Defining Marketing
Marketing is more than commercials on the television or billboards that dot the highways, they are more than advertisements in the paper or salesman attempting to sell you their products. Many believe that this is marketing but marketing is so much more complex than the advertising and the selling of goods and services. Marketing is the process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products and/or services. (Ward) Another definition is "Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives." (Boone & Kurtz, 1998) Marketing evolves from the birth of an idea that a customer may want or need and satisfying that customer. In order to satisfy particular customers a company must set up some controlled variables or Marketing Mix. Product, place promotions, and price make up the marketing mix and are know as the four P’s.
Marketing is about analyzing the needs of the consumer, predicting the consumer’s wants and estimating how many consumers want the product. Marketing needs to determine the location the goods and services are needed and how will the product get there, decide types of promotion necessary to inform potential consumers about the product, estimate how many competing companies are producing the same type of product and figure out how what type of warranty service may be required. These a few items are required to market a product. (Perreault & McCarthy, Jr., 2004, 2/1)
Marketing is important to the success of the organization. If the organization does not lay out the groundwo ...