marketing concept assignment

5 Marketing Concepts Explained

Table of Contents

What is Marketing?

Marketing is the art and process of building, managing and maintain an exchange relationship; where you start with attract the customers, establishing a relationship with them, and finally maintaining it by satisfying their needs.

That customer can be other businesses or the consumers; therefore, marketing can be business to business or business to consumer depending upon the situation. The ultimate function of marketing is the same, and that is to establish a relationship with customers and satisfy their needs by meeting their demands.

For instance, telecommunication creates a marketing strategy that first attracts and convinces people to use their calls, messaging, and internet packages. Once people start using, then they ask them to rate their service by giving them stars.

What are the Marketing Concepts?

The marketing concept is a process when a company plans and implements to maximize profit by increasing sales, satisfying customer’s needs and beating competitors. The purpose is to create a situation that benefits both parties; customer and the company.

The idea of the marketing concept is to anticipate and satisfy the needs and wants of customers better than the competitors. The marketing concepts were originally derived from the book of Adam Smith, Wealth of Nation. It remained unknown to the world until the 21st century.

To fully understand the marketing concept, first, we have to understand needs, wants, and demands;

• Needs – it is something necessary for the existence of life, many adverse things can happen without it. The worst-case scenario would be death. Needs comprises of many things; like food, shelter, security, social belonging, self-development, self-esteem, and respect.
• Wants – wants are our wishes and desires that what we want in life, our social setup and culture shape our wants.
• Demands – when our wishes, needs, and wants are backed by our capability to pay, then they become demands.

5 Marketing Concepts

There are as many marketing concepts as many businesses running in the world. Some of those concepts exist today and the others have become obsolete. However, there are five core marketing concepts also known as marketing management philosophies.

Production Concept

The production concept is one of the earliest marketing concepts where the company focuses on the efficiency of its production processes. It is to produce the products cheaper to make it available to the mass population. The focus of the production concept is on the quantity, not the quality of the products.

Production concept started in the mid of 1950s, and it follows the Says Law. It states that supply creates demand in the market. According to this law, when a business manufactures a product, then it doesn’t need to advertise its products, it would sell itself.

The law became popular is because it was at a time when there was no technology and media, and people used to travel less. Salesman in the shop used to be the only seller, and there were few manufacturers in the market. There used to be a limited variety of products in the market, whatever comes in the market, and then it would have been sold.

Product Concept

The core idea of the product concept is to produce cheaper products because the customers won’t pay much price for the products or services. The companies that follow the product concept, manufacture the product on a mass scale and they make a profit out of the economies of the scale.

When businesses produce low-cost products, then they follow a vast distribution strategy to reach more audiences. By targeting more people, they can increase their productivity by expanding their market.

In the product concept , marketers do not give any importance to the needs and wants of the customers. Their main focus is to produce more and more product, quantity matters, not the quality. Customers are usually unsatisfied with the poor quality of the products.

The product concept was famous at a time when there was no competition in the market, whatever you bring in the market, people would take it. Ford was the first vehicle company; it started delivering more vehicles in the market. People bought it because it was the only product available at the time. 

Selling Concept

As the name implies the idea of selling concept is to sell the company’s product through large scale marketing and promotional activities, it doesn’t whether they fulfill customers’ needs or not.

The focus of the management in this approach is to complete the transaction of sale; they think that their job is done once they sell their product. Instead of building and maintaining a long terms relationship with the customer, so the customer would come back again.

Sale concept is a very risky strategy because it’s based on a very weak notion that the company should sell whatever they’re producing, instead of meeting customer’s demands.

In this strategy, marketers think that if customers don’t like the company’s product, then they’ll buy something else and forget about their old shopping experience. The whole idea of sale concept is based on the false assumption, that the customers don’t remember their past shopping experience.

Blood donations and insurance policies fall in the category of sale concept, where the marketer thinks that their job is done after completing the transaction.

Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is customer-oriented. It puts customers in the middle of the marketing process, finding out customers’ needs and wants, then satisfying those needs better than the competitors.

In this approach, the marketer says that the customer is always right and his needs and wants should come first. Here the marketing strategy focuses on making a profit by meeting the needs and wants of customers

It follows a very simple strategy that marketers do not look for the right customers of their product; instead, they produce the right product for their customers. Marketers try to bridge the gap between the customers and the company’s products.

When you compare the marketing concept with the sale concept, then you find a huge difference between both of these strategies. It won’t be wrong if you say that these two strategies at two opposite extreme poles.

Societal Marketing Concept

The idea of the societal marketing concept is based on the welfare of the whole society because it questions the strategy of the marketing concept. What customers want, it doesn’t mean that it would be good for them in the long term. What you want, and what is good for you and society as a whole, are two completely different things.

The article touches upon ideas that relate to sustainable marketing with a societal marketing concept. It states the high demand and extensive budget for emerging carbon dioxide extracting technologies that greatly align with society's sustainability interests. @Jenkins11Mason https://t.co/FkBL4397FA — Thomas G. (@ThomasG46253813) February 5, 2020

For instance, we all like sweet, spicy and fast foods. We all want the same things whenever we go out, but it doesn’t mean that it’s good for our health as well, and the health of the whole society.

The purpose and aim of the societal marketing concept is to make companies realize that they have a social and environmental responsibility, and that’s much bigger than their short terms sales and profit goals. Companies should produce and operate towards a sustainable future for the whole society, companies are a part of the society and they should behave like one.

Production, product, and sale concept have become obsolete in most of the fields; they only exist in some fields only. Today’s market follows the marketing concept of meeting and fulfilling customers’ needs and wants, but environmental challenges are questioning the whole strategy of the marketing concept.

The societal marketing concept is right to some extent that what’s good for an individual and good for the whole society are completely different things. Marketers should create a marketing strategy to keep in mind the societal and environmental factors as well because there won’t be any business activity without society. Therefore, society’s needs should come first.

About The Author

Ahsan Ali Shaw

Basic Marketing Fundamentals: The 7 Ps of Marketing (Infographic)

What is Marketing?

Marketing encompasses the strategies and tactics brands use to promote their products and services to consumers. Everything from market research to writing ad copy falls within the realm of marketing.

At first glance, marketing even a single product or service can seem like an enormous challenge. You understand the value of your offering – but how do you show it to consumers? And how can you ensure they actually pay attention to your message? Creating a successful marketing strategy is all about getting to know your audience, analyzing consumer behavior and acting on it appropriately.

But before we dive into things, let’s start with some basic marketing fundamentals.

The marketing fundamentals we’ll cover in this article are:

• Physical Evidence.

A Visual Guide to the Fundamentals of Marketing

Basic Marketing Fundamentals: The 7 Ps of Marketing

In the late 20th century, marketing thought leaders developed the concept of the “Marketing Mix,” a set of concepts and tools that help companies achieve their objectives within a market. At the core of this model are the four Ps:

• Product: What are you selling? A shiny new business widget? A hand-crafted luxury item? Chicken tacos? Whatever it is, you’ll need to think about how to package or present it. Marketers should be familiar with all the features and specifications of the products they sell.
• Price: To determine how much your product should cost, you’ll need to do some research. Learn how your competitors price their offerings, and understand how much consumers are willing to pay.
• Promotion: These days, marketers have many channels through which to promote their products. From radio ads to social media banners, you’ll need to decide which are right for your brand.
• Place: Your customers need to be able to find and purchase your product. Can they buy your product online? Do they need to visit a store? Additionally, you’ll need to consider how much inventory to hold and where to keep it. These days, inbound marketing strategies rely on engaging content to bring customers to you (or your website).
• People: Optimal customer service is going to get you return customers and referrals, both of which can ultimately convert sales. Having a strong team for marketing communication is a great way to showcase your brand reputation, solve problems on the fly and connect with your customers so they continue to come back for more.
• Process: Creating and promoting a valuable product is essential, but the delivery process is almost just as critical for ensuring your competitive advantage. Your delivery process needs to have efficiency and reliability in mind, both from the perspective of your own team and your customers.
• Physical Evidence: We work from a digital ecosystem, which means that having a physical store or office outside of your home isn’t as common as it used to be. But having physical evidence of your brand is key. In this case, it could be your website, social media presence or email newsletters. Physical evidence can also include branding and packages related to your product or service.

Staying Up-to-Date With the Latest Marketing Trends

A good marketer never stops learning.

Though basic marketing fundamentals may remain steady over time, the specific strategies businesses deploy are affected by a number of factors, such as:

• Changing consumer demographics: Younger generations of people may respond to different appeals, compared with older generations. Customer opinions can greatly influence your content strategy.
• Emerging technology: Mobile devices, voice search and other developments offer new ways for marketers to reach their customers.
• Fluctuating market conditions: The global economy is in constant flux; what was affordable to consumers yesterday may be out of reach tomorrow.
• Cultural shifts: Political and social movements shape the way consumers view companies and their offerings.

How do you forecast these changes? They can shift gradually over long periods of time, especially in the case of technology adoption. You can’t just put a finger to the wind and determine what the next trend will be.

That’s when you turn to expert advice. Blogs are a great place to start. Those of us embedded in the world of marketing every day share our experiences, analyze reports and make educated predictions about the future of marketing.

Subscribe to The Content Marketer

Get weekly insights, advice and opinions about all things digital marketing.

Thank you for subscribing to The Content Marketer!

