Explain the various elements of the marketing concept

The concept of marketing has changed and evolved over time. Whilst in today’s business world, the customer is at the forefront, not all businesses in the past followed this concept. Their thinking, orientation or ideology put other factors rather than the customer first.

After World War II, the variety of products increased and hard selling no longer could be relied upon to generate sales. With increased discretionary income, customers could afford to be selective and buy only those products that precisely met their changing needs, and these needs were not immediately obvious. The key questions became:

Ø  What do customers want?

Ø  Can we develop it while they still want it?

Ø  How can we keep our customers satisfied?

In response to these discerning customers, firms began to adopt the marketing concept, which involves:

Ø  Focusing on customer needs before developing the product

Ø  Aligning all functions of the company to focus on those needs

Ø  Realizing a profit by successfully satisfying customer needs over the long-term

When firms first began to adopt the marketing concept, they typically set up separate marketing departments whose objective it was to satisfy customer needs. Often these departments were sales departments with expanded responsibilities. While this expanded sales department structure can be found in some companies today, many firms have structured themselves into marketing organizations having a company-wide customer focus. Since the entire organization exists to satisfy customer needs, nobody can neglect a customer issue by declaring it a "marketing problem" - everybody must be concerned with customer satisfaction.