WHAT IS MARKETING?

What does the term marketing mean? Marketing must be understood no in the old sense of making a sale “selling” but in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. Many people mistakenly think of marketing only as selling and promotion. And no wonder-every day we are bombarded with television commercials, newspaper ads, direct mail, and sales calls. Someone is always trying to sell us something. It seems that we cannot escape death, taxes, or selling.
Therefor, many students are surprised to learn that selling is only the tip of the marketing iceberg: It is but one of several marketing functions, and often not the most important one. If the marketer does a good job of identifying consumer needs, develops good products, and prices, distributes, and promotes them effectively, these goods will sell very easily.
Everyone knows something about “hot” products. When Sony designed its first Walkman cassette and disc players, when Nintendo first offered its improved video game console, and when Ford introduced its Taurus model, these manufacturers were swamped with orders. They had designed the “right” products: not “me-too” products, but ones offering new benefits. Peter Drucker, a leading management thinker, has put it this way: “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits … and sells itself.”
This does not mean that selling and promotion are unimportant. Rather, it means that they are part of a larger “marketing mix” —a set of marketing tools that work together to affect the marketplace. We define marketing as a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. To explain this definition, we examine the following important terms: needs, wants, and demands; products; value and satisfaction; exchange, transactions, and relationships; and markets. Below Image shows that these core marketing concepts are linked, with each concept building on the one before it.

What is Marketing