Further Reading: The Best Marketing Books To Have on Your Shelf

A steady diet of books and articles can also keep you informed and up to date on the latest marketing trends. The following books serve as a great foundation for your knowledge base:

This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See

By Seth Godin

If you’re just getting into marketing, know that Seth Godin is a name you’ll see a lot. His website, online courses and lectures are hugely popular. In this book, Godin shares his wisdom on digital marketing and teaches lessons on how to build great brands.

Notable quote: “Some dog owners want gluten-free food, loaded with high-value placebos. But let’s not get confused about who all this innovation is for. It’s not for the dogs. It’s for us.”

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t

By Jim Collins

Though published in 2001, Jim Collins’ best-selling book on what makes companies great is still relevant today. The insights found in this book are drawn from 28 in-depth analyses of companies that either became great or succumbed to mediocrity.

Notable quote: “The good-to-great companies made a habit of putting their best people on their best opportunities, not their biggest problems. The comparison companies had a penchant for doing just the opposite, failing to grasp the fact that managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.”

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

By Donald Miller

Effective marketing appeals to customers the way a great story appeals to an audience. Donald Miller’s book takes storytelling elements and applies them to the world of business.

Notable quote: “Brands that help customers avoid some kind of negativity in life (and let their customers know what that negativity is) engage customers for the same reason good stories captivate an audience: they define what’s at stake.”

Content: The Atomic Particle of Marketing

By Rebecca Lieb

Strategic advisor Rebecca Lieb describes how content has evolved to be the most important aspect of a marketing strategy. This book walks readers through the evolution of new media and how it’s shaped how marketers connect with consumers today.

Notable quote: “The culture of content is arising not just because brands are publishers, but because employees are publishers, too. Some will shrug this off as noise rather than signal, but the proliferation of channels, platforms and devices is further enabling employees to speak on behalf of the brand.”

Now that you have more knowledge about the basics of marketing, consider learning more about how to craft a winning blog post or about how to connect your marketing strategy to your sales goals .

Marketers must be comfortable with a trial-and-error approach to their work, but the more you learn and study the greats, the quicker you’ll see success. Good luck!

Editor’s Note: Updated January 2022.

Alexander Santo

Share this article

Get our weekly newsletter

Alexander Santo is a Brafton writer living in Washington. ​He enjoys searching for the perfect cup of coffee, browsing used book shops and attending punk rock concerts.

Recommended Reading

How To Boost Your Brand With White Label Content Marketing

You’ve heard it a thousand times before: “Digital marketing is a fast-paced world.” It’s cliche, but it’s true.  Producing high quality content, such as articles, videos, emails and social posts takes time and resources, but it’s necessary to reach the right audience with the right message at the right moment. The simple truth is that… Read more »

Brand Attributes: What They Are and How To Define Yours (Infographic)

Brand attributes are inherently and intentionally part of your brand. Here’s what this looks like in action.

The Content Marketer

Get the latest content marketing updates delivered directly to your inbox with our weekly newsletter.

Marketing91

The 5 Marketing Concepts explained in detail (Updated 2023)

June 7, 2023 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

Table of Contents

What are the 5 Marketing Concepts?

There are 5 different concepts of marketing , each of which varies in the function they carry and the way they promote a product or a service within an organization. Each of these concepts was developed as per the need of the market . The 5 Marketing concepts are

• Production concept
• Product concept
• Selling concept
• Marketing concept
• Societal marketing concept

Marketing concepts are the ideas or assumptions upon which marketing decisions are based. Marketing managers use market research and customer feedback to develop assumptions about customers’ needs and wants. These concepts guide marketing strategy and help companies create products that satisfy customer demand. Marketing concepts can be divided into three categories: needs, wants, and demand.

Needs are the basic human requirements, such as the need for food, water, and shelter. Wants are the desires that people have for specific products or services. Demand is the amount of a given product or service that people are willing to buy at a given price. Marketing managers must understand these concepts in order to develop effective marketing strategies. They use market research to learn about customer needs and wants, and they use this information to create products that satisfy demand.

How have Marketing concepts evolved?

The Marketing concept is one of the oldest concepts in marketing. It evolved over time as a response to changes in the business environment.

The concept had its roots in the Industrial Revolution when mass production made it possible to produce large quantities of goods at a low cost. This led to a sharp increase in competition , and companies began to look for ways to differentiate their products from those of their rivals.

When world war 2 was over, the Marketing mix was formalized by Neil Borden. A marketing mix is nothing but a strategy that is used to identify & satisfy customers’ needs. The marketing mix is also known as the 4Ps of marketing- Product, Price, Place & Promotion.

During the 1950s, the marketing concept was widely accepted as a business philosophy. The marketing mix approach was also gaining popularity during this time. In the 1960s, the marketing concept became the dominant business philosophy in the USA. The marketing mix approach was also used by many companies to achieve their business goals .

In the 1970s, the marketing concept was adopted by many countries around the world. This led to the development of global marketing strategies. This approach was also used to develop international marketing plans.

In the 1980s, the Marketing mix approach was replaced by relationship marketing . Relationship marketing is a concept that emphasizes the need to build long-term relationships with customers. This approach was used to develop customer loyalty and repeat business .

In the 1990s, Marketing mix approach was again replaced by the concept of holistic marketing . Holistic marketing is an approach that takes into account the entire customer experience . It was used to develop customer-centric marketing plans.

In the 21st century, the marketing mix approach has been replaced by integrated marketing . Integrated marketing is an approach that takes into account all aspects of the marketing mix. It is used to develop comprehensive marketing plans that are designed to meet the needs of the customer.

The Marketing Concept is the philosophy that firms should analyze the needs of their customers and then make decisions to satisfy those needs, better than the competition. Marketing managers using this concept believe that by doing this they will be able to generate long-term sustainable success for their firm. The Marketing Concept is also sometimes called Customer Orientation or Marketing Management Orientation.

The Pillars of Marketing

The five pillars of marketing are

1. Customer Needs and Wants

The first step in the Marketing Concept is to understand what customers need and want. This can be done through market research. Marketing managers must then create a unique value proposition that meets these needs and wants better than the competition.

2. Integrated Marketing

Marketing managers must integrate all aspects of the marketing mix to create a comprehensive marketing plan . This plan must be designed to meet the needs of the customer.

3. Customer Relationship Management

Marketing managers must develop long-term relationships with customers. This can be done through effective customer service , loyalty programs , and relationship marketing.

4. Marketing Orientation

Marketing managers must be focused on the needs of the customer. They must be able to identify and satisfy these needs better than the competition.

5. Continuous Improvement

Marketing managers must continuously strive to improve the marketing mix. They must also constantly monitor customer needs and wants and make changes to the marketing mix as needed.

The 5 Main Marketing Concepts

There are five marketing concepts and they are as follows

1. Production concept

The production concept is the oldest and most basic marketing concept. The objective of the production concept is to achieve high sales volume and produce products that are low in cost and easy to manufacture. This concept is often used by businesses that have a large amount of excess capacity.

The production concept focuses on operations and is based on the belief that consumers will be more inclined to acquire goods that are readily accessible and can be purchased for less than competing items of the same type. This idea emerged as a consequence of 1950s early capitalism, during which time businesses were preoccupied with efficiency in manufacturing in order to maximize profits and expand capacity.

The key to success was viewed as mass production, which reduced costs through economies of scale and increased efficiency through the use of specialized equipment and assembly line techniques. Marketing strategies were focused on persuading customers that the products offered were superior in quality and value to those of competitors.

Example- Henry Ford ’s Model T Car

A good example of the production concept in action is Henry Ford’s production of the Model T car. Ford’s focus was on mass production and efficiency. He was able to reduce costs by using assembly line techniques and specialized equipment. His marketing strategy was focused on persuading customers that the Model T was superior in quality and value to other cars on the market. This strategy was very effective and helped to make the Model T one of the best-selling cars of all time.

2. Product concept

The product concept is the idea that businesses should focus on creating products that are superior in quality and features to those of their competitors. This concept holds that if a business can create a better product, then customers will be more likely to buy it.

The key to success is viewed as offering a superior product to optimize customer satisfaction . Marketing strategies are focused on persuading customers that the product is superior in quality and features to those of competitors. It gives heed to what the customers want.

The focus was on improving the quality of the product so that it would be more appealing to customers. Marketing strategies were focused on persuading customers that the product was superior in quality and features to those of competitors.

Example- Development of iPhone

A good example of the product concept in action is Apple ’s development of the iPhone. Apple’s focus was on creating a superior product in terms of quality and features. Its marketing strategy was focused on persuading customers that the iPhone was superior in quality and features to other smartphones on the market. This strategy was very effective and helped to make the iPhone one of the best-selling smartphones of all time.

3. Selling concept

The selling concept is the idea that businesses should focus on selling products, regardless of quality or customer needs. This concept holds that if a business can sell a product, then it will be successful .

The key to success is viewed as selling the product. Marketing strategies are focused on persuading customers to buy the product, regardless of quality or customer needs. The selling concept is used when the customer is unwilling to buy or there is an oversupply of the product.

The focus was on selling as many products as possible, regardless of quality or customer needs. Marketing strategies were focused on persuading customers to buy the product, irrespective of quality or customer needs.

Example – Infomercials

A good example of the selling concept in action is the development of infomercials. Infomercials are designed to sell products, regardless of quality or customer needs. They are typically very long and often include a celebrity endorsement . The goal of an infomercial is to persuade customers to buy the product, regardless of quality or customer needs. This strategy can be very effective, as evidenced by the fact that many products are sold through infomercials every year.

