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Marketing of services

A 1981 American Marketing Association conference proceedings compiling early academic and practitioner thought on why and how the marketing of intangible services differs from the marketing of physical goods.

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What it’s about

This pioneering volume, the proceedings of the first AMA conference devoted solely to services marketing, assembles dozens of papers from leading scholars and practitioners who collectively forge a new sub-discipline. It wrestles with the foundational question of whether services require distinctly different marketing management, examines commercial services (especially banking and financial institutions), professional services (law, accounting, medicine), and nonprofit/public-sector services, and advances services-marketing theory through concepts such as the expanded marketing mix (the seven P's), the inseparability of production and consumption, the centrality of contact personnel, and the difficulty of quality control. For anyone seeking the intellectual roots of modern services marketing, this collection captures the field at its formative moment, blending empirical segmentation studies, conceptual frameworks, and managerial prescriptions.

The through-line

Who it’s for: A marketing academic or service-firm executive who wants to market intangible services as effectively as goods marketers market products.
The problem: The marketer cannot easily define, standardize, promote, or control an intangible service that is produced and consumed simultaneously. They feel less respected, less supported, and uncertain about whether their hard-won goods-marketing skills even transfer to services.
The plan: Recognize the generic and contextual differences between services and goods.
Conceptualize the offering as a bundle of benefits perceived by the buyer.
Adopt an expanded marketing mix that adds participants, physical evidence, and process.
Integrate marketing with operations and train all contact personnel as marketers.
Use benefit and behavioral segmentation and manage demand to match capacity.
The payoff: Consistent, customer-oriented service delivery that satisfies and retains customers. · Marketing earns equal status with operations and stronger management support. · Differentiated positioning and profitable segments through benefit-based strategy.

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Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind · Al Ries and Jack Trout
Referenced in the textbook as a foundational work on the concept of brand positioning, a core topic of marketing strategy.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference · Malcolm Gladwell
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The Long Tail · Chris Anderson
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The book mentions this text as the 'most widely used marketing textbook in graduate schools of business worldwide,' co-authored by the primary author of this book, suggesting it as a more advanced follow-up.
Blue Ocean Strategy · W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
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Competitive Strategy · Michael Porter
The book recommends this text for readers who wish to explore the vital subject of competitive strategy in more depth, which is an essential prerequisite to setting appropriate marketing objectives.
The Marketing Audit: translating marketing theory into practice · Malcolm H. B. McDonald
Mentioned in the preface as a companion text to this book, containing exercises designed to provide a practical bridge between marketing theory and practice for managers.
Scientific Advertising · Claude Hopkins
Ogilvy states this book changed the course of his life and that no one should be allowed in advertising without reading it seven times. It establishes the principle of advertising as measurable 'salesmanship in print'.
Tested Advertising Methods · John Caples
Ogilvy quotes Caples on the vast difference in sales results between ads and recommends his book for guidance on writing effective headlines.