From the course: Understanding Business

Marketing basics

From the course: Understanding Business

Marketing basics

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- Who is our customer? Where is our customer? How many items do they want to buy? And at what price? Answering these questions is the primary responsibility of our marketing team. While many believe marketing is about commercials and packaging, marketing's first task is to understand our present customers and to find new customers. What marketing learns from their research helps the organization make all sorts of decisions, product design, customer service, packaging, delivery options, and even corporate ads. They're all influenced by what we learn from the marketing team. For example, Starbucks is a massive, multi-national coffee company. They have so many resources, they could do so many things to grow. Therefore, Starbucks leans heavily on the marketing team. They're looking at store sales, they monitor social media traffic and discover new trends. Marketing might even bring in customers for focus groups to learn about how these individuals respond to new products. More generally, the marketing team might look at demographic data like age groups, growing communities and consumer trends. Marketing would probably also study competitor behavior. This information is then used to help Starbucks launch new products at the right price. And marketing then helps devise advertisements for that new product's target customer. On a more general scale, marketing helps Starbucks identify up-and-coming areas that will need a new Starbucks store and with their research, marketing might even help Starbucks pick the best types of music to play in their different stores. So now, I want you to consider one of your favorite companies. Maybe a company like Apple, Coca-Cola, Amazon, or Disney. These companies have decades of success. Decades of success don't happen on accident, they are the result of knowing the customer, making them happy, and finding new customers too. Or maybe consider a company that you don't like at all. Think about how that company has failed to connect with their customer or perhaps even done things to upset customers. These are companies that didn't understand the value of a good marketing team. So as you look to grow your company, remember, long-term success requires that you build a relationship with your customer. And for ultra-successful companies, marketing is a vital partner in making good decisions that satisfy customers today and help our company grow in the future.

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