In addition, we can also understand this:
1. Marketing is an enterprise activity and a purposeful and conscious behavior of the enterprise. ?
2. Meeting and guiding consumers' needs is the starting point and center of marketing activities. Enterprises must take consumers as the center, face the changing environment and make correct responses to meet the changing needs of consumers. Meeting the needs of consumers includes not only the current needs, but also the potential needs in the future. The current demand is the tendency to buy existing products, while the potential demand is the desire for a certain function of products that have not yet come out. Enterprises should stimulate and guide consumers to generate new demands by developing products and using various marketing methods.
3. Analysis of environment, selection of target market, determination and development of products, product pricing, distribution, promotion and provision of services, and their coordination, cooperation and optimal combination are the main contents of marketing activities. There are four basic variables in the marketing mix that can be controlled artificially, namely, product, price, place and promotion method. Because these four variables all start with the letter "P" in English, they are also called "4Ps". What an enterprise needs to do in its marketing activities is to pay close attention to the changes in the uncontrollable external environment, properly combine the "4Ps" and do everything possible to make the controllable variables (4Ps) of the enterprise quickly adapt to the uncontrollable variables in the external environment, which is also the key to the success of its operation and the survival and development of the enterprise. ?
4. Achieving enterprise goals is the purpose of marketing activities. Different enterprises have different business environments, different enterprises will be in different development periods, and different products will be in different stages of their life cycle. Therefore, the goals of enterprises are varied, such as profit, output value, output, sales volume, market share, production growth rate and social responsibility. But no matter what the goals are, they must be exchanged through effective marketing activities and reach a deal with customers.
stage of development
In the first stage, from the early 20th century to the 1920s, marketing was founded in the United States, which originated from the development of industry. At that time, the research scope of marketing was very narrow, only studying the setting of advertising and commercial outlets. And set up related courses in universities in Illinois and other States. The change from "American Advertising Association" to "National Association of Advertising and Marketing Teachers" provides organizational guarantee for marketing research. The research characteristics of marketing are as follows: a. Emphasis is placed on sales promotion and advertising, but the theory, concept and principle of modern marketing have not yet appeared; B. Research activities are basically confined to university classrooms and professors' study rooms, and have not been paid attention to by society and business circles.
The second stage, from 1920s to 1950s, was a development stage, which began to take shape. American domestic enterprises began to use marketing means to operate enterprises on a large scale and explore overseas markets, and European countries followed suit. 193 1 set up "American marketing association" to preach marketing. 1937 The merger of the above two organizations attracted the participation of academic and business people, and marketing began to move from university platform to society. The development of marketing at this stage is manifested in application. Because of the unprecedented economic crisis in the capitalist world from 65438 to 0929, the economy experienced the Great Depression and great contraction, the purchasing power of society dropped sharply, and the market problems were unprecedentedly acute. This crisis has dealt a great blow to the whole capitalist economy. At this stage, the research characteristics of marketing are: a. There is no narrow concept of product promotion; B. Study promotion and advertising on a deeper and broader basis; C. study the organizational structure of enterprises conducive to promotion; D. Marketing theory research has begun to move towards the society, which has attracted the attention of the broad business community.
The third stage, from 1950s to 1980s, is the development stage of marketing. The American military economy began to turn to the people's economy, social goods increased sharply, and social productivity increased greatly, but the corresponding consumption level of residents did not get much improvement, and the market began to appear a state of oversupply. At this time, American marketing experts W.Aderson and R.Cox put forward that "generalized marketing is any activity that promotes producers and consumers to trade potential goods or services." This view makes marketing enter a new stage. Originally thought that the market is the end of the production process, now it is considered as the starting point of the production process; Originally thought that marketing was selling products, now it is thought that marketing is to find goods or services that meet consumers' needs and desires through investigation, and then meet consumers' needs and desires. Let marketing get rid of the enterprise framework and enter the social vision.
It has obvious management orientation.
The fourth stage, from 1980s to now, is the mature stage of marketing, which is manifested in the following aspects: First, it is related to other disciplines, such as economics, mathematics, statistics, psychology, etc. Second, it began to form its own theoretical system;
The 1980s was the revolutionary period of marketing, and it began to enter the field of modern marketing. Let the marketing look brand-new.
