What Is Marketing?
What Is Marketing?
General Definition
In plain and simple terms, marketing activities and strategies result in making products available that satisfy customers while making profits for the companies that offer those products. That's it in a nutshell!
Marketing produces a win-win situation because:
* Customers have a product that meets their needs and
* Healthy profits are achieved for the company. (These profits allow the company to continue to do business in order to meet the needs of future customers.)
Stated another way, focus on what the customer wants is essential to successful marketing efforts. This customer-orientation must also be balanced with the company's objective of maintaining a profitable volume of sales in order for the company to continue to do business. Marketing is a creative, ever-changing orchestration of all the activities needed to accomplish both these objectives.
How Are The Customer And Business Objectives Met?
The American Marketing Association's definition of marketing is: the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.
You see in the above definition that the process of marketing begins with discovering what products customers want to buy. Providing the features and quality customers want is a critical first step in marketing. You'll be facing an uphill battle if you provide something you want to produce and then try to convince someone to buy it.
The marketing process continues with setting a price, letting potential customers know about your product, and making it available to them.
What Activities Are Included In Marketing?
Marketing activities are numerous and varied because they basically include everything needed to get a product off the drawing board and into the hands of the customer. One look at our Marketing Mall Directory shows that the broad field of marketing includes activities such as designing the product so it will be desirable to customers, using tools such as marketing research and pricing, and promoting the product so people will know about it, using tools such as public relations, advertising, marketing communications, and exchange with the customer (through sales and distribution).
It is important to note that the field of marketing includes sales, but it also includes many other functions. Many people mistakenly think that marketing and sales are the same -they are not.
How Does Marketing Fit into the Company?
Another way to describe marketing activities is to consider the big picture of how they fit in with the other business functions.
Through marketing efforts, decisions are made and strategies are implemented concerning:
* What products (goods, services or ideas) are to be offered
* To whom (the target market)
* How (how to inform potential customers of the offering, how to make the transaction, etc)
Products are created through production efforts. Capital and operating funds are managed and tracked in the accounting-finance area; the focus of the human resources area is employees and the policies concerning them. Oftentimes, a marketing approach relies upon the coordination of several business areas to be successful. For example:
* The product might need some tweaking by producer of the product to respond to customer complaints.
* The person who handles human resource issues might be asked to develop compensation plans that reward sales people who build significant relationships that have tremendous potential, but are slow to close.
* Special payment plans might need to be implemented by the accounting staff to accommodate a variety of customer needs.
As a result, marketing usually crosses more departmental boundaries out of necessity than other business functions do. Marketing requires the orchestration of everyone who plays a part in the common goal of pleasing the customer. For a small business owner who has no employees, this means that he/she needs to mentally tear down the walls between varied business functions and think holistically when it comes to marketing strategies.
In Summary
These are the fundamentals of a true marketing mindset:
* Producing what the customer wants should be the focus of business operations and planning.
* Creating profitable sales volume, not just sales volume, is a necessary goal.
* Coordinating between marketing activities and all other functions within a business that affect marketing efforts is a must.
(Online Women's Business Center, 6/97)
What Is Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Manage Your Business's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
What Is Marketing?
General Definition
In plain and simple terms, marketing activities and strategies result in making products available that satisfy customers while making profits for the companies that offer those products. That's it in a nutshell!
Marketing produces a win-win situation because:
* Customers have a product that meets their needs and
* Healthy profits are achieved for the company. (These profits allow the company to continue to do business in order to meet the needs of future customers.)
Stated another way, focus on what the customer wants is essential to successful marketing efforts. This customer-orientation must also be balanced with the company's objective of maintaining a profitable volume of sales in order for the company to continue to do business. Marketing is a creative, ever-changing orchestration of all the activities needed to accomplish both these objectives.
How Are The Customer And Business Objectives Met?
The American Marketing Association's definition of marketing is: the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.
You see in the above definition that the process of marketing begins with discovering what products customers want to buy. Providing the features and quality customers want is a critical first step in marketing. You'll be facing an uphill battle if you provide something you want to produce and then try to convince someone to buy it.
The marketing process continues with setting a price, letting potential customers know about your product, and making it available to them.
What Activities Are Included In Marketing?
Marketing activities are numerous and varied because they basically include everything needed to get a product off the drawing board and into the hands of the customer. One look at our Marketing Mall Directory shows that the broad field of marketing includes activities such as designing the product so it will be desirable to customers, using tools such as marketing research and pricing, and promoting the product so people will know about it, using tools such as public relations, advertising, marketing communications, and exchange with the customer (through sales and distribution).
It is important to note that the field of marketing includes sales, but it also includes many other functions. Many people mistakenly think that marketing and sales are the same -they are not.
How Does Marketing Fit into the Company?
Another way to describe marketing activities is to consider the big picture of how they fit in with the other business functions.
Through marketing efforts, decisions are made and strategies are implemented concerning:
* What products (goods, services or ideas) are to be offered
* To whom (the target market)
* How (how to inform potential customers of the offering, how to make the transaction, etc)
Products are created through production efforts. Capital and operating funds are managed and tracked in the accounting-finance area; the focus of the human resources area is employees and the policies concerning them. Oftentimes, a marketing approach relies upon the coordination of several business areas to be successful. For example:
* The product might need some tweaking by producer of the product to respond to customer complaints.
* The person who handles human resource issues might be asked to develop compensation plans that reward sales people who build significant relationships that have tremendous potential, but are slow to close.
* Special payment plans might need to be implemented by the accounting staff to accommodate a variety of customer needs.
As a result, marketing usually crosses more departmental boundaries out of necessity than other business functions do. Marketing requires the orchestration of everyone who plays a part in the common goal of pleasing the customer. For a small business owner who has no employees, this means that he/she needs to mentally tear down the walls between varied business functions and think holistically when it comes to marketing strategies.
In Summary
These are the fundamentals of a true marketing mindset:
* Producing what the customer wants should be the focus of business operations and planning.
* Creating profitable sales volume, not just sales volume, is a necessary goal.
* Coordinating between marketing activities and all other functions within a business that affect marketing efforts is a must.
(Online Women's Business Center, 6/97)
What Is Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Manage Your Business's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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