Before writing about this topic I was not sure whether I should write on this or not because this is a topic which has been either discussed or taught in all of the B Schools all around the world. But the thing is here in India have seen that most of the M.B.A students are not clear about the basic concept of Marketing but yet all of them have a specialized degree on that. Hence I thought that, why not give it a try and make this subject one of the most easiest subjects to learn because the truth is it is very easy not only to understand but also to make others understand that what this subject is all about.
If during the interview, one is asked “what is marketing”? He/she land up saying a bookish answer which now a days the interviewers do not seek. Then what is the point of doing an M.B.A. when you are not capable of giving your own point of views. Since the candidate is an M.B.A. the interviewer will take his/her answer into account. But how many of us are willing to take that step and give our own thoughts. If someone knows the definition by book and not by heart, then he will go for the bookish answer to create a good impression. But does this actually impress the interviewer? The answer is obvious to all of us. So, one has to be different to get noticed. And the only way to do that is to learn the concepts of Marketing by heart. Now, the answer to the question that I was talking about can be, “marketing can be defined as the process of satisfying needs & wants of the consumers.” See, this is how you can place your ideas on how to answer in your own point of view. Not just only this, but there are answers to every questions that is asked to you at the time of your interview.
Now the question may arise that should one only crack the interview? Well no, but since the motive of all of us is to derive a good job out of our study, it is very important that we should cover all aspects of our study.
HOW TO MAKE THE STUDY OF MARKETING EASY
There are lots of ways to make one subject easy, but the most essential way is to make it lovable, certain background about the subject? Well, I have the answer to the question.
It doesn’t matter if you have marketing background or not, but you can certainly learn the subject since you (as a consumer) are the most essential element of this very subject. Believe it or not knowingly or unknowingly we ourselves make lots of marketing decisions ourselves like,
Purchasing our own things.
Making purchasing decisions for us and for others as well.
Planning before investing a big amount of money into one product/service.
Always looking for discounts or offers for almost any products.
Calculating the price before buying anything.
Making a monthly budget for all of the grocery items to be purchased.
Asking for any advice/references from friends or relatives before buying an expensive product etc…
All of these things we do are essential parts of a Marketing which a Marketer has take into consideration and as a Marketer in the future you will have to remember as well. For our monthly household items, rather than males, mostly the women in our family make the decisions and our job is to provide them adequate money to buy those items. But if our income does not permit that, we request them to make an alternative monthly budget for household items and then the search for alternatives begin and that also happens when we get a into a high income group our tastes and preferences differ. This happens with all middle income group people. So here we are very much cautious about making our buying decisions which again is a curtail part of Marketing.
Hence you can clearly see how much an ordinary middle income group family is involved into marketing activities. And now we will discuss how to improve your knowledgebase for the study part.
For this there are several ways,
v Reading marketing journals which will keep you updated with the current Marketing scenario.
v Reading newspaper is one of the best methods for enhancing ones knowledgebase.
v Visiting the local shopping mall at least once a week so you can see how the shelf space decoration is done for particular set of products and why, along with this you will come to know about all the variables of Marketing Mix like,
§ Product size, weight, design variables along with the new and upcoming products.
§ Prices of different products and discounts.
§ How the promotions are being done inside the store and which set of products are getting most of the attentions and why and which products fail to catch the eyes of the consumers.
§ Which product is kept where?
§ How many people are involved in one particular category of product?
§ What are the new styles of Packaging? And what are the materials used for modern day package?
§ For the process part one may require help from the sales person as well will the next slot be arriving or when will the upcoming brands be coming to your nearest outlet.
v Watching the television advertisements carefully to understand what they want to communicate and how, this will help you to understand the advertising message along its objective.
If the above mentioned steps are followed, then you will be sure to have a sound knowledgebase of Marketing.
And one more thing, while studying anything related to marketing, please try and study with the use of modern day examples; this will help you to correlate with the actual subject.
Regards,
S.G.