Introduction of new definitions
August 2004, Boston, USA. At the summer seminar of marketing lecturers of AMA (American Marketing Association), AMA announced a new definition of marketing, thus updating the official definition of marketing in AMA in recent 20 years. Since then, the new definition of marketing has caused extensive discussion in American marketing theory and practice. The new definition of marketing announced this time is revised on the basis of integrating the contributions of many marketers in the global theoretical and practical circles.
Professor Guo Guoqing from the Business School of Renmin University of China suggested that the new definition should be completely expressed as follows:
Marketing is not only an organizational function, but also a series of processes to create, spread and transmit customer value and manage customer relations for the benefit of the organization itself and its stakeholders.
Denis Ten Lapp, CEO of AMA, is one of the main forces to re-examine and revise AMA's official definition of marketing. The first official definition of marketing was adopted by AMA's predecessor, American Association of Marketing Teachers, in 1935, and formally adopted by AMA in 1948. 1960, when AMA re-examined the definition of the first edition, it decided to keep it unchanged without making any changes. In this way, the original definition of marketing has been used for 50 years until 1985. The revised definition is the most common marketing definition we see today:
Marketing is a process of planning and implementing ideas, pricing, promoting and distributing goods, services and ideas to create communication that meets individual and organizational goals.
This definition has been used until now, and it was not revised until this summer. This new definition is the first revision of the definition of marketing in recent 20 years, and it is no wonder that it has attracted the general attention of marketers. Of course, the reason for attracting everyone's attention lies in the status of AMA. Therefore, if she makes such a modification, it will naturally attract attention from all sides.
Functional system
Facing the increasingly fierce market competition, the marketing department should play a greater role. So, what does the marketing department need to do?
1934 the definition Committee of the national marketing teachers association of the United States proposed that the functions of marketing include commercialization, purchase, sales, standardization and classification, risk management, concentration, financing, transportation and storage, which are divided into three categories, namely exchange functions (purchase and sales); Logistics functions (transportation and storage); Auxiliary functions (financing, risk taking, communication and standardization, etc.). With the development of productivity and fierce market competition, marketing practice is constantly innovating. Some marketing scholars have perfected some new marketing functions by summing up practical experience. For example, at 1942, Fred. Clark pointed out that sales must first create demand. In the late 1950s, johanna. Howard suggested that marketing should make enterprises "creatively adapt" to the dynamic environment. After 1980s, "internal marketing" and "relationship marketing" were put forward one after another, which greatly enriched the functional system of marketing.
So, what is the framework of modern marketing function system? According to the requirements of modern marketing environment, modern marketing function system should include five functions: commodity sales, market research, production and supply, creating market demand and coordinating and balancing public relations. The functions are introduced as follows:
I. Commodity sales
The empirical method of studying marketing function is to start with commodity sales. The Definition Committee of American Marketing Association published this definition in 1960: "Marketing is an enterprise activity that guides goods or services from producers to consumers or their users." Although this definition does not admit that marketing is sales, it thinks that marketing includes sales and also includes the improvement and perfection of commodity sales process. Many scholars believe that this definition is too narrow to give full play to the function of marketing. However, whether it is appropriate or not, this definition clearly reveals the relationship between marketing and commodity sales.
For enterprises and society, commodity sales have two basic functions: one is to push the goods produced by enterprises into the consumption field; One is to get money from consumers to compensate for labor consumption in commodity production. Enterprises are the products of socialized mass production in order to improve people's living standards. In the real economy with shortage of resources, by realizing resource concentration and production specialization to a certain extent, production efficiency can be improved, and new living standards can be created and spread. Commodity sales is the last link to improve production efficiency, that is, through this link, the products produced by enterprises are transferred to consumers to meet their living needs. On the other hand, the society chooses the market and commodity exchange mode, and at the same time allows enterprises to obtain money when transferring products to consumers, because society needs to maintain the continuity of production and operation of enterprises in order to obtain more benefits to improve production efficiency. By selling commodities and converting them into money, society can supplement and increase the factors of production for enterprises, and enterprises have thus obtained the conditions for survival and development.
