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Marketing:
Marketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities discover that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others.

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to buy or sell goods or services.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing, which is the world's largest marketing body[citation needed], defines marketing as "The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably."

Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognised a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre and post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also infamous for re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.

Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering views marketing as a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches.

The Marketing Concept:
The term marketing concept pertains to the fundamental premise of modern marketing. This can be laid out as recognising consumer needs/wants, and making products that correlate with consumer desires.

Marketing Orientations:
An orientation, in the marketing context, relates to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service, essentially concerning consumers and end-users. There exist several common orientations:

Product Orientation:
A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own product, and not in necessarily ascertaining consumer desires. A firm would also assume that as long as its product was of a high standard, people would buy and consume the product.

However, utilising a product orientation has a prime disadvantage of making a firm lose out to competitors, who may produce technologically superior goods that engender higher consumer demand and thus market share. A product orientation may perhaps work best in a monopolistic market form, due to the inherent high barriers to entry within a monopoly.

Sales Orientation:
A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not determining new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible.

Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a good that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.

Production Orientation:
A firm focusing on a production orientation specialises in producing as much as possible of a given good. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale, until the minimum efficient scale is reached.

A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a good exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes do not rapidly alter (similar to the sales orientation).

Marketing Orientation:
The marketing orientation is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketing concept, and thus forging products to suit new consumer tastes.

As an example, a firm would employ market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a good attuned to the revealed information, and then utilise promotion techniques to ensure persons know the good exists. The marketing orientation often has three prime facets, which are:
Customer Orientation:
A firm in the market economy survives by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viabilty and even existence as a going concern.

Organizational Orientation:
All departments of a firm should be geared to satisfying consumer wants/needs.

Mutually Beneficial Exchange:
In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits/market share/sales. A consumer on the other hand gains a need/want that is satisfied, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a good. As no one has to buy goods from any one supplier in the market economy, firms must entice consumers to buy goods, and thus seek to satisfy consumers' utility. If an exchange is not mutually beneficial in nature, it is not consistent with contemporary marketing ideals.

Four Ps:
In the early 1960s, Professor Neil Borden at Harvard Business School identified a number of company performance actions that can influence the consumer decision to purchase goods or services. Borden suggested that all those actions of the company represented a “Marketing Mix”. Professor E. Jerome McCarthy, at the Michigan State University in the early 1960s, suggested that the Marketing Mix contained 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion.

Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.

Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary; it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, or attention. Methods of setting prices optimally are in the domain of pricing science.

Placement (or distribution): refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point-of-sale placement or retailing. This third P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or service is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc. also referring to how the environment in which the product is sold in can affect sales.

Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling. Branding refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.

These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix, which a marketer can use to craft a marketing plan.

The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services.

Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.

As a counter to this, Morgan, in Riding the Waves of Change (Jossey-Bass, 1988), suggests that one of the greatest limitations of the 4 Ps approach "is that it unconsciously emphasizes the inside–out view (looking from the company outwards), whereas the essence of marketing should be the outside–in approach".

The Marketing Environment:
The term "marketing environment" relates to all of the factors (whether internal, external, direct or indirect) that affects a firm's marketing decision-making/planning. A firm's marketing environment consists of three main areas, which are:
The macro-environment, over which a firm holds little control
The micro-environment, over which a firm holds a greater amount (though not necessarily total) control
The internal environment

The Macro-Environment:
A firm's marketing macro-environment consists of factors that manifest on a large or macro scale. These are typically economic, social or political phenomena. A common means of assessing a firm's macro-environment is via a PEST (,i.e. Political, Economic, Social and Technological) analysis. Within a PEST analysis, a firm would analyse national political issues, culture and climate, key macroeconomic conditions, health and indicators (such as economic growth, inflation, unemployment, etc.), social trends/attitudes, and the nature of technology's impact on its society and the business processes within the society.

New Product Development:
In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. Companies typically see new product development as the first stage in generating and commercializing new products within the overall strategic process of product life cycle management used to maintain or grow their market share.

