Overview

Without customers a business will not survive. Consequently, marketing is a critical activity in the business enterprise. Marketing is the business function that most closely focuses on customers, on attempting to understand their needs, on monitoring how these needs change over time and on building lasting relationships with them through the delivery of products and services that customers value.

However recent years have seen some dramatic changes occurring in the business environment. Most notable among these has been the emergence of an 'information society' driven largely by developments in Internet technology. This, along with ongoing industry de-regulation, globalisation, media fragmentation and organizational re-structuring has had a significant impact on how companies manage their marketing activities. A variety of new marketing practices have emerged, including the growth in Internet marketing, the exploitation of databases to 'customise' products and services for customers, an increased focus on building customer loyalty, the growth of category management, experiental marketing and so on. While many marketing fundamentals remain the same, the marketer is operating in a new, more complex context and marketing practices continue to evolve.

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to the theory and practice of marketing in the 21st century. It is frequently suggested that complex problems are best handled through simple solutions. This book adopts a similar perspective. While most of the existing marketing principles textbooks become ever longer and more detailed, this book aims to be concise, returning to and examining the core foundations of marketing. In this way the book will particularly appeal to instructors who teach 'Introduction to Marketing' as a half-year course or one semester module. But the book also takes a contemporary perspective, reviewing the current issues and controversies as well as documenting emerging marketing practices. Finally, the book is explicitly European in its orientation, examining the challenges facing firms operating in the Euro-zone.

The Structure of the Book
There are twelve chapters in the book, which is divided into three main parts, namely the Fundamentals of Marketing, the Marketing Mix and Marketing Strategy & Implementation.

1. Fundamentals of Marketing
This part of the book examines the core aspects of the marketing philosophy of business. We review what it means to be a market-oriented enterprise. We see that an external focus on the marketing environment and a good understanding of customer behaviour are crucial to effective marketing. We examine marketing research and the key concepts of segmentation, targeting and positioning. At all times the focus of our discussion will be on recent developments in these fundamental aspects of marketing.

2. The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix remains the central framework for tackling marketing problems. We will look at recent developments in all the core aspects of product management, pricing, the promotional mix and distribution channel management. We also include a chapter on online marketing in recognition of its growing importance.

3. Marketing Strategy & Implementation
The final part of the book introduces you to the important issues of marketing strategy and implementation. We see the importance of effective marketing planning and the role played by marketing in the overall strategy of the enterprise. Finally, we look at the key question of implementation. As we shall see, no matter how clever the marketing idea or approach, effective implementation is crucial to success.