What is Marketing?

"The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer" - Peter Drucker

Marketing, more than any other business function, deals with customers. Creating customer value and satisfaction are at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice.

Marketing is critical to the success of every organization, whether large or small, domestic or global. Marketing has also become the vital compotent in the strategies of many non-profit organizations. You see the result of marketing in the abundance of product that line the store shelves in your nearby shopping malls.

What does marketing means?

Myth: Most people think that marketing is all about selling and advertising. 

Marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making a sale - "selling" but in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. Marketing is the

delivery of customer satisfaction at profit. The goal of marketing is to attract new customer by promising superior value and to keep current customer by delivering satisfaction.

When most people think about marketing, they think of marketing tactics, like advertising, brand management, sales, service, pricing, email marketing etc.. They are important but useless without having a sound basis of knowledge. Marketing is analysis and a sound marketing strategy is based on this analysis. Analysis is about customer. Having a solid understanding of customer means having a solid understanding about how customer behave, their motivation, their perception and preferences.

Marketing is infact the analysis of customer, competitors and a company, combining this understanding into an overall understanding of what segment exist, deciding on targeting the most profitable segment, positioning your product, and then doing what's necessary to deliver on that positioning. Well this is where the tactics come in. By branding correctly, by advertising effectively.

Thus, Marketing is not solely advertising or selling. Real marketing is less about selling and more about knowing what to make and the goal of marketing is to create customer satisfactin profitably by building valued relationship with customer.