Marketingpaper

Running head: DEFINING MARKETING

Defining Marketing

Marketing

Marketing has many different definitions, but one sole purpose; to put a brand or business "on the map", to create top-line sales and loyal customer base as well as new customers while increasing profits and leading to an organizations overall success.

Personal Definition of Marketing

My personal definition of Marketing would be the strategy an organization continuously changes and enhances based on clientel, demographics, location and region, competition, supply and demand and the drive to saturate a market with a new innovative product or service to increase sales and profits. Marketing successfully also allows a company to make a name for themselves that builds loyal customer bases and new business.

External Definitions of Marketing

1. "This is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to satisfy customers." (Nick Jones, The Concepts of Business).

2. Marketing consists of the strategies and tactics used to identify, create and maintain satisfying relationships with customers that result in value for both the customer and the marketer (www.knowthis.com).

3. Marketing is the process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals (American Marketing Association).

Importance of Marketing for Success

An organization's goal is mainly to produce sales, revenue and profits. Marketing, as a function is directly related to the revenue creation, which is the ultimate goal of the organization. An organization's survival in the long run is heavily dependent on marketing.

There are four sets of activities that must happen when developing a marketing plan.

To ensure a successful marketing initiative, organizations should take into consideration product, price, promotion and placement.

1. Product: Defines the characteristics of your product or service that meets the needs of your customers.

2. Price: Decide on a pricing strategy Ð'- do not let it just happen. It means deciding the price which consumer has to pay including discount structure.

3. Promotion: This includes all forms of distribution of the concept including advertising, selling, sales promotions and public relations.

4. Placement: Think of telephone insurance and the Internet. A company can use mail flyers, bag stuffers, television, radio and word of mouth as avenues of communication of the new or existing product or service. In other words, "How are we going to get this message to our stakeholders?" (Is anybody out there? The New Blueprint for Marketing Communications in the 21st Century).

Another avenue of analyzing a product or service before finalizing a marketing plan is to exercise the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). SWOT is a crucial part of the marketing plan because it allows organizations to analyze all avenues of a plan. SWOT can answer many questions when deciding to invest time and money in a marketing plan for a product or service.

Quaker Oats

Quaker Oats created the figure of Aunt Jemima as a way to market its syrup to consumers. For Quaker Oats, the Aunt Jemima personage gave to consumers a consistent image to associate with the Quaker Oat syrup, so as to differentiate it from other syrups that buyers may have found on their store shelves. The Aunt Jemima image and name, however, are and were integral to the marketing and selling of the syrup. Aunt Jemima is round, large, dark-complected, and jovial -- all attributes associated with the stereotypical old South Negro housemaid. These physical characteristics give her a folksyness, a familiarity: she is someone the consumer already 'knows.' And her name has a similarly folksy and familiar ring to it: she is Aunt Jemima -- the title reserved for that sort of person so close to the family that, even though she has no blood link, she is affectionately referred to as "Aunt" (Marketing Strategies, n.d.).

Subway

What began as a cause and effect campaign Subway and Jared Fogel -- "Eating Subway can help you lose weight" -- has

blossomed into a replacement relationship campaign