The marketing process

A firm will gather information about the marketplace (eg whether house prices are rising or falling), and then research consumers' needs. From this, it will identify who its market is, and then put together a marketing plan based on the findings. The marketing mix will be central to this, and finding the right balance in each of the 4Ps is very important. The firm can then review and adapt their plan when they need to. You should remember the following points:

• Although marketing is consumer-orientated, the main aim is still to be profitable.
• A good marketing manager will try to differentiate their product (ie make their product stand out against similar competitive brands).
• Whatever pricing decision is made, the most important factor is to break even [Break even: Where no profit or loss is made ie where total revenue = total costs. ].
• Making it as easy as possible for the customer to buy the product will help sales to increase.