Commodity sales are very important. Enterprises need to do their best to strengthen this function. Its specific activities include: finding and identifying potential customers, contacting and transmitting information of commodity exchange intention, negotiating, signing contracts, delivering goods and collecting money, and providing sales services. However, there are conditions for selling goods. The relevant conditions for the smooth exchange of goods include: (1) There are at least two subjects, each of whom has something of value (the currency of goods and services) that is relatively low in his own view but high in the other's view, and is willing to exchange what he has for what the other has; (two) mutual understanding of the quality and production cost of goods owned by the other party; (3) They can communicate with each other effectively. For example, negotiate the terms of sale and reach a contract; (4) After the transaction, they can all consume and enjoy the income. However, it is often found that these conditions are not everywhere, so enterprises often face sales difficulties. In order to effectively organize commodity sales and sell more goods produced by enterprises, the marketing department should not only do sales work, but also conduct market research, organize overall marketing, develop market demand and other activities, and wait until the later work has achieved certain results before selling goods.
Second, market research and research.
One of the necessary external conditions for enterprises to sell goods is that there is market demand for goods. People call goods with this condition marketable. Only when there is market demand can goods be sold. The market demand of a commodity refers to the number of potential customers who have purchasing power for the commodity in a certain period of time. If the market demand for a commodity does exist, enterprises can sell the commodity smoothly if they know who and where the customers are.
Because the division of production and commodity production itself are constantly creating market demand, generally speaking, potential market demand always exists. The question is whether the goods people actually need are the goods supplied in the market. The source of frequent difficulties in commodity sales lies in the fact that the commodities supplied in the market are not what people actually need, or that the commodities on the market are different from people's actual needs (expectations). On the one hand, this problem makes it difficult to sell goods, on the other hand, it leads to the unsatisfied needs of some customers.
Rational producers and operators will certainly not produce and operate goods that no one needs. Choose to produce goods that people buy. However, the problem is that the demand for a certain commodity in a certain range of markets is constantly changing. There are many factors that will affect the needs of potential customers. For example, the increase of residents' income will make people gradually give up the consumption of low-grade and outdated goods, and then shift their purchasing power to high-grade and novel goods; When the price of a commodity is too high, many people think that it is not cost-effective to consume it and rarely buy it. However, when its price drops, people will have the idea of cost-effective consumption and are willing to buy more and consume more. The desire of potential customers to buy a commodity is always unstable. The change of purchasing desire will inevitably affect the payment direction of purchasing power and lead to the change of market demand. For this change, producers and operators may lack information, so they are in a passive state after the change.
In order to effectively realize the sales of goods, the marketing manager of an enterprise needs to study the market demand frequently, find out who the potential customers are, what kind of goods they need, why, how much they need, when and where they need them, study the suitability of the enterprise in meeting the needs of customers, study the possible sales difficulties and sources of difficulties, and formulate marketing strategies to meet the needs of each customer accordingly. This is the basic content of market research and research functions. It is not difficult to find that market research is not only the leading function of organizing commodity sales, but also the basic function of the whole enterprise marketing.
Three. Production and supply
How to make full and effective use of the market sales and profit opportunities that have come? How to flexibly adapt to the upcoming changes in market demand? The key lies in whether production and sales are carried out internally and whether the management between internal and external is coordinated. As producers and operators, enterprises need to adapt to the changes in market demand and often adjust the production direction of products to ensure that the products they produce and operate are always marketable. In other words, efforts should be made to make use of the market demand in different periods to maintain the stability and growth of the sales revenue of enterprises, and to make use of the profit opportunities of every commodity produced and operated. Under the condition of frequent changes in market demand, this adaptability of enterprises comes from their close monitoring of the market, strict internal management, preparation for changes and strict use of opportunities. All these functions generally become the production and supply functions in enterprise management. This function name actually follows the traditional saying. In modern marketing theory, this function is called overall marketing.
