Marketing

Marketing can be seen differently by different people; on the one hand it can be simply selling a product once it has been created. On the other hand it can be seen as communicating a product’s worth or value proposition, so that a customer is aware and hopefully feels in need of its existence. This latter way of seeing marketing has become more important in the development of the internet, where thanks to social media, marketing has become more of a conversation with the consumer. This can be taken a step further since, as was said in the lecture, thanks to the internet we are now ‘co-creating the market place’ with the consumer since, for example, a review of a book by a customer on Amazon can market a book just as well, if not better than the publisher’s product description above it.

Marketing is more than just selling a product once is has been created because often the foresight as to how one will market a product can often determine its development and even its creation or type of innovation. We discussed whether publishers should be looking to sell products to existing markets or to new markets. Depending on the decision taken by a publisher, this could determine the type of product created and in what medium for example the now common concept of developing new markets creating books for purchasers of the ipad who may not tend to carry a book on the train but may be willing to read on their device.