4. Marketing concept

In the marketing concept , gaining a company ’s ability to compete and maximize profits by marketing its services as offering greater value to consumers than its rivals is the aim.

The marketing concept focuses on finding out what your target market wants, understanding their requirements, and satisfying them as efficiently as possible. This is often known as the “customer-first mentality.” Digital marketing is one of the latest

Marketing strategies revolve around creating value for the customer and then communicating that value to the customer. The key to success is viewed as creating value for the customer and then communicating that value to the customer. The marketing concept is used when a company wants to maintain long-term relationships with its customers.

Example – Amazon Prime Service

One of the best marketing concept examples is Amazon’s development of the Amazon Prime service. Amazon’s focus was on creating value for customers by offering free two-day shipping on all Prime orders. Its marketing strategy was focused on communicating the value of Prime to customers and persuading them to sign up for the service. This strategy was very effective and helped to make Amazon one of the largest online retailers in the world.

5. Social or Societal marketing concept

The Societal Marketing Concept is about convincing individuals to change their behavior for the greater good of society. The societal concept holds that businesses should focus on creating products that are beneficial to society, rather than just focusing on profits.

Marketing strategies are focused on persuading customers to buy the product for the benefit of society, rather than just for the customer’s benefit. The key to success is viewed as creating products that are beneficial to society. The social marketing concept is used when a company wants to change customer behavior for the benefit of society.

The societal marketing concept also entails environmental protection, allowing companies to preserve the environment and conserve natural resources from being depleted. Companies that improve their sustainability are working toward a future where everyone may live healthily and productively as a result of the improved use of technology.

Example- Anti-Smoking Campaign

A good example of social marketing in action is the anti-smoking campaign that was launched by the American Lung Association. This campaign was designed to persuade people to quit smoking for the benefit of their health and the health of those around them. The campaign was very effective and helped to reduce the number of smokers in the United States.

Video on the Five Marketing Concepts

How to choose the right Marketing Concept for your business?

There are a few things you should consider when choosing the right marketing concept for your business marketing process . First, you need to decide what your goals are. Do you want to increase profits, change customer behavior, or both?

Once you know your goals, you can start to look at different marketing concepts and see which one best aligns with your goals. If you want to increase profits, the marketing concept or the social marketing concept may be best for you. The societal marketing concept may be a better fit if you want to change customer behavior.

Finally, you need to consider your resources. Do you have the time and money to implement a successful marketing campaign ? If not, you may want to choose a simpler concept that you can execute effectively.

Marketing concepts are important for businesses to understand and use effectively. The right marketing concept can help you achieve your goals and improve your bottom line . Choose the concept that best fits your goals and resources, and you’ll be on your way to success.

In marketing, there are many different concepts that businesses use to guide their marketing efforts. Marketing concepts help businesses decide what products or services to offer, how to price them, and how to promote them.

By understanding and using marketing concepts, businesses can create successful marketing plans that will help them achieve their goals. Marketing concepts are essential for businesses of all sizes, and there is a concept to fit every business’s needs.

If you’re not sure which marketing concept is right for your business, take some time to research the different options. There are many resources available that can help you learn about the different marketing concepts and how to use them. Once you’ve decided which concept is right for your business, you can begin implementing it into your marketing plan.

This was all about the Concepts of Marketing .

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Marketing

Related posts:

• Objectives of Marketing Plan Explained in Detail
• What is Sales Growth? Sales growth Explained in Detail
• What is Retail sales? Explained in detail
• The Importance of Language Explained in Detail
• Process In Marketing Mix – Concepts & Types Of Processes
• Me too Marketing Explained
• Reverse Marketing Explained with Examples
• What is Sports Marketing? Explained and discussed in details
• What is Direct-to-Consumer? DTC Marketing Model Explained
• 4 A’s of Marketing Explained With Their Types

About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

All Knowledge Banks (Hub Pages)

• Marketing Hub
• Management Hub
• Marketing Strategy
• Advertising Hub
• Branding Hub
• Market Research
• Small Business Marketing
• Sales and Selling
• Marketing Careers
• Internet Marketing
• Business Model of Brands
• Marketing Mix of Brands
• Brand Competitors
• Strategy of Brands
• SWOT of Brands
• Customer Management
• Top 10 Lists

Wat of the customer concept

discuss the view that the marketing concept is the holy ‘leitmofit'(i.e. theme) of the marketing faith; since it attest to the centrality of customers as key to attaining an organizations objectives

is concept the same thing as “terms “

Dear anni, terms and concepts are different terminology. Concepts are ideas put forward by various marketing think tanks over the years.

can you tell me about the Target,positioning,and segmentation

I want summary marketing management orientations for 9-10 lines . please kindly reply.

Hi. links to each of the marketing orientations is given in the above article such as production concept, marketing concept etc.

can you tel me about the concept of marketing in travel and tourism

Thats a huge topic but i will try to cover the same soon. Its a good topic :) Thanks for the tip.

@ Asad Hayat – try this link – https://www.marketing91.com/difference-segmentation-targeting-positioning/ Difference between segmentation, targeting and positioning.

HOW TO EXPLAIN OUR PRODUCT TO CUSTEMBER

this is very easy first at all you have to know tat all of the specification regarding this product …u dont feel nervous if custumer asked anyy query regarding this product .nd maintain p.d attitude behave e.t.c

Good work,these concepts are very helpful to me thank you.

research about marketing concept (basic and applied)

what is the difference between the consumer concept and marketing concept?

Thanks for sharing this article. This article is well explained and easy to read.

Merci pour votre travail

can you explain what is the difference between segment marketing and target marketing.,,what are all the factors affecting the target marketing.

faithfully Muhammed Ajmal N

Hii. Well, lets take the example of Geographic segmentation.

Now you have decided on a particular geography where you want to start your chain of restaurants. It might be your own state, country. So your segment is decided. Thats segment marketing. You may use demographic, geographic or any different forms of segmentation. More on segmentation here – https://www.marketing91.com/4-types-market-segmentation-segment/

Now your target audience might be the affluent people of that area, in which case you need to have a posh restaurant. Or you might be targeting youngsters, in which case you may think of a fast food restaurant or a franchise. So once you have decided your segment, you do target marketing.

The final part of this is positioning, where you use the ambiance, the marketing etc to position yourself correctly between competitors. The combination of all this is known as “Segmentation, targeting and positioning”. It is one of the important concepts of marketing.

What about wholistic concept

Hi am lungie I would to know if co-concepts of marketing is the same thing as concepts of marketing

Please can you elaborate on the concept of marketing with the context of its main functions in transport

What is the different between concept of marketing and marketing concept?

Good article

is marketing concept different from philosophy of marketing.

can I know who is the author for this website…? its for reference puporse.

What are the concepts of sales

What are the implications of the above management concepts?

with a named product about to be produced by company, explain how you will develop five concepts for the new product

excellent Content Thanks for the Help.I have learned a lot by reading your content.Thank You very Much

Please can u briefly explain to me about, diffrence between production concept and product concept

Nice information.

I consider myself fortunate to have a link to this site … I hope to get full support on the marketing topic from this site. Many thanks and good luck to you…

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• About Marketing91
• Marketing91 Team
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Terms of Use
• Editorial Policy

WE WRITE ON

• Digital Marketing
• Human Resources
• Operations Management
• Marketing News
• Marketing mix's
• Competitors

5 Marketing Concepts: Marketing Management Philosophies

The marketing concept is the strategy firms implement to satisfy customers’ needs, increase sales, maximize profit, and beat the competition.

Understand the Marketing Concepts or Marketing Management Philosophies

Marketing is a department of management that tries to design strategies to build profitable relationships with target consumers. Marketers must answer 2 important questions.

• What philosophy is the best for a company in setting marketing strategies?
• What will the organization, customers, and society’s interests be important?

5 Marketing Concepts or 5 Marketing Management Philosophies.

There are five alternative concepts under which organizations design and carry out their marketing strategies to answer these. These 5 alternative marketing concepts are also called marketing management philosophies.

There are 5 marketing concepts that organizations adopt and execute. These are (1) production concept, (2) product concept, (3) selling concept, (4) marketing concept, and (5) societal marketing concept.

Production Concept

Product concept, selling concept, marketing concept, societal marketing concept.

These concepts are described below;

The idea of the production concept – “Consumers will favor available and highly affordable products.” This concept is one of the oldest Marketing management orientations that guide sellers.

Companies adopting this orientation risk focusing too narrowly on their operations and losing sight of the real objective.

Management focuses on improving production and distribution efficiency. Most times, the production concept can lead to marketing myopia .

Although, in some situations, the production concept is still a useful philosophy.

If a firm decides to operate based on this concept, it will try to minimize production costs by making the production process efficient. Moreover, for its products to be favored by the consumers, it will try to make its distribution as extensive as possible.

This production concept is found to be applicable if two situations prevail.

• When the demand for a product exceeds the supply, this is seen in markets that are highly price-sensitive and budget-conscious. Under such situations, consumers will be interested in owning the product, not it’s quality or features. Thus, producers will be interested in increasing their outputs.
• If the production costs are very high, that discourages consumers from buying the product. Here, the company puts all of its efforts into building production volume and improving technology to reduce costs.

Reduction in production costs helps the firm to reduce, helping the market size to increase. A company can thus try to create a dominant position in the market where it operates.

