Defining Marketing

Defining Marketing Paper

What exactly Marketing is and why is it so very important for the success of organizations? This paper will define this writer's perception of marketing as well as discuss some well established definitions of marketing. This paper will also explain the importance of marketing has to organizational success.

Personal Definition of Marketing

My understanding of marketing is primarily about the advertising and promotional side of the goods or services for the company's customers. Working previously for an organization in the marketing department, I was familiar with advertising and promotional activities that were geared to a specific target audience. What this means to me is that marketing includes everything that has to do with coming up with a desired service or product for prospective customers. A key goal that I learned while working in the field, was to develop a lasting relationship with the customers who can directly or indirectly affect the success of the company's business. A major aspect of marketing is the recruitment of new customers and the retention and expansion of the company's relationship with existing customers.

Definitions of Marketing

According to the text, Marketing Management, marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs (Kotler and Keller, 2006). Kotler and Keller also said one of the shortest definitions of marketing is "meeting needs profitably" (Kotler and Keller, 2006). The American Marketing Association offers the following formal definition:

"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 (AMA, 2006)."

Wikipedia Encyclopedia offers another definition that marketing is the ongoing process of moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow or conform to someone else's products, services or values (Wikipedia, 2006).

Importance of Marketing

The financial success of a company often depends on marketing ability (Kotler and Keller, 2006). A useful concept in marketing is the service or product that the company offers to customers. A bad experience a customer has with a company can affect future sales from that customer as well as the people they tell about their experience (How Stuff Works, 2006). A company's brand or signature product identifies that item with the company in the mind of the consumer. Over time and with proper advertising, this brand or product is associated exclusively with that particular company (Kotler and Keller, 2006). Examples of this would be: Maytag in the minds of consumers means quality home appliances, Disney means family entertainment, Ivory suggests pure soap, and BMW means high-performance automobiles. These companies have long established themselves as companies that provide excellent service, not only through their marketing campaign, but by years of reliable and quality service.

Many companies have now created a Chief Marketing Officer position to put marketing on a more equal footing (Kotler and Keller, 2006). The marketing department directs and guides the company's other departments in developing, producing, fulfilling, and servicing products or services for their customers.

Using the right marketing strategy, a company can capture a larger share of an existing market for their current products. A company like Colgate-Palmolive