What's Marketing?

What's Marketing? It's both an "art" and a "science", there is constant tension between the formulated side of marketing and the creative side.. One of the shortest definitions of marketing is "meeting needs profitably."

 Formal definition from The American Marketing Association: Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stake holders.

Marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

 The social definition of marketing shows the role it plays in society which is to "deliver a higher standard of living." Marking is a societal process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.

The managerial definition of marketing has often been described as "the art of selling products," but the most important part of marketing is not selling! Selling is only the tip of the marketing iceberg. Peter Drucker, a leading management theorist, puts it this way:

There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customers so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.

References: 

Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller. Marketing Management, Twelfth Edition.

 

Posted at 04:45PM Feb 24, 2008 by byuan in Marketing Management  |  Comments[0]