Principles of Marketing and Marketing as a Science - Research Paper Example

Principles of Marketing Outline Introduction Analysis Conclusion References Principles of Marketing Marketing as a Science Introduction Marketing, in general terms, can be described as the interaction of businesses or companies with their clients to create a relationship that is beneficial to both parties. Marketing becomes so helpful to the businesses to identify their clients before embarking on other marketing activities such as advertisements and sales promotions. In marketing terms, however, it can be defined as a management process through which goods and services are delocalized from the concept to the clients (BusinessDictionary, 2013). It is a function that involves the coordination of four elements, best known as the 4Ps of marketing. These Ps include price, promotion, place and product. Therefore, a good marketing will ensure the right product is selected or determined, its price set, the customer is informed through the right promotional channel and the product reaches the customer at the right place and time. For example, a company like Dell produces a variety of products for various segments of customers, these products are at different prices as per their quality, size, features, and functionality. The products will then be sold at places where Dell determines as its areas where its customers can get access to the products easily. For Dell to increase public knowledge about its products, it uses various media to advertize its products to its customers. The selection of the medium must be done well to ensure the targeted audiences receive the advertisement information. Marketing is, therefore, majorly about thinking about customers and how to satisfy them. Marketing can, therefore, be distinguished from selling by the fact that, selling concerns the tricks of getting people to exchange their money for your product. It is less concerned about those values that the exchange is meant to be about. There has been a heavy debate, however, about whether marketing is truly a science or art, or both. This paper aims to find out exactly why marketing is a science. Analysis In as much as various schools of thought regard marketing as an art, there is more science displayed by this discipline than art, in my view. In fact, I dont think that one can make a good marketer or marketing manager without the inclusion of science in their practice. It should be clear that marketing is a science because it is a management function that involves understanding and influencing behaviors. Psychology, which is a science, studies peoples behavior (George, 2013). Therefore, marketing is also a science since it also studies behavior of clients. Psychology studies the reaction of people to stimuli in ways that are predictable. It becomes similar to Newtons third law of motion that talks about reaction being there for every action that take place. This is the same thing that happens with marketing since for every marketing action; there is normally a reaction. Therefore, here, marketing is the science of anticipating reactions to the actions of the customers. Marketers need to analyze the behaviors of various customers in order to make a clear classification of those customers into various groups, called segments. Segmentation of customers is a marketing practice where customers with similar buying behaviors are placed under one group (Kotler & Caslione, 2009). It is easier for a marketer to use this particular group or segment, when allocating prices for products sold to this segment, when designing products that best suit this particular segment and to decide the type of advertisement or promotional media to use for the customer segment. The behaviors that are used to assist in this grouping include spending behaviors, lifestyle, gender-related behaviors and age-related behaviors. For example, a company that sells clothes may decide to group their customers into several groups depending on their age-related behaviors. The result will be as illustrated in the table below. Adult Youth Children This company will, therefore, design and sell different clothes that fit the various groups that they shall have identified. However, for them to make such a grouping, critical behavioral analysis need to be carried out. For example, youths are normally considered to be stylish and fashionable. Therefore, in designing their clothes, the company must have the two factors in mind. One cannot sell clothes meant for old people to the youths. He will realize very little sales since the clothes will lack the taste of fashion. Similarly, when one grows up to become an adult, they tend to associate with a given level of respect and standards in the society. Therefore, the adults tend to dress appropriately and respectfully. To be able to make all these decisions, one must have a good understanding of peoples behavior. They will need to study the behaviors to make a decision. This then qualifies marketing to be a science since it involves studying behaviors of various groups of people (Kotler & Keller, 2006). In marketing, we measure and analyze numbers. These are functions that are only considered scientific (Kotler & Amstrong, 2001). Marketers are faced with challenges in their analysis to find out the number of prospects that they are able to reach, the number of people who read their messages, the number of those reading the marketing message who are converted to buyers, the much that those converted to buyers spend and the number that comes back to buy. These are analysis that are mathematical in nature. Correct mathematical analysis to these prospects can be of help when trying to draw marketing decisions and conclusions. Mathematics and accounting are known to be very useful sciences in business. Therefore, we have the authority to pronounce marketing to be a science. To marketers, the question of how much money they should spend on marketing is very common. This makes marketing to be a science. It is the responsibility of the business owners and the accountants of the businesses to give the right answers to this kind of question. This question is normally a good one. However, the most important question that a business owner needs to be asking is the amount of return that the business investment is likely to receive or is expected from the investment. This is a question that is measurable and is only answerable by science (Wharton, 2011). The accountant, business owner or a business advisor can be able to project the amount of return that a marketing investment is likely to yield. There are various scientific methods that are known to be for forecasting. Several forecasting methods are based on scientific backgrounds. They use economic and mathematical principles to make prediction (Scott, 2013). Therefore, for a marketer to be able to able to know how much return his investment in marketing activities can yield, he will be forced to go the scientific way in order to unravel this puzzle. The table below shows historical data and the forecasted data on sales of XYZ Company. October November December (Forecasted Value) Marketing Cost $230,000 $250,000 $270,000 Return on Investment $7,000,000 $8,500,000 $10,000,000 Scientific method must be applied to bring up the December values, or to predict these values. This prediction will let the business owner know whether the business expects to make a positive or a negative return on the investment made. In the case where the predicted figures were lower than the historical figures, the business owner will have to make an informed decision not to invest that much on marketing (Pat, 2014). Either way, the business owner may decide to change the marketing strategy to ensure that the forecasted return will be higher than, if not equal to the immediate historical values. In this case, we find a business owner being able to make informed decisions on the basis of scientific calculations of marketing that he was able to carry out. Therefore, it is, without any doubt, that marketing is a science. Conclusion Marketing has had various confusing concepts on whether it is a science or not. Of this, should not dispute the fact that marketing is an art too. However, because several people have highly doubted whether marketing can be a science, the debate about this issue has not been well understood. The research and analysis that has been done by this study has, hopefully, cleared a lot of such doubts that existed. With the help of this analysis, people will now consider marketing as a science due to the several logical analysis that have explained above. Marketing involves various mathematical and accounting concepts that are used to make various analysis. Being that mathematics and accounting are well known as sciences, their use in marketing to make analysis and draw conclusions make marketing also a science. Marketing also uses scientific principles such as behavioral analysis to determine what the requirement of people is. With behavioral analysis, marketers can find out what various customers consume and the amount they consume. This will guide marketing and manufacturing functions to carry out informed decisions when designing products for such particular group of customers with similar behavioral requirement. Marketing also makes marketers react to the actions of the customers, and this is a typical application of Newtons law of motion in physics. All these explanations describe marketing as a science. Hence, it is a science. References BusinessDictionary, 2013. Marketing. [Online] Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing.html [Accessed 24 November 2014]. George, T., 2013. Marketing- Art or Science?. Articles for Business Profession, pp. 1-2. Kotler, P. & Amstrong, G., 2001. Principles of Marketing. New York: Prentice Hall. Kotler, P. & Cas lione, J., 2009. Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence. New York: AMACOM Publishing. Kotler, P. & Keller, K., 2006. Marketing Management. 12th ed. New York: Pearson Prentice Hall. Pat, O., 2014. Is Marketing Art of Science. [Online] Available at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/marketing-art-science-0817450 [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Scott, B., 2013. 4 Principles of Marketing as a Science. [Online] Available at: http://searchengineland.com/4-principles-of-marketing-as-a-science-156082 [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Wharton, 2011. Reach the Marketing Balance: Art or Science. [Online] Available at: http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-at-work/2011/06/art-science-marketing [Accessed 24 November 2014]. Read More