new business module

50
BUSINESS SKILLS
Customers buy products to satisfy a need or solve a problem.
Satisfied customers are the key to a successful business.
Without sales a business cannot exist. This underlines the great
importance of knowing how to sell products to people, i.e.
how to market products. This module is dedicated to the
subject of marketing: it introduces the concept, explains the
central topics of interest when conducting market research,
and presents the principal marketing parameters and illustrates
how they can be combined.
Session 1: The basic concept of
marketing
This session begins with a general overview of what marketing
is. It then discusses the information that is required to market
products and the points to take into account when doing so.
The points are important building blocks of marketing and
important for participants to understand.
1.1 The concept of marketing
When entrepreneurs define their business idea, they determine
what product they want to produce and whom they want
to produce it for. They also have to decide how their product
is best presented and sold to potential customers.
The objective of marketing is to make products appealing to
customers in order to sell as many of them as possible. To
achieve this objective, entrepreneurs obviously have to know
what their target customers desire. They have to research the
market (see also Module 3). Marketing is about many things,
including:
• finding out what customers want;
• creating good will in the marketplace;
• providing products of satisfactory quality;
• choosing a good distribution mechanism;
• finding the best way to inform potential customers;
• determining business hours;
• designing appealing products;
• designing appealing packaging;