Marketing Concepts

Marketing is described as the process by which prospective consumers make a decision about a product or service and the manner in which this decision is made. Marketing is carried out through a variety of channels; both offline and online. Marketers use various types of marketing strategies to influence the purchasing decisions of customers. These include; retail advertising, media marketing, social marketing, and web marketing.

Marketing has three distinct yet interconnected characteristics. It is human influenced; it is institutional and it is interactive. These three characteristics of marketing make marketing theories and concepts important for understanding consumer behavior. These theories and concepts can be studied in any marketing program, as they are inherently related to marketing.

Marketing theories are useful when marketers attempt to evaluate their own marketing techniques and attempt to improve upon them so that they are more effective. When studying marketing theories, marketers should pay close attention to three important concepts: marketing myopia, marketing diffusion, and comparative marketing analysis. Marketing myopia is the tendency to focus on only one aspect of the market rather than an entire concept. Marketing diffusion is the practice of paying only partial attention to a product concept or overall marketing concept. Finally, comparing marketing concepts provides a method for evaluating marketing efforts in relation to the products and services offered.