The changing face of marketing

The changing face of marketing/h2>

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It is nearly a truism that the needs and wants of the consumer are the critical issues today in creating new products and services, and developing the accompanying plans to merchandise them at a profit. But this trend—the first on my list—is still in process of evolution. The need to understand and anticipate future customers is bound to become even more essential than in the past, because the end users of almost every company’s products are shifting in makeup, location, and number at an ever-increasing rate.



The significance of this to senior marketing executives is twofold: First, they cannot—indeed, they must not—assume that yesterday’s customers will be available tomorrow. Second, they had better be certain that they have adequate sources of market information. Unless they can keep up with what is happening to their markets, the whole company’s selling effort may ultimately be directed at the wrong people with the wrong products and at the wrong time. This is what a marketing vice president I know meant when he said, “My company’s sales output can’t be any better than my intelligence input



Consider a few of the changes in the nature of consumers and markets:



Sociologists and marketers agree that people are becoming more interested in use than in ownership. One can rent or lease everything from garden tools to machine tools to cars. Annual rental income, not including car and truck rentals, is close to the $750 million mark. The value of equipment being leased, currently about $1 billion, may well double in five years. This trend could affect the channels of selling, pricing arrangements, sales appeals, or even the characteristics of the product line (such as the increasing sale of disposable items).



There has been disproportionate growth in the market for personal services, including recreation, education, and travel. Depending on whose statistics you choose to believe, consumer services now account for 40 percent to 50 percent of all consumer purchases. 서울출장안마 A whole series of demographic changes hold significance for the producer of consumer goods—in particular, the explosive growth of the teenage and young-adult market, the migration of blue-collar workers to the suburbs, the increase in per capita income, and the ever-growing mobility of our population. To the consumer-goods manufacturer, the wholesaler, and the retailer, this means there is no such thing as stability of customers.



People’s tastes are becoming more varied, flexible, and demanding. As just one example, consider the demand for wood products. The traditional lumber manufacturer now produces and sells a multitude of products that were virtually unknown 20 years ago—and all because product research teamed up with marketing to develop products that people wanted and were willing to buy.Another important result of this growing consumer dominance is that today nearly all sales potentials are segmented. Typically, a total market now comprises a series of submarkets, each with its own characteristics and each demanding a different sales approach. For most companies, it is a gross error to develop a marketing program aimed at the “average customer.” Today such a consumer, or such a company, hardly exists. In short, the company that is not alert to the customers’ needs and the changing complexities of marketplaces is inviting disaster.