The Process:

Idea Generation is often called the "fuzzy front end" of the NPD process
Ideas for new products can be obtained from basic research using a SWOT analysis (Strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats), Market and consumer trends, company's R&D department, competitors, focus groups, employees, salespeople, corporate spies, trade shows, or Ethnographic discovery methods (searching for user patterns and habits) may also be used to get an insight into new product lines or product features.

 

Idea Generation or Brainstorming of new product, service, or store concepts - idea generation techniques can begin when you have done your OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS to support your ideas in the Idea Screening Phase (shown in the next development step).

Idea Screening:
The object is to eliminate unsound concepts prior to devoting resources to them.

The screeners must ask at least three questions:
Will the customer in the target market benefit from the product?
What is the size and growth forecasts of the market segment/target market?
What is the current or expected competitive pressure for the product idea?
What are the industry sales and market trends the product idea is based on?
Is it technically feasible to manufacture the product?
Will the product be profitable when manufactured and delivered to the customer at the target price?

Concept Development and Testing:
Develop the marketing and engineering details
Who is the target market and who is the decision maker in the purchasing process?
What product features must the product incorporate?
What benefits will the product provide?
How will consumers react to the product?
How will the product be produced most cost effectively?
Prove feasibility through virtual computer aided rendering, and rapid prototyping
What will it cost to produce it?

Testing the Concept by asking a sample of prospective customers what they think of the idea. Usually via Choice Modelling.

Business Analysis:
Estimate likely selling price based upon competition and customer feedback
Estimate sales volume based upon size of market and such tools as the Fourt-Woodlock equation
Estimate profitability and breakeven point

Beta Testing and Market Testing:
Produce a physical prototype or mock-up
Test the product (and its packaging) in typical usage situations
Conduct focus group customer interviews or introduce at trade show
Make adjustments where necessary
Produce an initial run of the product and sell it in a test market area to determine customer acceptance.

Technical Implementation:
New program initiation
Resource estimation
Requirement publication
Engineering operations planning
Department scheduling
Supplier collaboration
Logistics plan
Resource plan publication
Program review and monitoring
Contingencies - what-if planning

Commercialization (often considered post-NPD):
Launch the product
Produce and place advertisements and other promotions
Fill the distribution pipeline with product
Critical path analysis is most useful at this stage

These steps may be iterated as needed. Some steps may be eliminated. To reduce the time that the NPD process takes, many companies are completing several steps at the same time (referred to as concurrent engineering or time to market). Most industry leaders see new product development as a proactive process where resources are allocated to identify market changes and seize upon new product opportunities before they occur (in contrast to a reactive strategy in which nothing is done until problems occur or the competitor introduces an innovation). Many industry leaders see new product development as an ongoing process (referred to as continuous development) in which the entire organization is always looking for opportunities.

For the more innovative products indicated on the diagram above, great amounts of uncertainty and change may exist, which makes it difficult or impossible to plan the complete project before starting it. In this case, a more flexible approach may be advisable.

Because the NPD process typically requires both engineering and marketing expertise, cross-functional teams are a common way of organizing projects. The team is responsible for all aspects of the project, from initial idea generation to final commercialization, and they usually report to senior management (often to a vice president or Program Manager). In those industries where products are technically complex, development research is typically expensive, and product life cycles are relatively short, strategic alliances among several organizations helps to spread the costs, provide access to a wider skill set, and speeds the overall process.

Also, notice that because engineering and marketing expertise are usually both critical to the process, choosing an appropriate blend of the two is important. Observe (for example, by looking at the See also or References sections below) that this article is slanted more toward the marketing side. For more of an engineering slant, see the Ulrich and Eppinger, Ullman references below.

People respond to new products in different ways. The adoption of a new technology can be analyzed using a variety of diffusion theories such as the Diffusion of innovations theory.

