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Marketing Concepts And Orientations

Introduction

The concept of marketing has evolved over time. Whilst in today’s business world "the customer is king". In the past this was not the case, some businesses put factors other than the customer first. This article examines factors that businesses may orientate their marketing around, so that you can recognise when your marketing strategy is orientated around something other than the customer.

Four of the common things that firms orientate their marketing around are captured in the marketing concepts diagram below.

Production Orientation

The focus for the business is to reduce costs through mass production. A business orientated around production believes that the "economies of scale" generated by mass production will reduce costs and maximise profits. A production orientated business needs to avoid production efficiency processes which affect product design and quality. Compromising product design and quality for the sake of production is likely to reduce the product's appeal to customers.

Product Orientation

A product orientated company believes that its product's high quality and functional features make it a superior product. Such a company believes that if they have a superior product customers will automatically like it as well. The problem with this approach is that superiority alone does not sell products; superior products will not sell unless they satisfy consumer wants and needs.

Sales Orientation

A sales orientated company's focus is simple; make the product, and then sell it to the target market. This type of orientation involves the organisation making what they think the customer needs or likes without relevant research. However as we know sales usually aren't this simple. An effective marketing strategy requires market and marketing research, prior to product development and finally an effective promotion strategy.

Market Orientation

A market orientated company puts the customer at the "heart" of the business; all activities in the organisation are based around the customer. The customer is truly king!. A market orientated organisation endeavours to understand customer needs and wants, then implements marketing strategy based on their market research; from product development through to product sales. Once sales have begun further research will be conducted to find out what consumers think about the product and whether product improvements are required. As markets continuously change, market research and product development is an ongoing process for a market orientation company.