Page 140 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 7: Marketing of Information

Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the Notes
customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of
business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by
mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. The adoption of marketing strategies
requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their
customers as the means of staying profitable.
The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the
needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order
to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of
consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.

7.1 Concept of Marketing of Information

Marketing is further defined by the AMA as an organizational function and a set of processes for
creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships
in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. The term developed from an original
meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a
systems point of view, sales process engineering marketing is “a set of processes that are interconnected
and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively
new approaches.”
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as “the management process responsible
for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” A different concept
is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing
shareholder value. In this context, marketing is defined as “the management process that seeks to
maximize returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating
a competitive advantage.”
Marketing means working with markets to actualize potential exchanges for the purpose of satisfying
human needs and wants. It is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing,
promotion and distribution of goods, services and ideas to create exchanges with target groups that
satisfy customer and organizational objectives (Kotler, 1996).
In terms of libraries, marketing means a sufficient change in the traditional attitude of librarians
towards acquisition, organization, processing and retrieving information. The basis of library service
should be to help its users to solve their information gathering and processing needs. This the
library can do only if it relies on systematic information collection, procedures and policies and
adjusts its products, services and organizational policies and procedures to the demands of the
users.

7.2 Need of Marketing Practice

Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising,
distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of
social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the
profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-
Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through
market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre- and post-sales promotional
activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts.

The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according
to the times and the culture.

Browne in 2010 reveals that supermarkets intensively research and study consumer behaviour,
spending millions of dollars. Their aim is to make sure that shoppers leave spending much more

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