Fuzzy Front End:
The Fuzzy Front End is the messy "getting started" period of new product development processes. It is in the front end where the organization formulates a concept of the product to be developed and decides whether or not to invest resources in the further development of an idea. It is the phase between first consideration of an opportunity and when it is judged ready to enter the structured development process (Kim and Wilemon , 2002; Koen et al., 2001). It includes all activities from the search for new opportunities through the formation of a germ of an idea to the development of a precise concept. The Fuzzy Front End ends when an organization approves and begins formal development of the concept.

Although the Fuzzy Front End may not be an expensive part of product development, it can consume 50% of development time (see Chapter 3 of the Smith and Reinertsen reference below), and it is where major commitments are typically made involving time, money, and the product’s nature, thus setting the course for the entire project and final end product. Consequently, this phase should be considered as an essential part of development rather than something that happens “before development,” and its cycle time should be included in the total development cycle time.

Koen et al. (2001, pp.47–51) distinguish five different front-end elements (not necessarily in a particular order):
Opportunity Identification
Opportunity Analysis
Idea Genesis
Idea Selection
Concept and Technology Development

The first element is the opportunity identification. In this element, large or incremental business and technological chances are identified in a more or less structured way. Using the guidelines established here, resources will eventually be allocated to new projects.... which then lead to a structured NPPD (New Product & Process Development)strategy. The second element is the opportunity analysis. It is done to translate the identified opportunities into implications for the business and technology specific context of the company. Here extensive efforts may be made to align ideas to target customer groups and do market studies and/or technical trials and research. The third element is the idea genesis, which is described as evolutionary and iterative process progressing from birth to maturation of the opportunity into a tangible idea. The process of the idea genesis can be made internally or come from outside inputs, e.g. a supplier offering a new material/technology, or from a customer with an unusual request. The fourth element is the idea selection. Its purpose is to choose whether to pursue an idea by analyzing its potential business value. The fifth element is the concept and technology development. During this part of the front-end, the business case is developed based on estimates of the total available market, customer needs, investment requirements, competition analysis and project uncertainty. Some organizations consider this to be the first stage of the NPPD process (i.e., Stage 0).

The Fuzzy Front End is also described in literature as "Front End of Innovation", "Phase 0", "Stage 0" or "Pre-Project-Activities".

A universally acceptable definition for Fuzzy Front End or a dominant framework has not been developed so far In a glossary of PDMA, it is mentioned that the Fuzzy Front End generally consists of three tasks: strategic planning, concept generation, and, especially, pre-technical evaluation. These activities are often chaotic, unpredictible, and unstructured. In comparison, the subsequent new product development process is typically structured, predictable, and formal. The term Fuzzy Front End was first popularized by Smith and Reinertsen (1991) R.G.Cooper (1988) describes the early stages of NPPD as a four step process in which ideas are generated (I),subjected to a preliminary technical and market assessment(II) and merged to coherent product concepts(III) which are finally judged for their fit with existing product strategies and portfolios (IV). In a more recent paper, Cooper and Edgett (2008) affirm that vital predevelopment activities include:
1) Preliminary market assessment.
2) Technical assessment.
3) Source-of-supply-assessment:suppliers and partners or alliances.
4) Market research : market size and segmentation analysis,VoC (voice of customer) research.
5) Product concept testing.
6) Value-to-the customer assessment.
7) Product definition.
8) Business and financial analysis.