This concept is also seen in service firms such as hospitals. Applying this concept in service firms such as hospitals is also criticized because it may cause deterioration in the firm’s service.

Production Concept example:-

You see, on Amazon or retail stores, the market is flooded with cheap products from china. Everything from the cheap plastic product from China is on your cart now.

The best example of the production concept is Vivo, the Chinese smartphone brand. Their phones are available in almost every corner of the Asian market. You can walk into any phone shop in Asia and can walk out with the latest and greatest smartphone from Vivo.

Production Concept with Other Marketing Concepts

In the diverse landscape of marketing strategies, understanding how the production concept stacks up against other marketing concepts is crucial for businesses to tailor their approach effectively. Let’s delve into these comparisons, providing examples for a clearer understanding.

Production Concept vs. Product Concept

• Production Concept: This concept is grounded in efficiency and accessibility, focusing on mass production and distribution. The belief here is that customers prioritize affordability and availability.
• Example: Walmart exemplifies this concept through its emphasis on a wide range of low-cost products.
• Product Concept: Contrasts with its focus on product quality and innovation, assuming customers prefer products with superior features or innovations.
• Example: Apple, known for its high-quality, innovative tech products, is a classic example of the product concept.

Production Concept vs. Selling Concept

Production Concept prioritizes efficient production and wide distribution, often overlooking individual consumer needs.

Example: Generic drug manufacturers, producing essential medications at low costs, demonstrate this concept.

Selling Concept involves aggressive sales techniques, suitable for products that consumers do not actively seek out.

Example: Insurance companies, which need to actively sell their products, often adopt the selling concept.

Production Concept vs. Marketing Concept

Production Concept focuses on mass production and affordability, with less emphasis on market desires.

Example: Fast-food chains like McDonald’s, known for quick and affordable food, use this concept.

Marketing Concept centers on meeting customer needs while achieving organizational goals, emphasizing market understanding and value delivery.

Example: Zappos, with its exceptional customer service, is an exemplar of the marketing concept.

Production Concept vs. Societal Marketing Concept

The Production Concept emphasizes efficiency and cost-effectiveness, often sidelining societal welfare or ethical considerations.

Example: Bulk producers of generic household items, focusing on affordability, align with this concept.

Societal Marketing Concept Balances profits, customer satisfaction, and societal welfare, promoting sustainable and ethical practices.

Example: Patagonia, known for its commitment to environmental sustainability, embodies the societal marketing concept.

The product concept holds that consumers will favor products that offer the most quality, performance, and innovative features.

Here. Marketing strategies are focused on making continuous product improvements.

Product quality and improvement are important parts of marketing strategies , sometimes the only part. Targeting only the company’s products could also lead to marketing myopia.

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, more and more industries were adopting mass production techniques. The supply of manufactured goods was exceeding demand by the early 1930s.

Manufacturers were facing excess production capacity and competition for customers. They started realizing that buyers will favor well-made products and are willing to pay more for product extras, and the product concept started taking place in many producers’ minds.

The product concept assumes that consumers will favor those products that are superior in quality, performance, innovative features, designs, and so on.

This marketing concept is thought to have been simple: he who offered a standard product at the lowest price was going to win. A firm pursuing this philosophy tries to improve its products in terms of quality, performance, and other perceptible features.

Followers of product concept philosophy keep on improving their products continuously.

Advocates of this concept think that consumers favor well-made products, products that are superior to the competing products in the above-mentioned aspects.

Many of product-oriented firms often design their products taking little or no suggestions from their target customers.

They firmly believe that product design or improvement aspects are better understood by their engineers or designers than by the customers.

They also do not compare their products with competitors’ products to bring changes in their products. They sometimes caught up with “LOVE AFFAIR” with the quality of their product and behave unrealistically as people do when they are in love with someone of the opposite sex.

A general motors executive said years ago:” How can the public know what kind of car they want until they see what is available?”

Here engineers first design and develop the product, the manufacturing makes it, the finance department prices it, and finally, marketing and sales try to sell it.

Many marketers still hold this concept, and it influences some that they even forget that the market is going in another direction. Marketing has very little room for this concept.

The main emphasis here is on the product. Therefore, it is understood that in the product concept, the management fails to identify what business it is in, which leads to marketing myopia – i.e., short-sightedness on the role of marketing.

Product Concept example:-

For example, suppose a company makes the best quality Floppy disk. But does a customer need a floppy disk?

She or he needs something that can be used to store the data. It can be achieved by a USB Flash drive, SD memory cards, portable hard disks, etc. So the company should not look to make the best floppy disk; they should focus on meeting the customer’s data storage needs.

When you think of high-quality products, Apple is one of the top ones. Their products are so good that they set industry trends and standards.

Logitech makes very high-quality computer products such as keyboards, mice, and webcams. These high-quality products are priced higher, but people still buy, and they get almost free advertisements from independent reviews.

The selling concept holds the idea- “consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.”

Here the management focuses on creating sales transactions rather than on building long-term, profitable customer relationships.

In other words, the aim is to sell what the company makes rather than making what the market wants. Such an aggressive selling program carries very high risks.

In the selling concept, the marketer assumes that customers will be coaxed into buying the product and will like it; if they don’t like it, they will possibly forget their disappointment and buy it again later. This is usually a very poor and costly assumption.

Typically the selling concept is practiced with unsought goods. Unsought goods are that buyers do not normally think of buying, such as insurance or blood donations.

These industries must be good at tracking prospects and selling them on a product’s benefits.

The selling concept also developed at the same time, and the product concept developed and is still predominant in many industries.

The great depression in America proved that producing enough goods or quality goods is no more a problem. The problem is to sell those products.

Producing quality products does not necessarily guarantee its sale. During this period, the vital role of selling, advertising, and other marketing functions was organized truly, and the selling concept came into existence.

As defined by Philip Kotler, it holds that if left alone, consumers will ordinarily not buy enough of the organization’s products. Aggressive selling and promotion activities can guarantee sales.

According to him, consumers typically show buying inertia and are sometimes resistant to buying, and have to be influenced by different means so that they are agreed to buy. The company’s function is to influence consumers by using all possible sales techniques to encourage them to buy more.

As Kotler says, the selling concept is practiced most aggressively with unsought goods, those goods that buyers normally do not think of buying, such as insurance, encyclopedias, and funeral plots.

This concept is mostly used in the case of overcapacity, where a firm wants to sell what it makes. It starts with the point of production, which focuses on products, and its aim is to earn profit through increased sales volume, and the means used are selling and promoting.

Marketing, in its true sense, still does not get a strategic position in this concept. Marketing, here, is indeed based on hard selling. In moving goods from producers to consumers, the function of personal selling is to push, and advertising plays a pull function.

These two strategies are used together and backed by marketing research , product development, improvement, pricing, dealer organization, cooperation, and the physical distribution of goods themselves.

To be effective, selling must be preceded by several marketing activities such as needs assessment, marketing research , product development, pricing, and distribution.

If the marketer does a good job of identifying consumer needs, developing appropriate products, and pricing, distributing, and promoting them effectively, these products will sell very easily.

Marketing based on hard selling carries high risks since a consumer who is unhappy with the product will bad-mouth it to eleven acquaintances, which will multiply at the same rate by those; bad news travels fast.

One interesting point to mention here is that emphasis is given to marketing research , not on market research. Besides its application in the tangible goods business, the selling concept is practiced in nonprofit areas, such as fund-raisers, college admissions offices, and political parties.

Selling Concept example:-

Every seen an ad online or TV commercial that you almost can’t escape and hide from? The Selling Concept is in play.

Almost all companies eventually fall into this concept. “Mountain Dew” ads are hard to miss. If people like Mountain Dew or not is debatable, but you can see that PepsiCo is pushing it hard using ads.

Almost all soft drinks and soda drinks follow the selling concept. These drinks have no health benefits (they actually harm your health more); you can easily replace them with water ( the most available substance on the earth).

And the soft drink companies know it, and they run ads 24×7, spending millions,

The marketing concept holds- “achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions better than competitors do.”

Here marketing management takes a “customer first” approach. Under the marketing concept, customer focus and value are the routes to achieving sales and profits.

The marketing concept is a customer-centered “sense and responds” philosophy. The job is not to find the right customers for your product but to find your customers’ right products.

The marketing concept and the selling concepts are two extreme concepts and different from each other.

When companies started achieving the capability to produce in excess of existing demand, executives realized the need to reappraise marketing in business operations.

They also started recognizing the significant changes in the market, in the technology field, and how to reach and communicate with markets . These changes led to the evolution of the “marketing concept,” which, in essence, is a philosophy of management.

The marketing concept can be contrasted with earlier concepts in terms of the principles of orientation. In the earlier concepts, goods would be brought to the market, hoping to find customers. On the contrary, the marketing concept suggests that marketing starts with the customers and works back to producing desired products in the right amounts and with the right specifications.

As Joseph C. Seibert says, “marketing management does not have the objective of creating customers insofar as it is responsible for creating or building markets. The orientation is directed toward making markets rather than making products.”

According to Philip Kotler, the marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organizational goals consists of being more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities toward determining and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets or determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors.

This definition suggests that marketing starts with the market, focuses on customers’ needs, and attains profit through customer satisfaction with coordinated marketing.

