The Marketing Process

The Marketing Process
Once the strategic plan has defined the company’s overall mission and objectives, marketing plays
a role in carrying out these objectives.
The marketing process is the process of analyzing market opportunities, selecting target markets,
developing the marketing mix, and managing the marketing effort. Target customers stand at the
center of the marketing process. There are following steps in Marketing Process:
5. Analyzing marketing opportunities
6. Selecting target markets
7. Developing the marketing Mix
8. Managing the marketing effort
a. Analyzing marketing opportunities
First step of the marketing process is analyzing market opportunities and availing these
opportunities to satisfy the customer’s requirements to have competitive advantage. The marketing
function of analyzing market opportunities is important in the marketing planning process. Any
marketing manager must analyses the long-run opportunities in the market to improve the business
unit's performance. To evaluate its opportunities firms needs to operate a reliable marketing
information system.
Marketing research is an indispensable marketing tool for this purpose. Researching the market
allows the company to gather information about their customers, competitors and any
environmental changes to determine the market opportunities. Once the market opportunities
have been analyzed then modern marketing practice calls for dividing the market into major
market segments, evaluating each segment, and selecting and targeting those market segments that
the company can best serve
b. Selecting the target Market:
To succeed in today’s competitive marketplace, companies must be customer centered. They must
win customers from competitors and keep them by delivering greater value.
• Sound marketing requires a careful, deliberate analysis of consumers.
• Since companies cannot satisfy all consumers in a given market, they must divide up the
total market (market segmentation), choose the best segments (market targeting), and
design strategies for profitably serving chosen segments better than the competition
(market positioning).
Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different
needs, characteristics, or behavior who might require separate products or marketing mixes.
Market targeting is the process of evaluating each market segment’s attractiveness and selecting one
or more segments to enter. A company should target segments in which it can generate the greatest