A Word on Marketing and Value

Marketing is our method of finding our way into our customers’ lives through value. Value equates to giving our customers more in return than they felt they spent. The essence of it is to help our customers decide to part with their time, money, etc. in return for the value of the item or service you are offering. As stated by the American Marketing Association, marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, capturing, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society. It requires being mindful of its ethical implications on society, and great marketing requires planning.

It requires a plan that specifies the design of the products and services, promotion, and how they will get to the customer.

Marketing is about satisfying your customers’ wants and needs, understanding your target market, and creating a strategy that targets potential buyers with a demand for your services and the ability to provide compensation for them. Marketing is about the exchange between two parties. In a perfect world, the trade of things, which boils down to service for monetary compensation, ends with two parties who are better off after the exchange.

Marketing requires a service (or product), a price, a place, and promotion, and these are all controllable activities that allow you to respond to the wants of your market.

The product is the value created through the services you offer. The price is the amount that your clients are willing to exchange for that value.

The key is to find a balance between what your customers are willing to pay and what you receive. This balanced place, in a nutshell, represents the activities required to get that value to the correct customer at the right time while minimizing costs and meeting your customer’s requirements, and lastly, promotion. Promotion is the communication of the value of your offerings to your clients by informing, persuading, and reminding them, influencing their opinions, and provoking a response.

Marketing allows you to create such value in a variety of settings, and manners, with an individual or an organization. Marketing is the way to enter your customers’ lives.