Principles of marketing
This chapter introduces you to the basic concepts of marketing. We start with the question, What is marketing? Simply put, marketing is managing profitable customer relationships. The aim of marketing is to create value for customers and capture value from customers in return. Next we discuss the five steps in the marketing process—from understanding customer needs, to designing customer driven marketing strategies and integrated marketing programs, to building customer relationships and capturing value for the firm. Finally, we discuss the major trends and forces affecting marketing in this age of customer relationships. Understanding these basic concepts and forming your own ideas about what they really mean to you will give you a solid foundation for all that follows.
Let’s start with a good story about marketing in action at
Zappos.com, one of the world’s fastest-growing Web retailers. The secret to Zappos’ success? It’s really no secret at all. Zappos is flat-out customer obsessed. It has a passion for creating customer value and
relationships. In return, customers reward Zappos with their brand loyalty and buying dollars. You’ll see this theme of creating customer
value in order to capture value in return repeated throughout this first
chapter and the remainder of the text.
