You’ve heard of the marketing concept in marketing?
You’ve heard of the “marketing concept” and the “marketing concepts” but you’re not sure what is the difference!
The marketing concept is a subset of the marketing concepts philosophy and in this article, we will learn all there is to know about it.
There are many marketing concept articles, but this one is not like others.
Continue reading to find out why!
We have divided this article into the following sections for your ease of navigation:
- What are the five marketing concepts
- What is the marketing concept
- The importance of the marketing concept
- Evolution of marketing concept
- Four conceptual elements of marketing concept
- Marketing concept examples
- How to implement the marketing concept
- Takeaways
Let’s get started.
What are the five marketing concepts
Businesses make decisions every day on how to distribute to their products and services to their customers, how to communicate their value proposition and what marketing approach to take to profitable.
There are five marketing concepts or philosophies guiding every company’s business decisions.
Each concept will have its own unique function in an organization’s overall marketing strategy.
The five marketing concepts are the:
- Product concept
- Production concept
- Selling concept
- Marketing concept
- Societal concept
The “marketing concept” is actually a subset of the marketing concepts referring to the five major marketing philosophies.
In this article, we will look at the marketing concept, a subset of the marketing concepts, in more detail.
So what is marketing concept?
What is the marketing concept
The marketing concept definition is different than marketing concepts as a philosophy.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the marketing concept as “a company following the marketing concept overseas must be aware of cultural differences in people’s attitudes and values.”
The marketing concept is a marketing philosophy where a business will consider its customers’ needs and wants to deliver value to them based on their specific needs and wants.
The idea is to really understand what your customers are asking for so you can find provide them exactly what they need and communicate it to them as such.
The marketing concept says that if your business can deliver value to its customers better than the competition, then the customers will want to buy more of your products and service.
The fundamental driving force behind the marketing concept is the desire to beat the competition.
You’ll beat the competition if you can provide more value in your products and services than the competitors can.
By doing what it takes to beat the competition and deliver value to your customers, you can reap the marketing concept benefits.
The importance of the marketing concept
So what is the importance of the marketing concept?
This concept is important as it’s the marketing philosophy aimed at putting your brand out there and using effective marketing concepts and strategies to beat the competition.
The advantage of the marketing concept is that you can apply its philosophies to any company and in any industry.
By placing your customers at the center of your organization’s focus, you will devise organizational processes, activities and marketing strategies to target your audience as best as you can by delivering to them the most value possible.
With the marketing concept, you start your work by understanding your customers first and then you devise the integrated and strategic marketing approach to target those interests.
It’s a customer-centric approach to marketing.
Evolution of marketing concept
At its core, the marketing concept challenges other marketing concepts such as the selling concept, product concept and production concept.
It was in the 1950s that the marketing concept took off and started taking a more prominent role in marketing strategies adopted by businesses and it worked quite well.
At its base, the marketing concept is aimed at beating the competition.
It’s the modern marketing concept.
You can beat the competition if you deliver a better product, if your product is better suited for your customers, if you are able to get your brand out there better than your competitors, if you can show why your product is superior and so on.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, businesses flourished by adopting a product concept or production concept alone.
In many cases, the demand was more than supply and competition was not a true decisive factor.
Considering there was less competition and technology was not readily available, companies with sufficient resources able to develop and create goods would succeed.
This is superiority through a better product, the product concept.
Also, companies able to invest in a more streamlined production line would also succeed and beat the competitors.
This is superiority through more affordable products of equal quality and readily available to satisfy the demand, the production concept.
However, as competition increased and as the cost of technology allowed more and more businesses to enter into the competitive arena, the production or product concepts alone no longer allowed companies to be profitable.
This is when the marketing concept took off.
Today, marketing concept is the modern marketing philosophy adopted by many successful companies.
Companies now focused on “competing” and building up a “competitive advantage”.
You now need to distinguish yourself based on what customers need as opposed to producing something and expecting customers to buy it merely because you produced it.