Under this philosophy, the marketer’s first task is to identify the needs and wants of his prospect, then should work backward through the trade channel and physical distribution and continue this reverse course beyond the shipping door, past the production and assembly line, right to the drawing boards and research laboratories.

Under this concept, all aspects of company operations are aimed at satisfying customers’ wants and desires.

One important point to be mentioned here is that a company’s operation is also influenced by the company’s overall target or objective. For example, a company might be aimed at satisfying consumers’ wants and desires, but its overall objective might be to increase the profit volume.

The above discussion suggests that the marketing concept is based on four main pillars,

The above bases suggest another clear definition of the marketing concept put forward by W. J. Stanton. According to him, “in its most total sense, the marketing concept is a business philosophy that states that customers’ want satisfaction is the economic and social justification of a company’s existence.

Consequently, all company activities in production, engineering, finance, and marketing must be devoted first to determining the customers’ wants and then to satisfying those while still making a reasonable profit.”

Pillar- 1 of the Marketing Concept – Market Focus

The marketing concept suggests that a company should focus its attention on marketing rather than production and selling. In today’s diverse market, it is not feasible for a company to operate successfully in every market and satisfy its needs.

Therefore, it is ideal for a company to highlight its attention to a particular segment (s) of the total heterogeneous market.

Pillar – 2 of the Marketing Concept – Customer Orientation

Focusing on a particular market does not guarantee a company’s success in the marketplace. Customer orientation is needed for success, i.e., carefully defining customer needs from customers’ points of view.

A company can do this with market research; hence, market research plays a dominant role in marketing concept-oriented companies.

Customer orientation is important in the sense that a company’s future and progress depend on the customers. Customers can be new or old. A company must retain its old customers since attracting new customers is very difficult and costly.

A satisfied customer will buy again and again, and he/she will speak highly about the company, which will increase the company’s image and help attract new customers.

Therefore, it is very important for a company to be customer-oriented, i.e., to identify their needs and wants and reasonably satisfy those.

To ensure customer satisfaction, a company should encourage customer complaints since it is seen from different studies that 96% of unhappy customers never tell the company about their dissatisfaction.

Hence, the company should take the initiative on its own to encourage customers to complain.

It is also vital for a company because criticism from a dissatisfied customer can cause the firm’s ruination. On the other hand, a company can get quite helpful innovative ideas from its customers’ complaints.

It can also improve its product quality and service level if it knows what customers actually want. Thus it may increase the number of loyal customers and profit volume.

Pillar – 3 of the Marketing Concept – Coordinated Marketing

The marketing concept is a total enterprise concept. To be successful, all marketing functions must be coordinated among themselves, and second, marketing itself must be well-coordinated with other departments.

A company managed under the marketing concept must plan, organize, coordinate, and control its entire operation as one system toward achieving a single set of objectives applicable to the organization.

There are obvious reasons behind coordinating marketing functions among themselves, and the main reason is to eliminate conflict.

For example, if marketing functions are not coordinated, the salesforce might criticize marketing people for setting a high sales target.

Coordinating with other departments is that marketing cannot work in isolation. If employees of other departments do not recognize how they impact customer satisfaction, the marketing department cannot alone provide it.

To be marketing oriented , a company must carry out internal and external marketing.

Internal marketing means successfully hiring, training , and motivating employees to serve the customers well and satisfy them.

Internal marketing must be carried out first because unless a company is not ready to provide customer satisfaction, it cannot go for external marketing. Under the marketing concept, marketing becomes the basic motivating force for the entire firm.

The status of marketing people also changes, and marketing comes into the foreground of the company’s operation. The entire company works to develop, manufacture, and sell a product from the marketing perspective. Regarding what business we are in, the company, for example, says, “we sell beauty and hope instead of we sell cosmetics.”

The importance of different levels of management also changes with the adoption of the marketing concept. Customers come to the top of the organization and then come front-line people who meet, serve, and satisfy customers.

Middle management is there to support front-line people so that they can better serve the customers, and top management stays at the base to support middle management so that they can effectively and efficiently provide support to the front-line people.

Pillar- 4 of the Marketing Concept – Profitability

The end of the marketing concept is to make profits through customer satisfaction. This suggests that profit is to be made by satisfying customers’ needs.

As customers’ needs are changing day by day, a marketing concept-oriented company has to consider and modify its product, service, and activities with the change in needs and satisfy customers better than its competitors due to earning profit in the long run.

Marketing Concept example:-

Restaurants and startups do follow the marketing concept. They try to understand the consumer and deliver the best product or service, which is better for the competition.

‘Dollar shave club’ is the best example. They changed the Men’s grooming market. They have understood that people are unhappy with their previous grooming products and prices.

Whereas other companies’ grooming products will cost hundreds to buy for just one month. ‘Dollar shave club’ charges a couple of bucks a month with higher quality products and home delivery convenience.

Difference between Selling Concept and Marketing Concept

Theodore Levitt of Harvard drew a perceptive contrast between the selling and marketing concepts. According to him, “selling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer.

Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the customer’s needs utilizing the product and with the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering and finally consuming it.”

The marketing concept is based on four pillars: target market, customer needs, integrated marketing, and profitability. It takes an outside-inside view.

On the other hand, the selling concept takes an inside-outside perspective (see the figure below).

Selling concept-oriented companies start planning with the factory, focus on the company’s existing products, and undertake heavy selling and promoting to produce profitable sales.

The marketing concept starts with a well-defined market, focuses on customer needs, coordinates all the activities affecting customers, and produces profits by satisfying customers.

Societal marketing concept questions whether the pure marketing concept overlooks possible conflicts between consumer short-run want and long-run consumer welfare.

The societal marketing concept holds that “marketing strategy should deliver value to customers in a way that maintains or improves both the consumer’s and society’s well-being.”

It calls for sustainable marketing, socially and environmentally responsible marketing that meets consumers’ and businesses’ present needs while also preserving or enhancing future generations’ ability to meet their needs.

The Societal Marketing Concept puts human welfare on top before profits and satisfying wants.

The global warming panic button is pushed, and a revelation is required to use our resources. So companies are slowly, either fully or partially, trying to implement the societal marketing concept.

This is basically a management orientation that holds that the key task of the firm is to determine the needs and wants of target markets and to adapt the organization to deliver the desired satisfactions more efficiently and effectively than its competitors in a way that preserves and enhances the well-being of the consumers in particular and the society in general.

It calls upon marketers to balance three considerations in setting their marketing policies: company profits, consumer want satisfaction and public interest.

Companies may adopt the societal marketing concept if it does not result in a competitive disadvantage or loss in the company’s profits. It is because any contemporary company’s basic goal is to keep its customers happy and profit by serving and satisfying them.

Societal Marketing Concept example:-

While large companies sometimes launch programs or products that benefit society, it is hard to find a company that is fully committed socially.

We can see Adidas doing great as they continue to support Colin Kaepernick despite pressure from various parties. Tesla promises a big push for green energy with electric cars and solar roof panels/tiles.

Infographic: Illustration of 5 marketing concepts/ philosophies and their relations.

Conclusion: Companies Follow a mix of Marketing Concepts in the Real-world

Companies don’t follow a single marketing concept rigidly. They usually use a mix of marketing concepts or change them depending on the market situation, competition, and sales numbers.

by Cydney Hatch • April 24, 2020

5 Essential Marketing Concepts You Should Know

Marketing isn’t exactly a monolithic sport. There are many different approaches and philosophies involved, each of which represents a unique avenue for you to tackle your business objectives. Sometimes you’ll focus exclusively on one marketing concept at a time. Other times, you’ll mix and match and create something uniquely your own. 

What Is a Marketing Concept?

Generally speaking, there are five approaches or concepts that can play an important role in your marketing strategy. These marketing concepts are: 

• The production concept
• The product concept
• The selling concept
• The marketing concept
• The societal concept

Sounds complicated? It’s not that hard to learn the principles of these marketing concepts. Let’s break down each of the types of marketing concepts and see what they entail.

The Production Concept

Businesses need to meet customer needs and wants to succeed, and the production marketing concept speaks to this reality. The production marketing concept assumes that consumers prefer products that are easily available and inexpensive — which explains why companies try to produce everything in high volume at a low cost, rather than in low volume at a high cost. 

The production marketing concept is based on an operations-oriented approach that businesses employ since it takes into account both what goes on during the production process and how these operations influence consumer preferences.

About the Production Concept

The production marketing concept argues that consumers will buy readily available products and at a reasonable price. Imagine that you see your favorite shoe brand advertised on social media as having limited-edition products for $1,000. You’re probably not going to buy those shoes because you can’t afford them and there aren’t any close enough stores where you live. If those shoes were $25 and available in many stores all over, you would probably buy them. 

This is why we use production marketing principles. We want our products cheaply and easily accessible to us whenever we want.

The production marketing concept isn’t particularly difficult to follow. It states that products are more desirable when they are readily available at reasonable prices. The opposite of these principles is true as well, so if something is either too expensive or too hard to get, people won’t want it. 

This marketing concept also takes into account that consumers want their product in an easy-to-access format. They don’t want to do much extra work to get their desired product, which is why items like Uber and Netflix are so popular. If you can easily access a product or service when you need it, you will be much more likely to make purchases.

Advantages of the Production Concept

The production concept is effective because it speaks to our deep-seated human need for immediate gratification. The more supply there is of a particular product, the lower its cost is likely to be. Consumers will opt for products that are easiest and cheapest to access. 

