MARKE-hit-ING

Marketing is benchmarked as "the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising." Taking inspiration from Dr. Philip Kotler's definition — "the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit" — I'd like to add my own spin and coin it as MARKE-hit-ING: the act of promoting a product or service to the right set of target audience.

The right set of target audience can be defined as anything from a market that is unaware a solution to their problem exists, to a market that is unaware the problem itself exists. It all comes down to market analysis, where we have to determine the state of the market's awareness of a problem. I'd argue that thorough market research is as good as winning half the battle — it surfaces almost all the answers to our forthcoming problems. From marketing trends to competitor reach, analytics can shine a spotlight on the entire habitat.

Why is understanding market behaviour so crucial? Consider the two scenarios above: one market is unsatisfied with existing providers and in desperate need of a solution; the other is unaware of the prevailing problem. In the first, do we need to spend effort educating the market about the problem? I'd say no — the market has already pinpointed it, so all we have to do is analyse the competitors' failures and strategize our approach to pitch our solution. In the second, there is a need to enlighten the market about the prevailing problem and its harmful effects on the industry, and then pitch the solution. In both cases, the strategy has to be built on what the analytics tell us — and the same goes for every other scenario.