These activities yield vital information to make a Go/No-Go to Development decision. In the in-depth study by Khurana and Rosenthal (1998) front-end activities include product strategy formulation and communication, opportunity identification and assessment,idea generation,product definition,project planning,and executive reviews. Economical analysis, benchmarking of competitive products,and modeling and prototyping are also important activities during the front-end activities. The outcomes of FFE are the mission statement,customer needs,details of the selected concept, product definition and specifications, economic analysis of the product,the development schedule,project staffing and the budget,and a business plan aligned with corporate strategy. In a paper by Husig, Kohn and Huskela (2005) was proposed a conceptual model of Front-End Process which includes early Phases of Innovation Process. This model is structured in three phases and three gates:
Phase 1: Environmental screening or opportunity identification stage in which external changes will be analysed and translated into potential business opportunities.
Phase 2 : Preliminary definition of an idea or concept.
Phase 3 : Detailed product, project or concept definition, and Business planning. The gates are:
1) Opportunity screening.
2) Idea evaluation.
3) Go/No-Go for development. The final gate leads to a dedicated new product development project . Many professionals and academics consider that the general features of Fuzzy Front End (fuzziness,,ambiguity, and uncertainty) make difficult to see the FFE as a structured process,but rather as a set of interdependent activities ( e.g.Kim and Wilemon ,2002). However, Husig et al.,2005 argue that front-end not need to be fuzzy,but can be handled in a structured manner.Peter A.Koen (2004) argue that in the FFE for incremental,platform and radical projects,three separate strategies and processes are typically involved.The traditional Stage Gate (TM) process was designed for incremental product development,namely for a single product.The FFE for developing a new platform must start out with a strategic vision of where the company wants to develop products and this will lead to a family of products. Projects for breakthrough products start out with a similar strategic vision,but are associated with technologies which require new discoveries.It is worth mentioning what are incremental,platform and breakthrough products. Incremental products are considered to be cost reductions, improvements to existing product lines,additions to existing platforms and repositioning of existing products introduced in markets. Breakthrough products are new to the company or new to the world and offer a 5-10 times or greater improvement in performance combined with a 30-50% or greater reduction in costs. Platform products establish a basic architecture for a next generation product or process and are substantially larger in scope and resources than incremental projects (Koen, Peter A., 2004).

Branding:
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes products and services from competitive offerings. A brand represents the consumers' experience with an organization, product, or service. A brand is more than a name, design or symbol. Brand reflects personality of the company which is organizational culture.

A brand has also been defined as an identifiable entity that makes a specific value based on promises made and kept either actively or passively.

Branding means creating reference of certain products in mind.

Co-branding involves marketing activity involving two or more products.

Marketing Communications:
Marketing communications breaks down the strategies involved with marketing messages into categories based on the goals of each message. There are distinct stages in converting strangers to customers that govern the communication medium that should be used.

Personal Sales:
Oral Presentation given by a salesperson who approaches individuals or a group of potential customers:
Live, Interactive Relationship
Personal Interest
Attention and Response
Interesting Presentation
Clear and Thorough

Sales Promotion:
Short-term incentives to encourage buying of products:
Instant Appeal
Anxiety to Sell

An example is coupons or a sale. People are given an incentive to buy, but this does not build customer loyalty or encourage future repeat buys. A major drawback of sales promotion is that it is easily copied by competition. It cannot be used as a sustainable source of differentiation.

Customer Focus:
Many companies today have a customer focus (or market orientation). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the sense of identifying market changes and the product 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 aspect of a 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 for this approach is that there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs.

A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA (Solution, Information, Value, Access). This system is basically the four Ps renamed and reworded to provide a customer focus.

The SIVA Model provides a demand/customer centric version alternative to the well-known 4Ps supply side model (product, price, place, promotion) of marketing management.
Product > Solution
Promotion > Information
Price > Value
Placement > Access

The four elements of the SIVA model are:
1.Solution: How appropriate is the solution to the customer's problem/need?

2.Information: Does the customer know about the solution? If so, how and from whom do they know enough to let them make a buying decision?

3. Value: Does the customer know the value of the transaction, what it will cost, what are the benefits, what might they have to sacrifice, what will be their reward?

4. Access: Where can the customer find the solution? How easily/locally/remotely can they buy it and take delivery?

This model was proposed by Chekitan Dev and Don Schultz in the Marketing Management Journal of the American Marketing Association, and presented by them in Market Leader, the journal of the Marketing Society in the UK.

Product Focus:
In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that profitable market segment(s) exist for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. However, marketers can aggressively over-pursue product innovation and try to overcapitalize on a niche. When pursuing a product innovation approach, marketers must ensure that they have a varied and multi-tiered approach to product innovation. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post status of consumer research. Some even question whether it is marketing.