This leads us to some simple insights about what makes successful products: price, promotion, distribution, and convenience. Companies who want to tap into their customers’ desire for instant fulfillment know they must produce more than just quality goods. They must find new ways to distribute those goods quickly and inexpensively.

Disadvantages of the Production Concept 

Production may appear to be a rigid, traditional approach to marketing. Since it favors the mass production of goods, it does not provide for much variety. This could turn away customers who are looking for something different or unique. 

Furthermore, if your company is struggling financially, production might lead you to overproduce goods that are never purchased by consumers or that become obsolete before they can be sold. This could create excess inventory and other problems for your company.

The Product Concept

A product concept is a perception or image of how consumers imagine and understand their experiences with a product or service when making purchasing decisions. Understanding this concept is the first step in the marketing process when designing, developing, and launching new products and services.

A product concept, in essence, describes how customers use products in their everyday lives and how certain features of those products are important to them. Depending on your industry, it may be possible to increase prices without losing sales because consumers are willing to pay more for perceived higher quality or convenience.

Though there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to product concepts, there are some things you can do to develop an effective product concept that will help your brand appeal to its targeted audience and increase overall sales for your company.

About the Product Concept

A product concept is not only about identifying products that will be sold to potential customers. It also includes identifying features of these products. 

If you are thinking of selling edible oil in your store, for example, you need to identify edible oils that will be beneficial for your consumers so they don’t have to do any kind of research before buying it. If you are selling automobiles, you need to identify the basic benefits of your automobile so people aren’t confused about how it works or what problems can come with it. 

You want these products to be unique and stand out compared to other competitive businesses around. Having a good product concept will help grow new businesses because potential customers have something interesting to look forward to when it comes time for them to purchase their next product.

Advantages of the Product Concept

To compete in today’s global economy, it is very important to formulate a strong product concept. A good product concept will help you and your management in designing your products with care and precision.

Along with getting your product design right, it gives you an idea of how to approach the public and potential customers with tactfulness. With a great understanding of what people want — including how they react to different marketing strategies and where they stand when making their purchase decision — it becomes easier for business owners to get into various markets without facing too much trouble. 

Disadvantages of the Product Concept

If we closely look at the product concept we can see that it focuses more on business output and less on customer satisfaction. This marketing concept only looks at potential customers and their preferences about products. It doesn’t consider consumer satisfaction and has no effective method of competition. 

The disadvantage of using this concept in business is that one cannot determine if they will be able to satisfy their customers with just a product or not. Companies with low-quality products will most likely find it difficult to succeed in their business and they may even go out of business because they were unable to satisfy their customers. 

Additionally, companies that focus solely on producing high-quality goods might face difficulties in competing with competitors who also produce goods that are equally good but available at a lower cost.

The Selling Concept

The selling concept has been used by businesses since the dawn of commerce to sell their products and services to customers. The basic idea behind the selling concept is that people will not buy enough of a business’s product, so businesses need to persuade them to do so. People who choose to use this marketing concept must be good at doing market research, finding potential customers, and convincing them to do business with the company in question.

The selling concept is based on persuasion. It takes place when businesses persuade customers to buy their products instead of those of their competitors. The aim is to convince customers that they need your product, rather than your competitor’s. 

To succeed in doing so, you must be good at finding potential customers and persuading them to buy what you are selling. You might use incentives or discounts, or maybe you’ll just be entertaining and engaging enough to get people talking about how great it would be if they could buy what you sell.

About the Selling Concept

The selling concept is used by many different types of companies. Almost every company uses some sort of marketing strategy to sell its products. Large corporations, small businesses, even service industries like insurance agencies use marketing strategies daily. 

The selling concept is used in many different ways to get customers involved with a company and then to continue buying that product or service after it has been purchased for the first time. This helps keep customer retention high while also getting new customers involved in what you are offering.

Some of these methods include advertisements, free trials, and direct sales personnel. There are many different ways that you can use these concepts but all have one goal in mind: to get someone else to buy your product or service or become an affiliate so they can sell it for you.

Advantages of the Selling Concept

The selling concept is one of the most popular marketing concepts available because it takes into account the realities of business — even loyal customers may not be enough to keep you going. With the selling concept, businesses must be good at finding potential customers and persuading them to buy. 

The selling concept tends to emphasize how well a product can perform in solving customer problems for people to feel compelled enough to purchase it. It also emphasizes making products attractive and desirable. For example, billboards may promote products in a manner that makes the product look attractive or desirable, which can, in turn, persuade potential buyers to take notice and convert.

Disadvantages of the Selling Concept

One of the main disadvantages to using selling concepts as a marketing tool is that it puts potentially unnecessary pressure on business owners. The need to constantly make “another sale” can cause a good deal of anxiety. 

Overusing the selling concept as a marketing tool could make business owners not care about their customers or how well they treat them; instead, all they care about is getting sales. If you use sales as your main objective for running your business, you may lose customers who were loyal to you if they feel undervalued.

The Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is one of the most popular concepts in marketing, particularly in business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets. This concept believes that success depends on your marketing efforts delivering value to customers, which will make them loyal customers who come back again and again. 

The marketing concept focuses on both needs and wants, which enables you to understand how the market sees your product, what they want out of it, and how they want it to serve their needs better than competitors’ products do or can do in the future.

If you’re building a business, it’s crucial to understand your marketing concept. At its most basic level, marketing is about selling value — to consumers, employees, investors, partners, and everyone else who could be impacted by your company. An understanding of marketing concepts helps give you that clarity.

About the Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is focused on creating a better value proposition for customers. Value propositions are more than just advertising —they’re about how your business operates and every interaction you have with clients. Your value proposition isn’t limited to a single product but includes everything that goes into a person’s decision to purchase from you instead of a competitor. 

The marketing concept focuses on creating long-term value for customers by understanding their needs and wants, communicating those needs and wants clearly to your company, and delivering products and services that fulfill those needs at a price point that still makes sense for both sides. In other words, it centers on how your company delivers value to customers over time — not just one sale or service contract at a time.

Advantages of the Marketing Concept

The marketing concept can be of great help to you if you are planning to get into a business. This will teach you how to formulate your product offerings and create value propositions based on consumer preferences. From there, you can craft an overall marketing strategy that incorporates both the internal and external factors of your business. 

By understanding each component of your strategy, it would be easier for you to manage all aspects of your business more effectively. Knowing how it all works together is crucial when trying to develop new products or enhance current offerings based on new insights about consumers’ needs and wants. 

Moreover, the marketing concept can help you analyze and predict market trends based on its philosophy. With a sound understanding of consumer behavior, you’ll know what to do in case your business is losing market share or if you want to find new customers. It can also help you develop a better understanding of how your business competes against others. 

Disadvantages of the Marketing Concept

The marketing concept emphasizes providing customers with what they want and need. But when customers’ needs and wants can be difficult to determine, then such a concept is likely to be ineffective. What it means is that there may be firms that lose out in business even though they provide greater value than their competitors. Another disadvantage of the marketing concept is that it may cause businesses to end up producing poor-quality products or services for their customers even though such products or services would cost much less than high-quality ones.

The Societal Concept

The societal marketing concept proposes that businesses are, or should be, motivated by more than just profit. They should also be concerned with the well-being of society as a whole, including their employees and consumers, as well as the environment and other stakeholders. This marketing mindset argues that corporations should act in the best interests of society to survive.

About the Societal Marketing Concept

One of the best examples of marketing helping to make the world a better place is through affordable products. The societal marketing concept believes that if businesses can create an affordable product, they are helping people at lower levels of the socioeconomic spectrum who may not be able to afford higher-priced products. 

One great example comes from soap companies creating mass-marketed soaps with low prices, ensuring everyone has access to them and can use them daily. This benefits society as a whole by promoting hygiene and ensuring fewer diseases and illnesses exist among large groups of people

The societal marketing concept is a general belief among marketers that businesses should contribute positively to society through beneficial products and practices. While some may not agree with that sentiment, there is no denying that companies have a unique opportunity to shape culture and affect change. And though they may sometimes miss the mark on the value of certain products or practices, it’s important to acknowledge that businesses can have positive influences on our lives through more thoughtful operations.

Advantages of the Societal Marketing Concept

Focusing on the societal concept creates value for all stakeholders in the company’s products, services, and employees. By keeping your consumer in mind while creating business plans, you can create better customer service that is more sustainable for everyone involved with your organization. 

The societal marketing concept puts people first. It doesn’t focus on short-term profits by trying to hook customers on unnecessary things or products they don’t need — instead, it focuses on overall values. 

The societal marketing concept also includes environmental preservation so that businesses can protect the earth and save natural resources from being used up. When companies make their operations more sustainable, they are working towards a future where everyone can live healthily and productively thanks to better use of technology.

Disadvantages of the Societal Marketing Concept

There are two major disadvantages of the societal marketing concept. First, it can be very hard to determine whether a product is benefiting society in any meaningful way. What makes one product better than another? 

A second disadvantage is that it’s often hard to tell whether companies are being altruistic when they try to sell products that have good societal value. There is very little incentive for companies, especially small ones, to make the time and money investment necessary to produce products with significant societal benefits. Also, there can be issues of trust when consumers are concerned about how their information will be used by marketers after they make a purchase.

While the societal marketing concept is great in theory, it would be very difficult to implement in real life. The societal marketing concept, by its very nature, puts society ahead of profits. The decisions that have to be made when making products are not always clear-cut. There is not always a right answer when dealing with situations where there are choices to make between the greater good and business interests.

