Marketing applications
As we saw earlier, companies making everyday consumer products were the fi rst
to apply the marketing concept. In this book, too, we will focus mostly on the
marketing of fast moving consumer goods, such as food products that consumers
buy regularly. But the success of consumer marketing (in which the supplier
concentrates its efforts on the ‘end user’) showed that marketing also has a great
deal to offer for other types of organisations. So in this section we take a brief look
at different applications of the marketing concept.
1.6.1 Applications
The fundamental idea behind marketing is universal. In trying to stimulate the
exchange process, the key is to start with the market and think backwards, and
to always work in a customer-oriented way. This not only applies to consumer
marketing, which focuses on private individuals, but also to a target market made
up of other companies. This is referred to as business-to-business marketing (B2B),
and sometimes as industrial or organisational marketing. B2B-marketing is discussed in
paragraph 4.6.
Because the infl uence of retailers has increased enormously, many manufacturers
now develop a marketing strategy specially geared to retailers that is known as trade
marketing. The marketing strategy of the retail company itself (such as Albert Heijn),
which sells to the consumer, is referred to as retail marketing. Both of these subjects
will also be covered in more detail later on in this book.
Other important applications of the principles of marketing are:
• Services marketing: the marketing strategy of a supplier of intangible services, such as
a bank or an insurance company.
Fast moving consumer
goods
Consumer marketing
Business-to-business
marketing
Trade marketing
Retail marketing professor’s perspective
What is the common denominator in the success
of these organisations? They know that successful
marketing starts with the marketing concept. They
do not equate marketing with selling or advertising,
but implement marketing as an integrated process
of developing, pricing, promoting and distributing
products, services and experiences tailored to
the changing needs of consumers, in a socially
responsible and sustainable manner. Finally, they
conduct marketing research to make sure that
what they offer, and how they do so, satisfi es their
customers’ needs and wants.
Successful marketers, however, go beyond offering
the products, services and experiences consumers
want at prices and locations that appeal to them.
They also build long-term relationships with their
clients, realising that servicing an existing customer
is much more cost effective than trying to fi nd new
ones. A customer-centric approach is at the heart of
transforming customer interactions into long-term
relationships. To this effect, successful marketers
know their customers well, regularly obtain and
act upon customer feedback, minimise customer
attrition, build emotional bonds with their customers
and turn them into advocates for the company. This
is exactly what companies wanting to capitalise on
the potential of the rising market in Africa have to do
as well.10
© Noordhoff Uitgevers chapter 1 What is marketing? 33
• International marketing: marketing activities that are planned domestically and aimed
at customers outside of the domestic market.
• Direct marketing: a form of marketing in which the supplier not only wants a transaction,
but also tries to develop – based on what he knows about potential buyers – an ongoing
relationship with them, through direct communication (direct mail, telephone or the
Internet) tailored to the individual customer, often followed by direct delivery.
• Database marketing: a form of (direct) marketing in which a fi rm systematically
collects and analyses information about customers (for example, about their
ordering and buying behaviour) and uses this information, which is stored in a
database, to tailor marketing activities and campaigns to individual customers.
• Demarketing: a marketing strategy designed to reduce the overall demand (‘general
demarketing’) or the demand of a specifi c group of customers (‘selective
demarketing’) for a certain product either temporarily or permanently, for example
to avoid increasing production capacity, when working with scarce resources (like
tropical hardwood) or to prevent environmental pollution (use of cars).
• Internal marketing: marketing activities aimed at part of a company’s own
organisation, for instance because certain business units do business with each
another, or because management wishes to communicate to its own workforce what
it is trying to achieve ‘externally’ and what it is promising customers.
• Non-profi t marketing: the marketing strategy of organisations without profi t objectives
(also known as not-for-profi t marketing).
All but the last application make sense in terms of for-profi t businesses, but what
does marketing have to offer non-profi t organisations?