Marketing is a strategic approach focused on understanding customer needs and placing them at the forefront of business efforts. It employs segmentation methods, such as demographic, geographic, and behavioral factors, to tailor products and services to specific customer groups. The marketing framework is guided by the 7 P's: product, price, promotion, place, physical evidence, people, and process, all of which work together to enhance customer experience and business functionality.

1. Marketing
What is marketing?
Fundamentally marketing is a strategy most businesses use. It is not focused on gaining
profit but rather gaining knowledge of the customers’ needs and putting the customer
at the centre of all their work. It is impossible to target all customers, so marketers
use a strategy known as segmentation, which is basically splitting the market into
different parts. This will allow you to think about what each type of customer wants.
Segmentation could be done in lots of different ways. However, the most popular
methods are:
1) Demographic – These are key characteristics of customers, for example their
age, gender, income (how much money they earn) or whether they have children.
2) Geographic – This looks at where the customer lives. For example, a big city or a
small village. This will affect what type of products they like.
3) Behavioural – This method is a bit more complicated but it means looking at how
customers behave when they buy products. Do they buy lots of the same
product very often (loyal customers) or do they change what they buy? How
often will customers use your product or service (usage rate)? What do they like
in particular about your product (benefits sought)?
For example, if a customer was looking for a car and they had young children
(demographic segmentation), they may decide to choose a family car such as an SUV, as
this car has lots of storage (behavioural segmentation – benefits sought). So marketers
have to have an idea of the type of customer they want to target but they then have to
develop the product/service around the customer’s needs.
To find out what a customer wants, you need to do some market research. This means
asking questions to your customer to find out what they want. You could ask questions
like ‘how much do you want to pay for my product?’ and ‘what could be improved about
my product?’
Marketing strategy does not work alone but is part of all other business activities e.g.
human resources, finance and customer relationships. These parts work together to
help a business function.
Marketing centres around the 7P’s. These P’s help a business keep on tack and they
should regularly revisit these P’s to ensure they are achieving maximum results.
1) Product- This P refers to the product made. Marketers should ask themselves,
will consumers want this product? Do my competitors have a similar product? If
so how can I make mine more unique? You should consider design (what does the
product look like, is it easy to use?), features (what does the product do?) and
quality (how well is the product made?)

2. 2) Price- This P should be checked regularly to ensure the business is offering an
appropriate price for the product e.g. if competitors are selling a similar pencil
case for two Kenyan shillings and you are selling yours for six Kenyan shilling.
Then you should reduce your price to prevent losing customers. You could offer
a discount (money off) your product to get customers interested.
3) Promotion- The third element in marketing is
promotion. This involves ways of how you tell
your consumers about your products. You must
change promotions, in order to keep customers
attracted. An example would be ‘buy one get one
free’.
4) Place- This element is a crucial one. This is where the product/service is sold. If
you sell your products in areas with a low foot fall (not many people walk by)
then you risk losing a profit as no one really knows about you and our products.
This is why promotion is important, in order to get the word out about your
business. You should also think about how you will deliver your product to the
customer (distribution) and where you will store what you’ve made (inventory).
5) Physical evidence- This is allowing the consumer to see what the
product/service will be like. For example if you go to a shop to buy a dress and
see that the shop is untidy then you are more unlikely to purchase that dress
because the untidiness of the shop has reflected onto that product.
6) People- This refers to the people selling the product e.g. employees. They have
to be well dressed and polite, as this will make the customer feel more
comfortable about purchasing a product.

3. 7) Process- This final P is a fairly new one. It means that the consumers are not
only buying the product but the experience that comes with it such as how long
they have had to wait in line, how fast the delivery was. All these factors results
in what the consumers think about not only your product but the business as
well.
There are multiple methods of marketing. The most popular ones are:
1.) Advertising- This is a form of marketing communications and is intended to draw
the customer to the product/service and hope it matches potential customer’s
values, so he they purchase the product. Typical adverts include colours, humour,
and catchy slogans in order to catch the consumer’s eye. This method happens
all around us, there’s probably even some in your class room. This method can be
used via television, billboards, internet etc.
2) Another method is Word of mouth marketing- This method does not involve
the business doing anything but rather potential customer
and current customers talking about the product provided.
People are more likely to listen to close friends/family about
a product as they can trust their opinion making it more or
less likely that they will come to your store.
As you can see marketing is a lot more than just advertising and involves a lot of
time in planning the perfect product for their target customer. I hope you found
this handout useful ad that you have all learnt something new!