Key Takeaways

Having said all that, here’s what should you bear in mind going forward: 

• The production concept : It’s about building more products inexpensively and as quickly as you can crank it out. Focus on this when saturating the market benefits you.
• The product concept : It takes a detailed, holistic view of your product and highlights everything good about it. This is what you focus on when you want your customers to know what problems your product solves.
• The selling concept : It recognizes some important business truths and brings the sales process to the fore to counteract them. This can be a business-saving approach, especially when things aren’t going your way.
• The marketing concept : It’s what you emphasize when you find yourself in a market with many similar products. How do you stand out? The marketing concept tries to segment and capture a piece of your industry’s target audience.
• The societal concept : When consumers want socially responsible companies, the societal concept answers the call. This by its very nature places “the good” over profit, but it can be tricky to pull off for that same reason.

As you can see, these concepts of marketing represent schools of thought from which you can approach your marketing efforts. You may never use some of them or you may use all of them. What you choose and when depends on the totality of your environment, which includes the kinds of customers and the overall social climate in which you live. Think about your strategy carefully and never be afraid to experiment.

A business in today’s world will need to ask itself the following question in relation to this marketing concept: A re businesses that create products people love acting in the best long-run interests of consumers and society?

For example, McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants and not really getting this “societal marketing thing…” Most fast-food companies offer tasty but unhealthy food. (The bane of our existences)

The food typically will have high fat content and will then supplement those meals with fries, pies and soda which also are not healthy choices either. The food is then wrapped in convenient packing which most times ends up on the ground somewhere as waste.

Cydney Hatch

Leave a comment, featured posts.

Disruptive Advertising Named One of UV50’s Fastest Growing Companies For the Fifth Year in a Row

How Seth Hymes Turns Broke College Students into Successful Digital Marketers with No Prior Experience

Cost of Instagram Ads in 2022: The Ultimate Guide

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

Published: December 27, 2023

For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you’ve suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you‘ve never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you’re looking for:

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

• State your business's mission.
• Determine the KPIs for this mission.
• Identify your buyer personas.
• Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
• Clearly define your plan's omissions.
• Define your marketing budget.
• Identify your competition.
• Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business‘s main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

Also, make sure to check whether your current reporting software facilitates the KPIs you need. Some reporting tools can only measure a set of pre-defined metrics, which can cause massive headaches in particular marketing campaigns.

However, other tools, like HubSpot’s analytics software , can offer full flexibility over the KPIs you wish to track. You can generate custom reports that reveal anything from average website engagement rates to page visits via organic, email, social media traffic, and more.   

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section , I like to stipulate:

• Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
• How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
• The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
• The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

Build out your marketing plan with this free template.

Fill out this form to access the template., 5. clearly define your plan's omissions..

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who’s doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

• Executive Summary
• Target Customers
• Unique Selling Proposition
• Pricing & Positioning Strategy
• Distribution Plan
• Your Offers
• Marketing Materials
• Promotions Strategy
• Online Marketing Strategy
• Conversion Strategy
• Joint Ventures & Partnerships
• Referral Strategy
• Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
• Retention Strategy
• Financial Projections

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall‘s content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how he:

• Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.
• Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.
• Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.
• Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
• Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.
• Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.
• Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we‘ve built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we’ve learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

• What exactly content marketing is.
• Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.
• Who should lead your content marketing efforts?
• How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.
• How to hire the right people for each role on your team.
• What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.
• What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.
• The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.
• And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size — whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you‘ll implement to promote a new product. And if you’re searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product :

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

• Validate a product
• Write strategic objectives
• Identify your market
• Compile a competitive landscape
• Create a value proposition for a new product
• Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour’s Growth Marketing Plan Template :

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

• Experiments

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

• Louisville Tourism
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Visit Oxnard
• Safe Haven Family Shelter
• Wright County Economic Development
• The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
• Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Visit Billings

1. Louisville Tourism

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

• The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry
• The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand
• Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

2. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors — thus entering the consideration stage — the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

• The plan incorporates competitive analysis, evaluation surveys, and other research to determine the makeup of its target audience
• The plan lists each marketing program (e.g., direct mail, social media, email etc.) and supplements it with examples on the next page
• Each marketing program has its own objectives, tactics, and KPIs for measuring success

3. Visit Oxnard

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

• States clear and actionable goals for the coming year
• Includes data and other research that shows how their team made their decisions
• Outlines how the team will measure the success of their plan

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

• Confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives
• Uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts of the plan
• Closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future

5. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development’s plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who’d like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who’d like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative — which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

• Begins with a quick paragraph stating why the recommended changes are important
• Uses clear graphics and bullet points to emphasize key points
• Includes specific budget data to support decision-making

6. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county’s cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That’s a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you’re addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

• Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text
• Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy
• Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals
• Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

7. Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau

Cabarrus County’s convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county’s target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau’s staff members, so that it’s easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

• Uses infographics to expand on specific concepts, like how visitors benefit a community
• Highlights the team members responsible for each initiative with a photo to emphasize accountability and community
• Closes with an event calendar for transparency into key dates for events

8. Visit Billings

Visit Billing’s comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County’s in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization’s prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets — a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

• Includes a section on the buyer journey, which offers clarity on the reasoning for marketing plan decisions
• Design includes call-outs for special topics that could impact the marketing audience, such as safety concerns or "staycations"
• Clear headings make it easy to scan this comprehensive report and make note of sections a reader may want to return to for more detail

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

• Target audience

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

• Target audience or buyer personas for the app
• Outline of how app features meet audience needs
• Competitive analysis
• Goals for conversion funnel and user acquisition
• Marketing strategies and tactics for user acquisition

Featured resource : Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

• Clear analysis of the target market
• A detailed description of the product or service
• Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)
• Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource : Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you‘re planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It’s literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

• Marketing goals
• Executive summary
• Target market analysis
• Marketing strategies

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you‘re stuck or want to make sure you’ve included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

• Who is my target audience?
• What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?
• How does our product or service solve their problems?
• How will I reach and engage them?
• Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?
• What are the unique selling points of my product or service?
• What marketing channels are best for the brand?
• What is our budget and timeline?
• How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource : Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

• Business summary
• Business initiatives
• Target market
• Market strategy
• Marketing channels
• Marketing technology

Let’s create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template .

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience’s valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform].

The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

• Profession:
• Background:
• Pain points:
• Social media platforms that they use:
• Streaming platforms that they prefer:

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool .

Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.

Then, determine any omissions.

This marketing plan won’t be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

5. Define your marketing budget.

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.

6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

• Which platforms do they use the most?
• How does their branding differentiate?
• How do they talk to their audiences?
• What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.

Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs.

• Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy.

• Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Customer Service will nurture clients’ relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

Demystifying Marketing's 6 Biggest Mixed Messages of 2024 with Jasper's Head of Enterprise Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies & How to Improve Your Digital Presence

9 Pivotal Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024, According to Experts

Diving Deep Into Marketing in Construction (My Takeaways)

11 Recommendations for Marketers in 2024 [New Data]

The Top 5 B2C Marketing Trends of 2024 [New HubSpot Blog Data + Expert Insights]

5 Marketing Trends That Might Not Survive in 2024 [HubSpot Research + Expert Insights]

Everything You Need to Know About Webinar Marketing

7 Marketing Questions Teams are Asking in 2024 (+Data & Insights)

50 Small Business Marketing Ideas for 2024

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

Resources: Discussions and Assignments

Module 13 assignment: marketing mix examples.

Open Pedagogy Assignments are assignments in which students use their agency and creativity to create knowledge artifacts that can support their own learning, their classmates’ learning, and the learning of students around the world. (See this peer-reviewed article for more details.) The assignment on this page is aligned to the learning outcomes of Introduction to Business and we’ve identified the module where the reading appears. All of the assignments can be created with a cell phone camera or any video recording device, Google or Word documents, and your learning management system.

In the Marketing Function module, we cover the 4Ps: Products, Promotion, Place, and Price. Even if you haven’t had experience with marketing, you have a lot of experience as a customer. What is the marketing mix of one of your favorite brand? Think of the marketing mix as a recipe that can be adjusted—through small adjustments or dramatic changes—to support broader company goals.

Using your cell phone or any other recording device, create a short video about the 4Ps of one of your favorite products. You don’t have to edit or create a professional-grade film. You’ve most likely have done this type of recording already on social media, so feel free to use the same informal conversational tone.

Do an internet search for a product of your choice. Research for areas of their website where they mention details about their products, promotions, places, and price. Think of your audience as fellow students who are interested to learn about these ideas because they want to learn important marketing concepts. In your video, you can address the following:

• What are some interesting points on the website about the product?
• What are their promotions? What’s the price? Where can you find the product?
• If you have had experience with the company of your choice, and you feel comfortable sharing your experience, tell your audience what worked or didn’t work for you about their marketing. What can they improve?

A Note To Teachers: For this assignment, the first term students will be creating the videos, and then the next term’s students can respond to the videos. After you have two terms of examples, use the best three from the batch as examples and start the process over again. Using the videos as starting points for OL discussion boards may work as well. If you are using the Salty Paws Case Study, you could refer back to that assignment as guidance for your students who may be learning these concepts for the first time.