An emerging area of study and practice concerns internal marketing, or how employees are trained and managed to deliver the brand in a way that positively impacts the acquisition and retention of customers (employer branding).

Diffusion of innovations research explores how and why people adopt new products, services and ideas.

A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is called Internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, affiliate marketing, desktop advertising or online marketing. It tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.

With consumers' eroding attention span and willingness to give time to advertising messages, marketers are turning to forms of permission marketing such as branded content, custom media and reality marketing.

The use of Herd Behavior in marketing.
The Economist reported a recent conference in Rome on the subject of the simulation of adaptive human behavior. It shared mechanisms to increase impulse buying and get people "to buy more by playing on the herd instinct." The basic idea is that people will buy more of products that are seen to be popular, and several feedback mechanisms to get product popularity information to consumers are mentioned, including smart-cart technology and the use of Radio Frequency Identification Tag technology. A "swarm-moves" model was introduced by a Florida Institute of Technology researcher, which is appealing to supermarkets because it can "increase sales without the need to give people discounts."

Marketing is also used to promote business' products and is a great way to promote the business.

Other recent studies on the "power of social influence" include an "artificial music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs" (Columbia University, New York); a Japanese chain of convenience stores which orders its products based on "sales data from department stores and research companies;" a Massachusetts company exploiting knowledge of social networking to improve sales; and online retailers who are increasingly informing consumers about "which products are popular with like-minded consumers" (e.g., Amazon, eBay).

Areas of Marketing Specialization:

Agricultural Marketing:
Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. Numerous interconnected activities are involved in doing this. Agricultural marketing is best carried out by the private sector rather than governments and all stages of the chain must show a profit for the participants. Support to developing countries with agricultural marketing development is carried out by the agricultural marketing section of FAO and various donor organizations. Activities include market information development, marketing extension, training in marketing and infrastructure development. Recent trends have seen the rise of supermarkets and a growing interest in contract farming.

 

Advertising and Branding:
Advertising is a form of communication used to help sell products and services. Typically it communicates a message including the name of the product or service and how that product or service could potentially benefit the consumer. However, Advertising does typically attempt to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinvention of the "brand image". For these purposes, advertisements sometimes embed their persuasive message with factual information. There are many media used to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the carrier bags, billboards, mail or post and Internet. Today, new media such as digital signage is growing as a major new mass media. Advertising is often placed by an advertising agency on behalf of a company or other organization.

Organizations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising that sells what is not, strictly speaking, a product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations, and military recruiters. Non-profit organizations are not typical advertising clients, and may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as public service announcements.

Money spent on advertising has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2007, spending on advertising has been estimated at over $150 billion in the United States and $385 billion worldwide, and the latter to exceed $450 billion by 2010.

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth, it is not without social costs. Unsolicited Commercial Email and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers. Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation. In addition, advertising frequently utilizes psychological pressure (for example, appealing to feelings of inadequacy) on the intended consumer, which may be harmful.

Communications:

CRM, Customer Relationship Management:
Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. Typical CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.

While the term CRM generally refers to a software-based approach to handling customer relationships, most CRM software vendors stress that a successful CRM effort requires a holistic approach. CRM initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation, without providing the context, support and understanding for employees to learn, and take full advantage of the information systems. CRM tools should be implemented "only after a well-devised strategy and operational plan are put in place". CRM can be implemented without major investments in software, but software is often necessary to explore the full benefits of a CRM strategy.

Other problems occur when failing to think of sales as the output of a process that itself needs to be studied and taken into account when planning automation.

Database Marketing:
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.

The distinction between direct and database marketing stems primarily from the attention paid to the analysis of data. Database marketing emphasizes the use of statistical techniques to develop models of customer behavior, which are then used to select customers for communications. As a consequence, database marketers also tend to be heavy users of data warehouses, because having a greater amount of data about customers increases the likelihood that a more accurate model can be built.

