Marketing Process - Explanations, Concepts, Steps and Facts
Marketing mainly focuses on bridging the communication gap. This field of learning is enormously studded with broad and interesting marketing concepts that teach you how to sell a product effectively. Thus, it definitely isn't the process of selling or producing products.
Marketing is not just a mere activity that is a one-time thing; rather, it's a continuous process. Analysing the needs and wants of customers and then accordingly serving them that product/service is the crux of the Meaning of marketing process.
If you're a marketing student looking for a good source to learn the marketing process, then this article will come to your rescue.
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An Introduction of Marketing Process
Marketing emphasises building a healthy, profitable exchange relationship with the customers. The product sold or service rendered should be able to create or add value to the customers in exchange for their money. In other words, Marketing is a process, which aims at creating value, satisfying the needs and wants of the customers. The marketing process thereby focuses on analysing and researching the market to tap the opportunities and then capitalising on them to mint revenues.
To describe it briefly, the marketing process works on the well-designed steps that attempt to gain information about the market and then capture the value by using requisite marketing plans and strategies.
What are the 5 steps of the Marketing Process?
As mentioned above, the marketing process consists of various steps. These steps of the marketing process are the ladder to ultimately maximising the profits of the company by ensuring customer satisfaction. The following are the 5 steps of marketing process:
Identifying and understanding the needs and wants of customers
Formulating a customer-based marketing strategy
Developing an integrated marketing approach
Building up a profitable exchange relationship and creating customer delight
Capturing value from customers to create customer equity and profits
Let’s understand these five steps of The Marketing Process in brief:
Identifying and understanding the needs and wants of customers
The first and foremost step among the 5 steps of the marketing process is to identify and understand the needs, wants, and demands of a customer. It is essential that the company thoroughly understand its marketplace, its target market's needs, and wants. This is necessary to construct a product/service that can satisfy the customers and then create a value-based customer relationship.
Needs and wants are two different terms. While needs are basic for survival and cannot be created deliberately, wants are shaped by the society’s culture and can satiate the needs as well. For example: when you're hungry, then food is a need, but if you specifically ask for a McDonald's burger, then it is a want.
Formulating a customer-based marketing strategy
This step is one of the important aspects of the concepts of marketing process. After identifying and analyzing the needs and wants of customers, the company should develop a customer-driven marketing strategy. To formulate this strategy, the company needs to put focus on segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Segmentation divides the market into various sections, which allow the company to decide whom they want to serve first. After segmenting the market, the company should decide what factors can differentiate it from the competitors and how to position its product/ service in the market. This is one of the most fundamental concepts of marketing process.
Developing an integrated marketing approach
In the 5 steps of the marketing process, this step is perhaps the most crucial one. After formulating the marketing strategy and deciding to whom the company will serve and how the marketers should design an integrated market approach that will create value for the customers.
This integrated marketing approach requires a perfect blend of 4P's marketing tools to execute the strategy. A comprehensive, well-structured, and balanced blend of all these tools helps to deliver and capture a healthy, profitable customer relationship.
Building up a profitable exchange relationship and creating customer delight
The essence of the Meaning of marketing process is to establish and maintain a profitable, healthy relationship with the customers by serving them superior value for their money and satisfaction. Managing customer relationships is essential to creating customer delight. Customer relationships help to maintain and expand the customer share of the company in the market in comparison to its competitors.
Capturing value from customers to create customer equity and profits
Marketing is a process which aims at creating customer satisfaction and producing higher customer equity. Customer equity means the combined sum of the lifetime value of all the customers of the company, including current and potential customers. The higher the loyalty to the company's profitable customers, the higher is the customer equity. Customer equity is an effective measure of a company's performance.
The customer value and profitable relationship with the customer aren't created by themselves. Marketers need to coordinate with other company’s departments and stakeholders.
Marketing is a process, which aims at creating customer value, satisfying their needs and wants. To achieve the same, it is essential that the company formulates the strategy with a balanced blend of 4P’s and in coordination with the human needs and wants. This is how the introduction of marketing process changed the commercial landscape.
