see the end.

Start with a strong chapter that gives a lot of value and benefits to the reader, develop the subject throughout the book, and end with a strong chapter that summarizes and emphasizes the main points.

It is a simple formula, but it works, over and over.

4) Know Who You Are Writing For

When you know exactly who your audience is and who you’re writing for, you will be able to speak to your ideal reader easily in your writing.

5) Create Time For Yourself To Write

Some people will create the excuse that they don’t have any time to write. If you want to write a book, you must create a block of time every day reserved only for writing.

6) Free Yourself From Distractions

It is easy to become distracted. Especially when you are nervous about how your writing will turn out. If you need to seclude yourself in a quiet area you should do it. Free yourself of distractions and write.

7) Don’t Worry If Your Book Isn’t Perfect The First Time

Try not to get caught up thinking about errors in your book. Your goal should be to get all your ideas down and finish your thoughts before you go back and edit.

8) Stop Thinking About What Other People Will Think

Do not worry about what others will think of your writing or your book. What matters is that you get your message out.

9) Break Up Your Writing Into Chunks

Don’t think of it as writing an entire book at one time. Break up your writing. Write one chapter at a time or do a section every day. You don’t have to write it in sequential order as long as your book gets done.

10) Rid Your Mind Of The Fear Of Failure

Rather than focusing on fear and why you can’t write a book, focus on the future and the rewards that writing a book will have in your life.

11) Stay Organized

Organize your material into seven, ten, twelve or twenty-one chapters, each following in a logical order, from beginning to end.

Thinking in terms of a number of chapters forces you to decide what will be contained in each chapter, and how each of the chapters will be organized in relationship to each other.

12) Know When You’re Finished

Know when it is a time to put a bow on your work. You must be able to tell yourself that your work is as complete as can be, rather than obsessing over small details.

13) Become An Expert In Your Area

Continuously expand your knowledge on the subject you are writing about. If you have fears of becoming an author, expand your knowledge first.

Buy, read and find out everything you can about other authors, books or articles dealing with the same subject. Make sure that your material is different and better than other people writing in your field.

The more comfortable you are with your subject, the easier it will be to craft and write your book.

14) Craft Your Message First

You must know what message you want your entire book to convey.

• You have a burning desire to tell people this.
• You want to help people.
• You want your children to know about this message.

15) It’s Never Too Late To Start

If you’re worried that it is too late to start writing, it’s not. Take a look at this infographic of famous writers and when they began writing. The first step is to, “Just write!”

8 Task Management Tips To Stop Procrastinating And Get More Done

Tons of time management strategies have been developed over the years by hundreds of people to help you get more done in less time. Here are 6 of my favorite task management tips to help you stop procrastinating in your work and personal life.

Think about which one of these ideas could be most helpful to you right now, in your current situation.

1) Manage And Organize Your Tasks On Paper

Prepare thoroughly if you want to get things done. List every step of the job in advance. Break the job down into its constituent parts before you begin. Simply writing out every detail and thoroughly preparing in advance will help you to stop procrastinating.

2) Fully Prepare For Each Task

Second, come fully prepared for each task you work on.

When you sit down to work or to begin a task, make sure that you have everything on hand so that you won’t have to get up or move until the task is done. Being fully prepared is a powerful motivator for staying with the task until it is finished.

3) Take Small Steps To Manage Your Tasks

The 80/20 rule says that 20% of the task often accounts for 80% of the value of that task.

This is probably what Confucius meant when he said that, ‘‘A journey of 1,000 leagues begins with a single step.’’

Once you have taken even one small step to start the job, you will often find yourself continuing on with the task to completion.

4) “Salami Slice’’ Your Tasks

Just as you would never try to eat a whole loaf of salami at once, don’t try to take on all of a job from the start. Sometimes the best way to stop procrastinating and complete a major job is to take a small slice and complete just that piece, just as you would take a single slice of salami and eat it.

When you select a small piece of the task and then discipline yourself to do it and get it behind you, it will often give you the momentum you need to counter inertia and stop procrastinating.

5) Select A 5 Minute Task And Start There

Just as a block of Swiss cheese is full of holes, you treat your task like a block of cheese and you punch holes in it.

Select a five-minute part of the job and do only that. Don’t worry about the whole job.

For example, if you want to write an article or a book, break the task down into small pieces that take an identifiable amount of time to complete and do just one small piece at a time whenever you get a chance.

Many authors begin by writing one page a day. If you are doing research, you can read one article per sitting. Many people write complete books on airplanes or complete their college degrees with snatches of time between other activities. If you wrote one page a day for a year, you would have a 365-page book by the end of the year.

6) Do The Task That Causes You The Most Fear Or Anxiety

Often, it has to do with overcoming the fear of failure or rejection by someone else.

In sales, it may be associated with prospecting. In management, it may be associated with disciplining or firing an employee. In relationships, this may have to do with confronting an unhappy personal situation.

In every case, you will be more effective if you deal first with whatever is causing you the greatest emotional distress or fear. Often this will break the logjam in your work and free you up mentally and emotionally to get things done.

7) Start Your Day With The Most Unpleasant Task First

Get it over with and behind you. Everything else for the rest of the day will seem easier in comparison.

A recent study compared two groups of people. One group started an exercise program in the morning. The second group started an exercise program in the evenings after work. The researchers found that the morning exercises were much more likely to still be in the program six months later.

Starting the day with exercise was much more likely to lead to the habit of regular exercise than putting it off until the end of the day when it was easier to make excuses and procrastinate.

8) Think About The Negative Consequences If You Don’t Finish

What will happen to you if this job is not done on schedule?