The "database" is usually name, address, and transaction history details from internal sales or delivery systems, or a bought-in compiled "list" from another organization, which has captured that information from its customers. Typical sources of compiled lists are charity donation forms, application forms for any free product or contest, product warranty cards, subscription forms, and credit application forms.

The communications generated by database marketing may be described as junk mail or spam, if it is unwanted by the addressee. Direct and database marketing organizations, on the other hand, argue that a targeted letter or e-mail to a customer, who wants to be contacted about offerings that may interest the customer, benefits both the customer and the marketer.

Some countries and some organizations insist that individuals are able to prevent entry to or delete their name and address details from database marketing lists.

Direct Marketing:
Direct marketing is a sub-discipline and type of marketing. There are two main definitional characteristics which distinguish it from other types of marketing. The first is that it attempts to send its messages directly to consumers, without the use of intervening media. This involves commercial communication (direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing) with consumers or businesses, usually unsolicited. The second characteristic is that it is focused on driving a specific "call-to-action." This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable, measurable positive (but not negative) responses from consumers (known simply as "response" in the industry) regardless of medium.

If the advertisement asks the prospect to take a specific action, for instance call a free phone number or visit a website, then the effort is considered to be direct response advertising.

Event Organization:

Experiential Marketing:
Experiential marketing is the art of creating an experience where the result is an emotional connection to a person, brand, product or idea.

The name experiential marketing is relatively new however the fundamentals concepts behind it are not. For decades activity such as field marketing, customer service, special events, product promotions, PR stunts have engaged consumers and the public emotionally. However what has happened recently is the specialization of taking the fundamental concept of creating connection through a designed emotive experience.

Field Marketing:

Global Marketing:
The Oxford University Press defines global marketing as “marketing on a worldwide scale reconciling or taking commercial advantage of global operational differences, similarities and opportunities in order to meet global objectives.” Oxford University Press’ Glossary of Marketing Terms.

Guerilla Marketing:
The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented is an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his toac book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.

Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, pr stunts, any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.

International Marketing:
International marketing refers to marketing carried out by companies overseas or across national borderlines. This strategy uses an extension of the techniques used in the home country of a firm.

Introduction to International Marketing. International marketing is simply the application of marketing principles to more than one country. However, there is a crossover between what is commonly expressed as international marketing and global marketing, which is a similar term.

The intersection is the result of the process of internationalisation. Many American and European authors see international marketing as a simple extension of exporting, whereby the marketing mix 4P's is simply adapted in some way to take into account differences in consumers and segments. It then follows that global marketing takes a more standardised approach to world markets and focuses upon sameness, in other words the similarities in consumers and segments.

Internet Marketing
Internet marketing, also referred to as i-marketing, web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs and greater capabilities for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it not only refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sale.

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting data upward of 2,500 times on average per user per month.

Industrial Marketing:
Industrial marketing is the marketing of goods and services from one business to another. The word "industrial" has connotations of heavy machinery, mining, construction etc. but "industrial marketing" is not confined to these types of business activities. Broadly (and inadequatly) marketing could be split into consumer marketing (B2C "Business to Consumer") and industrial marketing (B2B "Business to Business").

Market Research:
Market research is for discovering what people want, need, or believe. It can also involve discovering how they act. Once that research is completed, it can be used to determine how to market your product.

Questionnaires and focus group discussion surveys are some of the instruments for market research.

For starting up a business, there are some important things:

Market Information:
Through Market information you can know the prices of the different commodities in the market, the supply and the demand situation. Information about the markets can be obtained from different sources and varieties and formats.

Market Segmentation:
Market segmentation is the division of the market or population into subgroups with similar motivations. it is a widely used for segmenting on geographic differences, personality differences, demographic differences, technographic differences, use of product differences, and psychographic differences and also gender differences.

Market Trends:
The upward or downward movements of a market, during a period of time. The market size is more difficult to estimate if you are starting with something completely new. In this case, you will have to derive the figures from the number of potential customers or customer segments. [Ilar 1998]

Marketing Strategy:
Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing strategy should be centered around the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal.

