In our daily lives, without any particular focus, we all witness marketing activities of different firms and brands. For instance, the furniture brand IKEA or the cereal brand Kellogs attracts their customers with different marketing activities, such as delivering coupons to the IKEA family card holders or placing fun games and puzzles on cereal and snack packs.

The term market can have a number of meanings. It is used to refer primarily to the place where goods were bought and sold. It can also refer to a geographic area such as Turkish market. In some occasions, “market” refers to the relationship between the demand and supply of a specific product. A market is the cluster of actual and potential buyers of a product or service. These actual and potential buyers have a specific need or want that can be satisfied through exchange relationships.

Industry with a collection of sellers communicates with the market through various integrated marketing communication tools including advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion and direct marketing.Through such communication, sellers inform the market. 

Markets are mainly divided into four categories as; consumer markets, business markets, global markets and nonprofit and governmental markets. 

Consumers are individuals who buy products or services for personal consumption.

Business markets consist of organizations that buy products or services for use in their own businesses or to make other products.

In global markets, companies focus on the selection and exploration of global marketing opportunities and utilize resources around the world for achieving competitive advantage.

Nonprofit institutions are present for providing benefit to society and they are subject to different set of laws.

According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Marketing mainly includes:

• An evaluation of the market and estimates of sales,

• Development of the marketing strategy,

• The planning and operation of the marketing function (internal and external) for maximizing sales,
• Conducting promotional activities,

• Setting budgets for the marketing activity.

• The evaluation of results by reference to internal data and the results of market research.

Marketing management,  is “the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior value”.

Marketing activity mainly deals with ten types of entities, which are: goods, services, events, experiences, persons, places, properties, organizations, information and ideas.

Goods: It is defined as a set of attributes assembled in an identifiable form and they are mainly classified as consumer and business goods.

Services: Services include activities, benefits or solutions offered to the customers which are intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything.

Events: Events are also marketed to the specific interest groups.

Experiences: Experiences are regarded as key concepts in marketing today and experience marketing is defined as any type of customer-oriented marketing activity, which creates a connection to the customers.

Persons: People, mainly including artists, musicians, CEOs, financiers, and other professionals also market themselves.

Places: Cities, states, nations conduct marketing activities to attract tourists, investors, residents, and businesses.

Properties: Properties are defined as “intangible rights of ownership to either real property (real estate) or financial property (stocks and bonds)”

Organizations: Organizations aim to achieve strong relationships with their target publics. Strong relationships lead to emergence of a
unique image of the company in the minds of the public. 

Information: Considering the latest developments taking place in information technology, information is nowadays viewed as a critical asset to be produced, transported and marketed to the related interest groups.

Ideas: Since market offerings basically include a basic idea, they can also be marketed to the target audiences.

Kotler and Armstrong listed five main steps for marketers to follow in their marketing processes as below:
• Understanding the market place and customer needs and wants,
• Designing a customer-driven marketing strategy,
• Developing an integrated marketing program that delivers superior value,
• Building profitable relationships and creating customer satisfaction,
• Capturing value from customers to create profits and customer equity.

A marketing system is mainly defined as an environment where main players, such as suppliers, companies, competitors, marketing intermediaries, and consumers come together. A marketing system includes suppliers, company, competitors, marketing intermediaries, and consumers.

Needs can be considered as the basic human requirements such as food, shelter, water, etc.  Individual needs are basic needs for individuals in case of knowledge acquisition and self-expression. Wants are different than needs that they are mainly shaped by the cultural environment or the personality of individuals. Demand is shaped by the buying power of the people. In the light of their specific needs and wants, people demand products and services which bring out the most value and satisfaction. 

Market segmentation is a process of dividing the market into smaller groups that the members of each group are similar to each other as well as their reactions to the marketing mix of the company. Following the segmentation process, companies need to select one or more market segments to serve as their target markets.  For each target market, the company develops a market offering through positioning the product or service in the minds of the customers.

Value is basically defined as a trade-off between benefits and sacrifice. Companies can increase the value of the offering by;

1) raising benefits,

2) reducing costs,

3) raising benefits and reducing
costs,

4) raising benefits by more than the raise in costs, or

5) lowering benefits by less than the reduction in costs.

Market offering is defined as a mixture of products, services, information, ideas or experiences offered to a market in order to satisfy a need or want. Market offerings can be both products and services. From a broader perspective, persons, places, information, ideas and experiences can also be considered as market offerings.

Supply chain management is defined as “the management of a network of relationships within a firm and between interdependent organizations and business units consisting of material suppliers, purchasing, production facilities, logistics, marketing, and related systems that facilitate the forward and reverse flow of materials, services, finances and information from the original producer to final customer with the benefits of adding value, maximizing profitability through efficiencies, and achieving customer satisfaction”. Supply chain management is an important concept in today’s business systems due to its increasing importance in connecting and managing the related parties within the overall supply chain of a company.

Marketing channels are classified into three groups as; communication channels, distribution channels and service channels. 

Communication channels, including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, mail, telephone, posters, brochures, and the Internet, send and receive messages from target buyers. Companies basically communicate through their websites and social media.

Distribution channels primarily focus on the movement of goods and services from the business to the consumers. Products and services need to be transported to the consumption points, namely to the customers.

Companies use service channels in their interactions with the buyers. These service channels mainly include warehouses, transportation companies, banks and insurance companies and these companies provide logistical, financial and insurance related support to the manufacturers in order to achieve smooth flow of the products to the
consumers.

Rigby defined omni-channel retailing as: “an integrated sales experience that melds the advantages of physical stores with the information-rich experience of online shopping”. Omni-channel strategy seeks to create a holistic shopping experience by merging various touch-points, allowing customers to use whichever channel is best for them at whatever stage of the customer journey they are in. 

Marketing passed through various stages starting from Marketing 1.0 up to Marketing 4.0. While Marketing 1.0 was built upon the product-centric approach, consumers started to be well informed and compare several values offerings of similar products in Marketing 2.0 (customer-centric era). Marketing 3.0 is defined by Kotler et al. as “the era where the values are the main drivers of marketing”. Companies are more aware of the corporate responsibility and environmental issues. Marketing 4.0 emerged as a result of the changes triggered by turbulent markets, global competition, demanding customers, rapid emergence of new technologies, and disruptive innovation. Marketing 4.0 can be considered as a phase where creation of value is conducted collaboratively. In such system, customers are located at the center of this new digital marketing system. The main components in the system and their relationships
should be planned well to stimulate customers’ interactions with the products, to offer customers emotional personal experience (through the ‘touch points’) and to add value.

Marketing plays an important role by creating value for the society and by helping companies determine what and how to produce. As markets have changed, companies needed to deal with the marketplace in different ways.  According to the theory of company orientation towards the marketplace, businesses orientate themselves into five categories: production concept, product concept, selling concept, marketing concept, and holistic marketing concept.

As a response to the fundamental changes, trends and forces in the current marketing environment (demographic changes, globalization, corporate social responsibility, etc.), the holistic marketing concept is the newest approach in the first years of 21st century. According to Kotler and Keller holistic approach can be defined as follows: “A holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities that recognize the breadth and interdependencies. Holistic marketing recognizes that ‘everything matters’ with marketing and that a broad, integrated perspective is necessary to attain the best solution.”