Overall marketing is reflected by the integration of various business functions within the enterprise. In order for the sales department to sell marketable products to the market in various periods, the market research department should provide accurate market demand information; The management department should convert the market demand forecast data into production instructions and guide the cooperation between the production department and other departments. In order for the sales department to provide customers with the products they need in time, the production department must produce the corresponding products before the customer's demand comes; In order to enable the production department to do this, the technology development department should complete the product design and technical preparation earlier, and be able to provide production technology to the production department; The finance department raises funds in advance and provides them to the production department for the adjustment of production lines or machinery and equipment, and to the purchasing department for the procurement and supply of raw materials, materials and spare parts; Personnel departments should also provide technical training and post responsibility education to workers as early as possible to stimulate their enthusiasm and initiative to improve productive labor. In order for the sales department to open the market quickly and expand the quantity of goods sold, the public relations department should establish a noble corporate image and corporate product image in the eyes of customers before this, and expand the spread of prestige and credibility in serving customers; The advertising department will effectively launch an advertising campaign before this; The promotion department should organize promotional activities that are attractive to potential customers; Sales channels and network management departments should strive for as many middlemen as possible to distribute or sell the goods of enterprises before this. In this way, all departments in Qi Xin work together to do a good job in marketing, which is the overall marketing.
The implementation of overall marketing needs to change the traditional practice of each functional department, and even change the setting of some functional departments. In marketing, we should let the technical development department develop the goods that people are willing to buy according to the needs of customers; Let the financial department raise funds according to the marketing demand, supply funds and supplement "materials"; Let the production department produce the products that customers need in time, and ensure that the sales department can get the right products in time and sell them to customers in need in a way that customers like. In this way, the technology development department, the production department, the finance department and the sales department are combined to jointly promote the sales of goods. Only in this way can the overall marketing effect be formed.
Fourth, create market demand.
The social responsibility of constantly improving social living standards requires enterprises to strive to meet the needs of consumers more. In other words, it is not enough to just sell the goods that consumers intend to buy at present. Consumers generally have "potential demand", that is, for some reasons, consumers do not intend to buy goods to meet short-term demand. For example, consumers are not satisfied with the quality level of a commodity in the current market, and even if there is demand, they may not necessarily buy this commodity; For the non-daily necessities that are relatively expensive in the current market and people think that more consumption will produce some luxury goods, consumers may not buy them even if there is demand, or rarely buy them; Some consumers have saved some money because of some worries, which will not be used for current living consumption, which has formed a "potential demand"; Although some other consumers have a certain source of income, they can't buy some goods they need because of the limitation of the current amount of money, which also forms a kind of "potential demand". Of course, there are still quite a few customers who can't buy the goods they need with money, thus forming a "potential demand". The objective existence of potential demand is determined by the extensiveness and expansibility of consumers' living needs. Potential demand is essentially unsatisfied customer demand, which represents the shortcomings in improving people's living standards, and is also a market "new continent" that enterprises can explore.
Enterprises should not only meet the real customer needs that have appeared in the market, so that every customer who is willing to buy enterprise products can actually buy products, but also strive for those customers with potential needs to provide the goods and services they need, create some conditions that can make them affordable and useful, relieve their worries, let them establish the belief of cost-effective purchase and reasonable consumption, and turn their potential needs into real needs to buy enterprise products. This is "creating market demand". For example, through appropriate price reduction, consumers who could not afford this commodity in the past can buy and consume this commodity, so that consumers who felt that it was uneconomical to spend more money in the past are willing to buy and consume more, so as to truly meet their own needs; Through advertising, let those consumers who don't understand a commodity and therefore don't buy it understand it and have the desire to buy it; By introducing new products, consumers who can't meet their needs in the past have the opportunity to buy goods that suit their needs and satisfy them; By providing sales services, consumers who feel that it is inconvenient, dissatisfied and unsafe to consume a certain commodity, so they seldom buy it, can also buy and consume this commodity as much as possible. Creating market demand can expand the actual market demand and improve the satisfaction of customer demand. It can also enable enterprises to break into a new world of their own and vigorously develop production; At the same time, enterprises can advance and retreat freely in the existing market, greatly enhancing their adaptability to changes in market demand.
Five, coordinate and balance the relationship between the public and the public.
Open * * * relationship activities have long existed. At the beginning of this century, professional public relations consulting companies appeared in the United States. In 1930s, enterprise management theorists realized the importance of employee relationship and customer relationship. However, under the backward production concept and sales concept, the relationship between public and private is not regarded as an "internal function" of marketing. It was not until the movement of protecting consumers' rights and interests broke out again in the 1960s that the role of public relations was widely valued. In 1980s, people no longer regarded public relations as an "extra burden" for enterprises, but regarded it as a function of marketing. 198 1, ChristianGronroos put forward the theory of "internal marketing"; To 1985, Barbara. Jackson proposed "relationship marketing". Taken together, these new viewpoints are that the marketing function needs to add a new item: coordinating and balancing various public relations.