Marketing Plan:
marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or service, a brand, or a product line. Marketing plans cover between one and five years.

A marketing plan may be part of an overall business plan. Solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan without a sound strategic foundation is of little use.

Political Marketing:
Political consulting, beyond the self-evident definition of consulting in political matters, refers to a specific management consulting industry which has grown up around advising and assisting political campaigns. This article deals primarily with the development and nature of political consulting in the United States. Though its most important role is probably in the production of mass media (largely television), political consultants advise campaigns on virtually all of their activities, from research to field strategy. Consultants conduct candidate research, voter research, and opposition research for their clients.

Product Marketing:
Product marketing deals with the first of the "4P"'s of marketing, which are Product, Pricing, Place, and Promotion. Product marketing, as opposed to product management, deals with more outbound marketing tasks. For example, product management deals with the nuts and bolts of product development within a firm, whereas product marketing deals with marketing the product to prospects, customers, and others. Product marketing, as a job function within a firm, also differs from other marketing jobs such as Marcom or marketing communications, online marketing, advertising, marketing strategy, etc.

A Product Market is something that is referred to when pitching a new product to the general public. The people you are trying to make your product appeal to is your consumer market. For example: If you were pitching a new video game console game to the public, your consumer market would probably be the adult male Video Game market (depending on the type of game). Thus you would carry out market research to find out how best to release the game. Likewise, a massage chair would probably not appeal to younger children, so you would market your product to an older generation.

Professional Selling:
Academically, selling is thought of as a part of marketing, however, the two disciplines are completely different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespeople (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading "art". Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesperson relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.

While the sales process refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, the definition of the selling is somewhat ambiguous due to the close nature of advertising, promotion, public relations, and direct marketing.

Proximity Marketing:
Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place. Transmissions can be received by individuals in that location who wish to receive them and have the necessary equipment to do so.

Distribution may be via a traditional localized broadcast, or more commonly is specifically targeted to devices known to be in a particular area.

The location of a device may be determined by:
A cellular phone being in a particular cell.
A Bluetooth or WiFi device being within range of a transmitter.
An Internet enabled device with GPS enabling it to request localized content from Internet servers.

Communications may be further targeted to specific groups within a given location, for example content in tourist hot spots may only be distributed to devices registered outside the local area.

Communications may be both time and place specific, e.g. content at a conference venue may depend on the event in progress.

Uses of proximity marketing include distribution of media at concerts, information (weblinks on local facilities), gaming and social applications, and advertising.

Public Marketing:
According to Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein (2009) public marketing is the application of marketing concepts and tools to public administration. Public marketing has evolved to a self-contained discipline merging thoughts from marketing and public sector management. Against the background of contro-versial debates going along with the development of the field, marketing in the public sector has to face new challenges today. Relationships to customers, employees and other stakeholders appear to become central to the success of public sector organisations. Therefore public marketing should evolve from a shallow tool kit to a profound knowledge base for public managers.

Retailing:
Retailing consists of the sale of goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by post, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser.[1] Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be individuals or businesses. In commerce, a "retailer" buys goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers or importers, either directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells smaller quantities to the end-user. Retail establishments are often called shops or stores. Retailers are at the end of the supply chain. Manufacturing marketers see the process of retailing as a necessary part of their overall distribution strategy. The term "retailer" is also applied where a service provider services the needs of a large number of individuals, such as a public utility, like electric power.

Shops may be on residential streets, shopping streets with few or no houses or in a shopping mall. Shopping streets may be for pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to protect customers from precipitation. Online retailing, a type of electronic commerce used for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions and mail order, are forms of non-shop retailing.

Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it is done as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping (just looking, not buying) and browsing and does not always result in a purchase.

Search Engine Marketing:
Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. The industry peak body Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), includes search engine optimization (SEO) within its reporting, and SEO is also included in the industry definitions of SEM by Forrester Research, eMarketer, Search Engine Watch, and industry expert Danny Sullivan.. The New York Times defines SEM as 'the practice of buying paid search listings'.

