MARKETING: FISHING FOR CUSTOMER’S PATRONAGE

BREI JEREMY S. HERNANDEZ

Before the customer is won over, there is first a battle for the mind. Next, there is a battle for the heart. Finally, there is a battle for the wallet. In the competitive world of business, there is a stiff competition where every company faces a neck to neck battle between its competitors. Businesses and industries exert a plethora of effort in making their product stand out from the opponents, establish strong brand equity, and to captivate the public's attention by assessing the customer's preferences and satisfying their desires with quality accessible and valuable products. In the modern world, a customer becomes much more important for firms. For this reason, the study of consumer behavior and customer orientation takes a great place. The marketers try to understand the needs of different consumers and having understood the different behaviors which require an in-depth study of their internal and external environment, they formulate their plans for marketing. In a nutshell, marketing is a lot like fishing: you need the best appropriate bait to catch the fish you want to have. A lot of people misunderstood marketing as advertising or sales but, marketing management is much broader in scope. Marketing focuses on how consumers acquire, use, and dispose of goods, services, time, and ideas. It is crucial to contemplate how consumers make decisions because the best way to create and keep customers is to understand what motivates their consumption decisions and anticipate their consumption needs. And it is very important to utilize marketing tactics or gimmicks in the achievement of the business goals, for the customers will define the success of every entity. Marketing is all about customer familiarization and gratifying customer needs. Companies have to look at customer needs in a competitive environment and they have to persuade customers by fulfilling these needs with their offers while giving priceless value with each purchase. By excellent and efficient marketing management, we can build strong brand equity which would eventually result in customer patronage and loyalty, and eventually corporate success.