What is marketing?

Essay by padams3College, Undergraduate March 2004

download word file, 7 pages 3.4 2 reviews

If you were to ask someone in the general population, "what is marketing", most of the people in the group would probably say that marketing involves advertising a product and then selling it. Marketing can be defined as the whole firm, taken from the customer's point of view. According to the American Marketing Association, marketing is "planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives." Marketing is much more than selling or advertising. It involves almost every aspect of what is going on in a company. Production and marketing are both fundamental economic activities.

Production involves making goods, such as manufacturing a product, and / or performing services, such as providing repair services for those products. In marketing, you must plan and coordinate a great many activities in order to reach customers and compel them to purchase, use and repurchase your product.

While it is true for a business to be successful the product must sell, they do not sell themselves, and marketing is just as necessary as production. Marketing insures that the right goods and services are produced. Production and marketing work together to satisfy human needs. This strategy, if successful, will benefit your company.

Marketing is an all-encompassing activity. It is something that eventually touches everyone and it dramatically affects peoples' daily lives. No one in America is untouched by some form of marketing. Marketing is important to every consumer. Everyone, at one time will buy or use a product or service.

What does effective marketing do? It links producers and consumers.

Effective marketing makes available to consumers ways to meet their unique needs. Its purpose is to reach customers and compel them

to purchase, use and reuse your products.

Buying entails looking for...