As a member of society, enterprises have an objective relationship with customers and other aspects of society. Improving and developing these connections can not only improve the social image of enterprises, but also bring marketing benefits to enterprises, that is, increase the safety and convenience of marketing. According to Jackson, commodity sales are only a part of the marketing relationship between enterprises and customers. In fact, they can also develop economic, technological and social contacts and exchanges. Through these non-commodity exchange contacts, the two sides can enhance mutual trust and understanding, and develop into a partnership of interdependence, mutual help and sharing weal and woe, so that enterprises can gain a loyal customer base, and they can also turn cumbersome negotiations in past transactions into routine transactions and save transaction costs. This idea of "relationship marketing" is also suitable for developing and improving the relationship between enterprises and distributors, suppliers, transportation and storage companies, financial institutions, propaganda media and internal employees, so that enterprises can find reliable and helpful strategic partners in the marketing process. To coordinate and balance public relations, we need to correctly handle three relationships, namely, the relationship between commodity production and management and enterprise "socialization", the relationship between obtaining profits and meeting customers' needs, and the relationship between meeting customers' individual needs and promoting social welfare.
Marketing? It is through a series of activities, including prenatal market research, market analysis, postpartum market promotion, promotion and other means to expand the income of enterprises. The term is to meet the needs of consumers and create enterprise value.
So you will know that marketing is the sum of a series of activities, and promotion is only a means of marketing, which cannot be mentioned in the same breath.
Some people have a one-sided understanding of this issue and equate marketing with promotion. However, promotion is not marketing, and promotion is only one of the contents of marketing. Peter drucker, a famous management scientist, once pointed out, "It is conceivable that some sales promotion work is always needed, but the purpose of marketing is to make sales promotion redundant. The purpose of marketing is to deeply understand and understand customers, so that products or services can fully meet their needs and form self-sales. Ideal marketing will produce a customer who is ready to buy. The remaining thing is how to make customers easily get products or services ... "Philip Kauchler, an American marketing authority, believes that" the most important content of marketing is not promotion, but promotion is only the apex of the marketing iceberg ... If marketers do a good job in understanding the various needs of consumers, developing suitable products, pricing, distribution and promotion, these products will be easily sold. "
As the famous scholar said, marketing is not promotion. Marketing began long before the products were manufactured. The marketing department of an enterprise must first determine where there is a market, what the market size is, what market segments there are, and what consumers' preferences and buying habits are: the marketing department must feed back the market demand to the R&D department, so that the R&D department can design the best products that can adapt to the target market. The marketing department must also design pricing, distribution and promotion schemes for products to go to market, so that consumers can understand the products of enterprises and find them easily. After the products are sold, we should also consider providing necessary services to satisfy consumers. Therefore, marketing is not a certain aspect of business activities, it begins before product production, continues until product sales, and runs through the whole process of business activities. Many definitions about marketing will help us to understand marketing. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as: "Marketing is an enterprise activity that guides goods and services from producers to consumers or users." The British Marketing Research Institute believes that "if enterprises want to survive, develop and make profits, they must consciously arrange production according to the needs of users and consumers." Japanese business people believe that "on the basis of satisfying consumers' interests, the whole enterprise activity of studying how to adapt to market demand and provide goods and services is marketing."
Although the above definitions of marketing are different, the following points can be summarized from these definitions:
(1) Marketing is a comprehensive management process, which runs through the whole process of business activities.
(2) Marketing is to meet the needs of customers as the center to organize business activities, and to achieve the purpose of profit and development by meeting the needs.
(3) Marketing adapts to and influences demand through overall management. To sum up, we can make such a summary of marketing. Marketing is a process in which an enterprise takes customer demand as the starting point, organizes various business activities in a planned way, provides customers with satisfactory goods and services, and achieves enterprise goals.
Question types and quantity of resident training examination: the question types are multiple-choice questions, accounting for 70% an