Defining Marketing

Defining Marketing

The term marketing in a conversation tends to trigger thoughts of sales and/or advertising. Eventhough both of the functions are intimatley involved with the marketing process, it would be incorrect to believe that is all that marketing focuses on. In fact this may have been a truth in the past but times have changed and with that change has come major rethinking in the area of marketing. The much larger, demanding, and competitive markets have forced organizations to re-define marketing in a whole new light and thus depend on the marketing function to keep an orgaiztions competitive edge marketplace. This paper is intended to first identify and discuss the definition of marketing as it is applied in this day and age, second discuss the importance of marketing to an organization and finally cite examples of the effect of marketing.

There are many definitions for marketing and they all tend to have some truth. The definitions in this paper where taken from two sources highly involved in the marketing process and one source that is a student in their first marketing class. The first definition comes from the American Marketing Association and states that 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 stakeholders". (AMA, 2006) The second definition for consideration comes from the text entitled Marketing Basics and states that "marketing is the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization's objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client". (Perreault, 2005, pg. 9) The third and final definition comes from a student of marketing and is a compilation of a few bits of information as this is their first class taken on the subject. The third definition says that marketing is a department within an organization that is responsible for identifying potential changes in the market and developing plans for exposure in that market by researching, compiling, developing, initiating, monitoring, and fostering relationships both internally and externally.

As seen in the previous paragraph, marketing is defined in different ways yet they all tend to maintain the basic thought that marketing has more involvement in the everyday operation of an organization than making sales or creating advertisements. All three definitions include a "set of processes" or "performance of activities" or even "researching, compiling, developing, initiating, monitoring, and fostering relationships", that go far beyond the physical sales and advertising functions. This is not to say that sales and advertising is not an intricate part of all organizations but to label marketing as being nothing more than a glorified sales or advertising force would not be correct. Another point that is made in the above definition is the reference to "delivering value" or "directing a flow of need-satisfying goods or services" to the customer. A fully working and integrated marketing force should have the ability identify potential changes in the market place whether it be through word of mouth, researching activities or trending analysis. This will happen through the communication process. It could easily be argued that the strongest tool that a marketing department has is communication. This is referenced in all of the above definitions through relationship building with the customer. In conclusion to the discussion on defining marketing, it can be said that marketing is the mouthpiece of an organization. They will lead the charge in effecting changes within an organization as it pertains to satisfying the customer while maintaining benefit for the organization and stakeholders..

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