THE IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING CONCEPT IN MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Business enterprises are conducting their marketing activities under the following five marketing concepts.
1. Production concept
Production concept is the oldest concept under which the businessmen produce goods thinking customers are interested only in low priced, extensively and easily available goods. Finishing and the interest of customers are not important for the manufacturers. They focus only on large scale production and try to make it available on large scale. They try to achieve high production efficiency and creating wide distribution coverage.
2. Product concept
Consumers favor those products that offer the most quality, performance and features are the basis of product concept. They believe that consumers are willing to pay higher cost for the goods or services which have extra quality. Companies which concentrate on product concept are focused on product improvement. They constantly improve the product quality and features to satisfy and attract the customers. Too much focus on product may go off the track and fail. For example, a biscuit manufacturer produced a new brand of biscuits with good color, ingredients and packing etc., without taking much importance in consumer tastes and preferences. This may fail in the market if the biscuit does not taste good to the ultimate consumer.
3. Selling concept
In selling concept, producers believe that the aggressive persuasion and selling is the essence of their business success. They think without such aggressive methods they cannot sell or exist in the market. They are focused on finding ways and means to sell their products. They believe that consumer themselves will not buy enough of the enterprises products or service by themselves. Hence they do considerable promotional efforts to sell their product through advertisements and other means. Sales agents of electrical equipment’s, insurance agents, soft drink/health drinks companies and fund raisers for social or religious causes come under this category. That is why we are getting lots of calls from insurance agents, even though insurance is a subject matter of solicitation. In short, selling concepts assumes that consumers on their own will not buy enough of enterprises products, unless the enterprise undertakes aggressive sales and promotional efforts.
4. Marketing concept
Under marketing concept the task of marketing begins with finding what the consumer want and produce a product which will meet the consumer requirement and provides maximum satisfaction. “Customer is the King” concept emerged from this point of view. In the process of evolution many organizations changed their way of thinking to match the marketing concept. Under this concept producers considers the needs and wants of consumers as the guiding spirit and deliver such goods which can satisfy the consumer needs more efficiently and effectively than the competitors. Marketing concept is consumer oriented and looks forward to achieve long term profits by making a network of satisfied consumers. When an organization practice the marketing concept, all their activities such as research and development, distribution, quality control, finance, manufacturing, selling etc., are focused to satisfy the consumer needs and wants.
5. Societal concept
With the growing awareness of the social responsibility of the business, attempts made successfully to turn the business organizations socially responsible. Environmental deterioration, excessive exploitation of resources and growing consumer movements have necessitated the recognition and relevance of marketing based on socially responsible. Societal concept is the extension of marketing concept to cover the society in addition to the consumers. Under the societal concept the business organization must take into account the needs and wants of the consumers and deliver the goods and services efficiently so as to balance the consumers satisfaction as well as the society’s well-being.