Defining Marketing

Organizations produce products or offer services every day around the world. The challenging part of ensuring profitability from the product or surface is placing it in the consumer’s eye to tempt them to purchase. Marketing is the technique or techniques used to promote or sell an organization’s products or services. Merriam-Webster defines marketing as “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service, and an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer”. (http://www.m-w.com) The Encyclopedia Britannica offers a similar definition with “ the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers”. (http://www.search.eb.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/eb/article-9109821)Ultimately, the marketing goal of a company is to anticipate consumer wants and needs, and provide the product or service while ensuring profitability. A company may have an outstanding product or service but without a strong marketing strategy to promote it, it may suffer poor sales due to lack of consumer interest.

An 1890s advertisement showing model Hilda Clark i...

English: Detail on Elmira Coca-Cola Bottling Plant...

Coca-Cola

It is essential for an organization to understand the needs and wants of the end user in order to gain a competitive edge in its industry and make a sizeable profit. Once the organization has a clear picture of the market base they must advance forward and execute a clear, concise marketing strategy. The interest of the consumer must be captured in order to develop enough interest in the product to warrant a purchase. There are three giants in the corporate that found a marketing niche and exploited it to generate massive amount of sales, those three are Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Apple Computers.

Starbucks’ marketing strategy was to create an experience for each customer, which can be seen as soon as one enters a Starbucks. The interior is filled with plush armchairs, comfortable love seats, small tables, magazines, newspapers and...