What is marketing

Marketing is a driving force in the modern economy. The American Marketing Association states that marketing is a process of planning, promotion, and distribution of goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. This definition stresses the importance of beneficial exchanges that satisfy the objec­tives of both those who buy and those who sell.

To serve both buyers and sellers, marketing seeks to assess the needs and wants of prospective customers and to satisfy them. These prospective customers include both individuals buying for themselves and their households and organizations that buy for their own use ( such as manufactures ) or for resale (such as wholesalers and retailers).

For marketing to occur, at least four factors are required:

a)two or more parties with unsatisfied needs

b)a desire and ability to meet them

c)a way for parties to communicate

d)something of value to exchange

The first task of marketing is to assess consumer needs. The major activity of a firm's marketing department is to carefully study consum­ers in the marketplace to understand what they need in details. Poten­tial consumers make up a market, which is people with the desire and ability to buy a specific product. All markets ultimately are people.

The second task of marketing is to satisfy consumer needs. Mar­keting doesn't stop with the ideas obtained from the assessment of consumer needs. Since the organization obviously can't satisfy all consumer needs, it must concentrate it efforts on certain needs of a specific groups of potential consumers. It selects a target market of potential customers — a subset of entire market — on which to focus its marketing programme.

Having selected the target market consumer, the firm must take action and develop a complete marketing programme to reach con­sumers by a combination of four levers often called the four P's or the marketing mix: Product, Place, Promotion, Price. The marketing mix elements are called controllable factors because they are under the con­trol of the marketing department in an organization. Environmental factors, also called uncontrollable variables, are largely beyond the organization's control. These elements include social, technological, economic, competitive, and regulatory forces.

The Product area is concerned with the developing the “right” product for the target market. Place is concerned with all the decisions involved in getting the “right” product to the target market. A product is not much good to a consumer if it isn't available where and when it is wanted. Promotion deals with telling the target market about the « right* product. In addition to developing the “right” Product, Place, and Promotion, marketing managers must also decide the «right» Price. In setting a price, they must consider the competition on the target market, the cost of the whole marketing mix, and the reaction to possible price.

The key concept of market selection and product planning is the Product Life Cycle. It predicts that any product pass through various stages between its life and death ( introduction- growth-maturity-decline ) So firms can make better marketing decisions if they find out where each of their products stands in its life cycle.

The diversity of marketing opportunities is reflected in many types of marketing jobs, ranging from purchasing to marketing research to public relations to product management. Most of these marketing ca­reers offer the chance to work with interesting people on stimulating and rewarding problems.