Kotler’s marketing concept
Kotler tells us that to be successful a business needs to understand the needs of the customer and then develop a product that meets those needs. There is no need to waste money developing a product that exceeds those needs and there is no need to sell to customers aggressively. Simply telling people about the existence of the product will be enough because the need already exists.
The trouble for business is finding out what customers need. Historically finding out required a lot of expensive marketing research. But things are different now. Today customers can be more vocal and can do the work of the business for them. A good example is TomTom, the satellite navigation system manufacturer. In 2008 a Facebook member created a page suggesting that actor Brian Blessed should do a voice for sat nav. TomTom said that it would begin negotiations with the actor if the page attracted 25,000 supporters which it duly did.
Will this make any money for TomTom? Brian Blessed is a popular actor, well-known to some for his loud, resonating voice. He played Emperor Augustus in I, Claudius, Prince Vultan in 
Flash Gordon (pictured), Boss Nass in Star Wars I and many more. Fans of his may well be tempted to buy a TomTom sat nav just for his unique voice. Others may be willing to buy from TomTom just to avoid the bland voices that are currently offered. So potentially, yes, this may make money for TomTom.
But the point of this post is that businesses can use the power of social networking to do marketing research for them. By having a Facebook page, by allowing honest feedback, by monitoring trends business can identify what their customers want or need and make profit by meeting those requirements.
