Hundreds of new businesses are started in the US each year and at the same time hundreds of businesses close. What contributes to the success and longevity of a thriving business in the US and causes the failure of another? Could the business been a bad idea, weak operations, soft economy, or not enough marketing? Could a strategic marketing plan aimed at predicting the future needs of a customer and delivering a product or service the customer wants save a company from going belly up? While one may never know the absolute root cause of why businesses such as Circuit City, Linens n Things, and The Bombay Company has shut their doors, what one does know is marketing plays a critical role in the success and longevity of a business. In essence, marketing sets the stage for a company to successfully achieve their objectives and failure to realize the role and importance of marketing in business can be a hindrance to success and in some cases can be detrimental.
English: Apple's headquarters at Infinite Loop in ...
Apple I at the Smithsonian Museum
English: McDonalds' sign in Harlem.Various elements coincide with the definition of marketing. Marketing is known for having a meaning relating to selling or advertising but what one must realize is there is so much more to the definition and execution of marketing. From analyzing the needs of customers, predicting future customer needs, estimating customer transactions, determining a selling location, establishing a selling price to determining how to promote a product all correlate to the definition of marketing. With this in mind, Perreault and McCarthy defined marketing as both a set of activities performed by organizations and a social process (Perreault and McCarthy, 2005). The authors went on to explain and define marketing by breaking the meaning down into two terms and definitions, micro and macro marketing. Micro-marketing is the performance of activities that seek to...