What are the elements of marketing concept?
Four conceptual elements of marketing concept
The marketing concept in itself is found upon four essential elements or steps you need to take:
- Target your audience
- Cater to your customer needs
- Use integrated marketing strategies
- Achieve higher profitability
As you can see from these four conceptual elements of the marketing concept, you must first identify your target audience.
Who is your audience?
What are their interests?
What problems do they have?
How can their problem be solved?
Once you understand your target audience, you will then define precisely your customer needs and wants.
With the intelligence you gathered, you will need to implement holistic marketing strategies to communicate your value proposition to your customers.
Your chief aim is to do what you do better than your competitors.
Ultimately, the better you deliver your message, the more you cater to your customer needs and the more you understand your audience, the more profitable you’ll be.
Marketing concept examples
The best marketing concept example we can present to you is the rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
These are two companies with nearly an identical soft drink product, Coke and Pepsi.
Both companies have developed their marketing concept is such a way that they are highly profitable today.
While Coke focuses on a more general marketing concept aiming at targeting the greater population, Pepsi has found it more profitable to target a younger population.
They have adopted marketing concepts and strategies to cater to their audience.
Interestingly, you’ll have another competitor like Moutain Dew who will adopt the selling concept by promoting its product aggressively and just trying to generate sales.
Their idea is to encroach the market share of the others and bet on the fact that once a customer buys their soft drink, they will come back for more.
As you can see, within the same industry, different players will use different marketing concepts to sell their products.
When you have a similar product as your competitor and you produce it in an equally efficient way, your best bet is to adopt the marketing concept and try to beat your competitors by understanding your audience and tailoring your marketing message to them.
There are many examples of the marketing concept being used successfully.
Consider the marketing concepts adopted by Puma, Addidas and Nike.
These are all players in the same industry with similar products.
They each use clever and holistic marketing philosophy to carve out their audience and cater to their needs.
The marketing concept is what allows many companies remain competitive and build a loyal customer base.
How to implement the marketing concept
Implementing the marketing concept requires that you get the four conceptual elements of the marketing concept right:
- Define your audience
- Understand their needs
- Communicate your value proposition
To implement the marketing concept, you’ll need to make sure you do these three steps.
To define your audience, you’ll need to do your research.
You’ll need to understand who it is that you are really targeting.
What is your ideal customer persona?
How old are your ideal customers, where are they located, what do they do and so on.
Once you’ve identified your audience, now you must get to know their needs and wants.
What are they interested in, what are they buying now, who are they buying from, are they price sensitive, do they want better quality, do they make emotional decisions and the list goes on.
Once you’ve gotten to know your potential customers, you’ll need to decide on the best marketing strategies to adopt in order to make your brand visible to them and communicate your message.
Your message will demonstrate how you can provide your customers more value, either by offering a better product, connecting emotionally, adopting a lifestyle message or the way your ideal customer perceives value, better than the competitors.
The implementation of the marketing concept relies heavily on your market research and analysis.
Your product development, organizational activities, strategic marketing efforts are all aligned with the data and intelligence you’ve gathered through your market research and understanding of your ideal customer persona.
If you get these implementation steps right, you are on your way to be more profitable.
Takeaways
There you have it folks, a deep-dive into the marketing concept.
We should not confuse the marketing concept with the marketing concepts philosophy.
There are five marketing concepts underlying any marketing strategy adopted by companies today:
- Product concept
- Production concept
- Selling concept
- Marketing concept
- Societal concept
As you can see, the “marketing concept” is a subset of the “marketing concepts” referring to the more holistic marketing philosophy of a company.
The marketing concept is founded upon marketing intelligence, research, understanding of your target audience and the delivery of effective communication of your value proposition.
With this concept, you are looking to beat your competitors, carve our your audience and cater to them, give your customers what they really need and want.
Most organizations today adopt the marketing concept to achieve a competitive advantage.
It can be successfully implemented in any industry and for any type of business.
We hope you enjoyed this article.
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