To understand the marketing process, you should first understand business. The marketing process involves planning at three levels: corporate, division, and business. Businesses can be defined as the tasks of delivering value to the market. The delivery is done in such a way that ensures profit for the organization.
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Two Views of the Value Delivery Process are;
- The traditional view
- The modern or new view
Traditional View of Value Delivery Process
This view regarding the delivery of value to the market may be compared to the product concept.
It assumes that the company is in a better position to decide what the market needs and can sell enough to warrant reasonable profits for the company. The role of marketing here is considered secondary.
This view may be applicable to economies where there are shortages of products. In an economy of abundance where there are plenty of choices available to customers, this view cannot be applied at all. This necessitated the emergence of the modern view of the value delivery process.
Modern View of Value Delivery Process
This view may be compared with the marketing concept. Here marketing is placed at the beginning of the planning process. Companies following this view consider themselves involved in the process of value creation and delivery. They do not emphasize the making and selling of products.
This process of creation and delivery of value consists of three parts;
- choosing the value;
- providing the value; and,
- communicating the value.
Choosing the Value
This part relates to the groundwork. This part is done before the actual product is developed. Here the marketer basically does the work of segmenting the total heterogeneous market into different homogenous parts, targets one or few of these parts/segments, and positions the value of its offer.
Providing the Value
After the value has been chosen, the business unit must prepare to provide it.
Here a marketer must undertake a number of activities;
- development of the specification of the tangible product,
- specifying services to be provided with the product,
- setting target prices,
- making the product, and
- distributing it.
These activities are parts of tactical marketing, whereas activities undertaken at the first step are parts of strategic marketing.
Communicating the Value
The final part of the modern view of the value delivery process is communicating it to the target market. A company may communicate to the target market in a number of ways.
First, it can use salesforce to convey the message to the market.
Seconds it may undertake different sales promotional activities to get its message through.
Third, it may advertise through different media to reach the market. In most cases, companies rely on these three tools simultaneously.
Marketing managers at any level follow a marketing process to carry out their responsibilities.