Understanding the Marketplace & Customer Needs?

As a first step,marketers need to understand customer needs & wants & the market place within which they operate .We now examine five core customer & marketplace concepts;

1-needs, wants & demands 

2-market offerings 

3-value & satisfaction

Customer Needs,Wants & Demands

The most basic concept underlying marketing is that of human needs.Human needs are state of felt deprivation.They include basic physical needs for food, clothing warmth & safety & social needs for affection & individual needs for college & self- expression.These needs were not created by marketer they are a basic part of a human makeup.Wants are the form of human needs take as they shaped by culture & individual  personality.An indian in kolkatta needs food but wants a bowl of rice & fish & a person in Peshawar in Pakistan needs food but wants chapli kebab etc.Wants are shaped by one,s society and are described in terms of object that will satisfay needs when backed by buying power,wants become demands.Given their wants and resoucres ,people demand product with benefits that add up to the most calue & satisfaction.

Outstanding marketing companies go to great lengths to learn about and learn about their customer needs, wants and demans.They conduct consumer research and analyze mountains of customer data..Their people at all levels, including top management ,stay close to customers.. for example Southwest Airlines all senior executives handle bags ,check in passenger and serve as flight attendants once every quater.

Market Offerings-Product Service & experience

Consumer needs and wants are fulfilled through market offerings..some combination of product servies ,information or experience offered to a market to satisfy a need or want.Market offerings are not limited to physical products .they also include service,activities or benefits offer for sale that are essentially intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything but experience.Examples include banking,air travle hotel stays etc.

More broadly,Market offering also include other entities such as persons,places or organizational information and ideas.

Many sellers make a mistake of paying more ateention to the specific products they offer them then to the benefit and experience produced by  these products.these sellers suffer from Marketing myopia ..They are so taken with their products and they focus on only existing wants and loose sight of underlying customer needs .They forget taht a product is only a tool to solve a consumer problem.