Quick MCQ
Here's a quick MCQ for you. Let's see what you've understood:
Marketing is a process which aims at....
a. selling products/services
b. production process
c. profit maximisation
d. satisfying consumer needs
Answer:
(d) satisfying consumer needs
Fun Facts
Around 65% of the businesses around the world have expanded their digital marketing during the COVID pandemic.
Studies reveal that almost 73% of the customers don’t like pop-ups or additional ads on the websites. They find these ads distracting and annoying.
Conclusion
Marketing includes those business activities that are intended to serve consumer needs and desires through the transaction process. The marketing concept comprises identifying consumer needs and wants and then producing products (goods, services, or ideas) that will serve them while making a profit.
FAQs on Marketing Process
1. What is the core concept of the marketing process as per the CBSE 2025-26 syllabus?
The marketing process is a strategic, multi-step approach that businesses use to identify customer needs, create value, and build profitable relationships. It is not just about selling or advertising. Instead, it starts with understanding the marketplace and the target customer's wants, and it culminates in capturing value from satisfied customers to generate profits and customer equity.
2. What are the 5 essential steps in the marketing process?
According to the standard framework, the marketing process consists of five distinct steps, each building upon the last:
- Identifying and understanding customer needs and wants: This foundational step involves market research to discover what customers require and desire.
- Formulating a customer-based marketing strategy: This involves segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) to decide which customers to serve and how to create a unique value proposition.
- Developing an integrated marketing approach: This is where the marketing mix (the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion) is designed to deliver the promised value to the target customers.
- Building profitable exchange relationships and creating customer delight: The focus here is on customer relationship management (CRM) to ensure satisfaction is met and exceeded, fostering loyalty.
- Capturing value from customers: The final step is to reap the rewards of a strong customer relationship, resulting in sales, repeat business, and long-term customer equity.
3. Can you explain the marketing process with a real-world example?
Certainly. Imagine a company wants to launch a new brand of noise-cancelling headphones for students.
- Step 1 (Understand Needs): They research and find that students need affordable, durable headphones for online classes and studying in noisy environments.
- Step 2 (Formulate Strategy): They decide to target college students (ages 18-22) and position the product as the ultimate 'study buddy' that is both high-quality and budget-friendly.
- Step 3 (Integrated Approach): They develop a sleek, foldable headphone (Product), set a competitive price (Price), sell it through online platforms and campus stores (Place), and use social media influencers for marketing (Promotion).
- Step 4 (Build Relationships): They offer a student discount and a one-year warranty, creating customer delight and positive reviews.
- Step 5 (Capture Value): Happy student customers make purchases, recommend the product to friends, and become loyal to the brand, thus creating long-term customer equity.
4. How is the marketing process fundamentally different from just 'selling' a product?
The key difference lies in their focus and scope. Selling is a short-term, product-centric activity focused on persuading a customer to buy what the company has already produced. In contrast, the marketing process is a long-term, customer-centric strategy. It starts much before the product is made by identifying customer needs and continues long after the sale to build lasting relationships and ensure satisfaction.
5. Why is 'understanding customer needs' considered the most critical first step in the marketing process?
Understanding customer needs is the foundation upon which the entire marketing process is built. If a company fails to accurately identify what a customer truly wants or needs, every subsequent step is likely to fail. A product developed based on wrong assumptions will not offer value, the marketing strategy will target the wrong audience, and no amount of promotion can fix a product that nobody wants. It ensures the business is market-oriented rather than just product-oriented.
6. How does an 'integrated marketing approach' using the 4Ps fit into the overall marketing process?
An integrated marketing approach is the tactical implementation of the marketing strategy, primarily occurring in the third step of the process. After a company has identified its target market and positioning, the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) are used as tools to deliver the intended value. 'Integrated' means all four elements must work together cohesively to send a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the product to the consumer.
7. What is 'customer equity,' and why is it considered the ultimate aim of the marketing process?
Customer equity is the total combined lifetime value of all of a company's current and potential customers. It is considered the ultimate aim of the marketing process because it reflects the future of the business. While sales measure the present, customer equity measures the long-term health and value of the company's customer base. A company with high customer equity has a large base of loyal, profitable customers who are likely to continue buying, making the business more sustainable and valuable over time.