• Open Pedagogy Assignment: Marketing Mix Examples. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/10-references

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

28.23: Assignment- Marketing Mix Examples

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 45631

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)

\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)

\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)

\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)

Open Pedagogy Assignments are assignments in which students use their agency and creativity to create knowledge artifacts that can support their own learning, their classmates’ learning, and the learning of students around the world. (See this peer-reviewed article for more details.) The assignment on this page is aligned to the learning outcomes of Introduction to Business and we’ve identified the module where the reading appears. All of the assignments can be created with a cell phone camera or any video recording device, Google or Word documents, and your learning management system.

Learning Objectives

• Give examples of the marketing mix

In the Marketing Function module, we cover the 4Ps: Products, Promotion, Place, and Price. Even if you haven’t had experience with marketing, you have a lot of experience as a customer. What is the marketing mix of one of your favorite brand? Think of the marketing mix as a recipe that can be adjusted—through small adjustments or dramatic changes—to support broader company goals.

Using your cell phone or any other recording device, create a short video about the 4Ps of one of your favorite products. You don’t have to edit or create a professional-grade film. You’ve most likely have done this type of recording already on social media, so feel free to use the same informal conversational tone.

Do an internet search for a product of your choice. Research for areas of their website where they mention details about their products, promotions, places, and price. Think of your audience as fellow students who are interested to learn about these ideas because they want to learn important marketing concepts. In your video, you can address the following:

• What are some interesting points on the website about the product?
• What are their promotions? What’s the price? Where can you find the product?
• If you have had experience with the company of your choice, and you feel comfortable sharing your experience, tell your audience what worked or didn’t work for you about their marketing. What can they improve?

A Note To Teachers: For this assignment, the first term students will be creating the videos, and then the next term’s students can respond to the videos. After you have two terms of examples, use the best three from the batch as examples and start the process over again. Using the videos as starting points for OL discussion boards may work as well. If you are using the Salty Paws Case Study, you could refer back to that assignment as guidance for your students who may be learning these concepts for the first time.

Contributors and Attributions

• Open Pedagogy Assignment: Marketing Mix Examples . Authored by : Lumen Learning . License : CC BY: Attribution

Assignment on Marketing Concept

Added on   2020-10-05

About this Document

End of preview

Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.

Marketing Essentials Assignment - Beauty Giant company lg ...

Marketing essentials assignment pdf : beauty giant lg ..., unit 2. marketing essentials assignment lg ..., marketing essentials of beauty giant: assignment lg ..., the marketing mix 4p’s and 7p’s: assignment lg ..., roles and responsibilities of marketing function in modern organisations lg ....

Table of Contents

What is holistic marketing, holistic marketing example, 3 features of holistic marketing philosophy, 5 reasons to have holistic marketing, 5 holistic marketing concepts and components, ready to learn more, a complete guide to holistic marketing.

When you think of the word marketing, what’s the first thing that pops up in your mind? Billboards? Social media ? Email ? Influencers ? Marketing is a very diverse field and it can be hard to choose the best approach for your business. At the same time, the way we do business is advancing at a rapid pace. So the best way to choose the most effective marketing approach is to look at it from a holistic perspective. In this article, we will discuss the holistic marketing concept and how to use it for the benefit of your business.

Holistic marketing concept considers all the different parts of a business as one single entity. It is based on the premise that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As such, there is a shared aim and purpose for all the activities related to a business. This ensures that each person in every department, from sales to operations to HR to marketing and others, work towards one common goal.

Coca-Cola has one of the best examples of holistic marketing concept. They have recently refreshed their entire global identity to “Real Magic”. The idea behind this strategy is to showcase the brand’s goal to refresh the world and make a difference. Manuel Arroyo, the global chief marketing officer for The Coca-Cola Company says, “Real Magic is not just a tagline. We see it as a philosophy that transcends advertising and embodies all that is special about the brand.”

There are three main features of holistic marketing philosophy: a common goal, aligned activities, and integrated activities.

• Common Goal - All parts of the business focus on a single goal to provide a great customer experience.
• Aligned Activities - All activities, processes, and communication that occur within the business should be aligned towards the achievement of the common goal.
• Integrated Activities - All activities done within the business should be designed and integrated such that they work in a cohort to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience.

Become a Digital Marketing Professional

Post graduate program in digital marketing.

• Joint Purdue-Simplilearn Digital Marketer Certificate
• Become eligible to be part of the Purdue University Alumni Association

Here's what learners are saying regarding our programs:

Allan Joaquin

Senior copywriter , ami group.

Completing the PGP in Digital Marketing course and gaining knowledge in the field allowed me to service new clients who needed consultancy on digital marketing strategies. I was also able to increase my revenue by 50%.

Michael Anastasiadis

I have recently completed Simplilearn’s Digital Marketing Program. This unique experience was full of live classes, e-learning content, real-world projects and tests. And I gained extensive knowledge regarding all basic disciplines of digital marketing: SEO, Social Media, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, PPC, and more.

The needs of customers are constantly changing. Customers make purchases only after a lot of research both offline and online for the right product. Thus holistic marketing is the need of the hour to ensure that the customer chooses your product over your competition. Here are some more reasons why you need holistic marketing:

1. Brand Building

One of the best ways to build brand awareness is by highlighting the core values of a brand across all platforms. Since consumer behaviors are always changing, it is necessary that a company maintains consistency across multiple channels to ensure maximum branding capacity.

Also Read: Benefits of Branding that You Must Know About

A consistent and clear messaging allows the customer to focus on the core values of a business. These core values make people associate the brand with its values and not just its products. 

3. Efficiency

Holistic marketing increases the communication between different parts of a business as everyone has a shared goal. Furthermore, it ensures that all business processes are in harmony with one another to boost brand awareness.

4. Effectiveness

Holistic marketing focuses on long-term goals and allows a business to flourish and make the best use of its resources. Apple is another company that successfully uses holistic marketing. Most people usually make a purchase decision for an iPhone or Mac even before they enter the showroom. 

5. Cohesiveness

Rather than having conflicting information in different areas of your brand, holistic marketing brings everything under one roof. This presents greater consistency and cohesiveness to all your customers.

Holistic marketing has five different components that come together to unify a company’s brand image.

1. Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing is centered on the relationships you have with your potential and existing customers, employees, partners, and competitors. This component of holistic marketing focuses on creating a comprehensive business plan with long-term goals that cover the whole business system. The main goal is to focus on marketing activities that create a strong, emotional bond and cultivate loyalty from these stakeholders, rather than simply interacting with them only when required.

2. Internal Marketing

Holistic marketing sees two types of customers - internal and external. While external customers are the top priority for any business, internal customers (employees) also play a vital role in the marketing process. Internal marketing treats employees as customers who must be convinced of the company’s core values just as aggressively as its external customers. This ensures that they understand their role in the marketing process.

3. Integrated Marketing

Integrated marketing creates a seamless experience for the consumer to interact with the brand by integrating various communication channels (sales promotion, public relations, advertising, direct marketing, digital marketing , etc). This ensures that the communication is in sync and projects a strong and focused brand image.

4. Societal Marketing

Societal or socially responsible marketing involves a broader concern for society at large. It follows the philosophy that a business is part of a society and should give back to it. This requires following certain business ethics and focusing on philanthropy and community organizations. Societal marketing encourages all stakeholders of a business to have a positive impact on society.

5. Performance Marketing

Performance marketing is focused on the different activities of a business, such as selling a product or service, ethical and legal responsibilities as a business, brand and customer equity, etc.

Holistic marketing is all about creating a synergy that effectively reinforces a brand’s image in the minds of customers. With the changing attitudes of customers and the business environment, it is the only way to ensure that businesses stay on top of their game. If you want to learn more about holistic marketing, you can sign up for Simplilearn’s Post Graduate Program in Digital Marketing , created in partnership with Purdue University.

Q1. What is holistic performance marketing?

Holistic performance marketing analyzes the immediate returns like long term value drivers, sales revenue, customer loss rate, product quality, market share, etc. 

Q2. What is the difference between holistic marketing and market segmentation?

When the target market is divided into subgroups based on different characteristics, it is called market segmentation. Whereas, unifying a market for a shared goal is called holistic marketing. 

Q3. What are the different dimensions of holistic marketing?

There are three essential features of holistic marketing - first, a common objective; second, aligned activities and lastly, integrated activities. 

Q4. What are 7 different marketing strategies?

The famous 7 Ps of marketing are pricing, promotion, physical evidence, product, people, place and processes. A mix of these Ps is important to build a sustainable marketing strategy.

Our Digital Marketing Courses Duration And Fees

Digital Marketing Courses typically range from a few weeks to several months, with fees varying based on program and institution.

Get Free Certifications with free video courses

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing Tools and Techniques

Introduction to Digital Marketing Fundamentals Course

Learn from Industry Experts with free Masterclasses

Get the First Mover Advantage with AI in Digital Marketing

How to Pivot Your Digital Marketing to the New Normal: Expert Tips and Strategies

Deep Dive into AI's Impact on Content in Digital Age

Recommended Reads

Introductory Digital Marketing Guide

Digital Marketing Learning Decoded- Here’s How to Become a Digital Marketing Expert

25 Digital Marketing Skills To Master

Digital Marketing Career Guide: A Playbook to Becoming a Digital Marketing Specialist

Digital Marketing vs Content Marketing

What is Digital Marketing and How Does It Work?

Get Affiliated Certifications with Live Class programs

• PMP, PMI, PMBOK, CAPM, PgMP, PfMP, ACP, PBA, RMP, SP, and OPM3 are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.