Services marketing specializes in commercial offerings that are characterized by intangibility, perishability and other particularities.
The discipline dedicated to the analysis of market and consumer behavior is known as marketing . Its objective is to work on the commercial management of companies to retain and build customer loyalty, introduce new products, etc.
Services , on the other hand, constitute the set of activities that a company carries out to satisfy customer needs. A service is a non-material (intangible) good, which usually meets characteristics such as inseparability (production and consumption are simultaneous), perishability (it cannot be stored) and heterogeneity (two services can never be identical).
What is services marketing
The definition of these concepts allows us to refer to services marketing , which is the branch of marketing that specializes in this special category of products or goods .
This marketing specialization, therefore, must start from the basic characteristics of services ( intangibility , inseparability , perishability and heterogeneity ) to establish commercial management strategies.
This means that services marketing must take into account the predominantly intangible nature of the service (which can make it difficult for the consumer to select competitive offers) and the impossibility of storage (something that brings uncertainty to services marketing), among other issues.
Services marketing is linked to the concept of marketing mix.
The marketing mix
A concept related to this term is the marketing mix (in Spanish known as the marketing mix ), a set of variables or tools that marketing managers have to achieve the goals of their companies.
The marketing mix of this branch of marketing presents several differences compared to product marketing, because in this case the technology and the type of main customer are fundamental. The usual marketing mix, on the other hand, does not include elements that are basic for the generation and delivery of the service.
The components of the marketing mix are the following:
* product : this classification also includes services, since marketing considers a product to be any good, whether tangible or intangible, that can be acquired, used or consumed in a market to satisfy the desires and needs of the public. It is worth mentioning that even ideas, people, organizations and places can be tagged as products ;
* price : the amount of money, work , or time that a consumer must give to obtain a product. Some associated concepts are the payment method, volume and discounts. To find the right price, it is necessary to carry out a thorough market study;
* distribution : this is the set of actions necessary to bring the product closer to the appropriate audience, for which the historical moment and a series of cultural and economic factors must be considered. It is a fundamental element of the marketing mix;
* promotion : it is the process of communication between companies and potential consumers to inform them about their products and convince them of their benefits. Promotion is key to the perception that people have of a company and must be carried out at all times, regardless of whether there are new products to show;
* personnel : although there is no organization in which personnel does not play an important role, when products are not tangible, it is the employees who make the first impression on consumers and their performance can become almost as relevant as quality of the services themselves;
* processes : all the phases that must be gone through to create and deliver a service;
* presentation : it is made up of all visible instances that can be related to a company's products and services, such as its buildings, the clothing of its employees and the logo.