Segmentation:
A market segment is a group of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product and/or service needs. A true market segment meets all of the following criteria: it is distinct from other segments (different segments have different needs), it is homogeneous within the segment (exhibits common needs); it responds similarly to a market stimulus, and it can be reached by a market intervention. The term is also used when consumers with identical product and/or service needs are divided up into groups so they can be charged different amounts. These can broadly be viewed as 'positive' and 'negative' applications of the same idea, splitting up the market into smaller groups.

Social Media Marketing:
Social media marketing also known as social influence marketing is the act of using social influencers, social media platforms, online communities for marketing, publication relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees).

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites.

Sponsorship:
To sponsor something is to support an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. A sponsor is the individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor.

Sponsorship is a cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property (typically in sports, arts, entertainment or causes) in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that property. For example, a corporate entity may provide equipment for a famous athlete or sports team in exchange for brand recognition. The sponsor earns popularity this way while the sponsored can earn a lot of money. A particular form of specialised brand sponsorship where a brand sponsors an unusual event or past-time that then becomes synonymous with that brand (to the point where future brands may be excluded from participation) is known as 'aboutsponsorship'. This provides a strong walled-garden sponsorship relationship between particular events and the brand. A classic example is how Red Bull sponsors the well known flying event, Red Bull Air Race.

Cause-Related Marketing generally includes an offer by the sponsor to make a donation to the cause with purchase of its product or service. Unlike philanthropy, money spent on cause marketing is a business expense, not a donation, and is expected to show a return on investment. A great example of cause marketing is Yoplait Save Lids and Save Lives program.

When commercial radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920s, the programs were aired without advertising. Many radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers and programming was provided to sell radio transmitters and receivers. This led to a system where radio and television programs were financed by selling sponsorship rights to businesses. Eventually, the broadcasters began selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. Sponsorship is also becoming increasingly important in education.

Many companies want their logo on sponsored equipment in return. Formula One teams for many years relied heavily on the income from tobacco advertising, reflected in the sponsorship liveries of the teams. Other types of sponsorships revolve around companies paying for parts of television broadcasts and sporting events which bear their name. For example college bowl games now contain the name of their sponsor such as the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl.

Many times a company's motives for sponsorship are altruistic in order to create goodwill in the community which increases their good reputation. However, sponsorship is more commonly used to derive benefit from the associations created for a company's brand(s) or image as a result of the sponsorship.

People may sponsor an individual or group of people to undertake a fundraising task, usually for a charity or other cause requiring funding.

Sponsorship belongs to the promotional tool of Marketing.

In Japan, sponsorship is prevalent in television, as evidenced by each Japanese television series (after its opening sequence, its ending and subsequent episode preview).

With respect to neuroscience conferences, the term sponsor designates the person financially supporting the research presented at the conference.

Sponsorship in the traditional sense became less common is US television over the years -- individual advertisements in many different programs being the norm for commercial television these days, with product placement becoming more popular -- with the exception of Public Television, where sponsorship of an entire series is still commonplace, usually with a subdued announcement at the end, and optionally the beginning, of each program. This is often referred to as 'underwriting'.

Strategic Management:
Strategic or institutional management is the conduct of drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives.[1] It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives.

Strategic management is a level of managerial activity under setting goals and over Tactics. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency".

Wholesale Marketing:
The consumption and production of marketed food are spatially separated. Production is primarily in rural areas whilst consumption is in urban areas. Agricultural marketing is the process that overcomes this separation, allowing produce to be moved from an area of surplus to one of need. Food reaches the consumer by a complex network, involving production, assembly, sorting, packing, reassembly, distribution and retail stages. In developing countries the linkage between the producer and the retailer is still usually provided by assembly and wholesale markets, where wholesale marketing takes place using a variety of transaction methods. Recent years have seen an expansion of wholesale marketing in E. European and former CIS countries. On the other hand, the growth of supermarkets in many regions has seen the development of direct marketing and a reduced role for wholesale systems.

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