Defyning Marketing

Defining Marketing

University Of Phoenix

Mirian Castillo

December 11, 2009

David H Cavazos

MKT/421

Marketing refers to a process that requires developing, pricing, placing, and promoting goods, ideas, or services in order to facilitate exchanges between customers and sellers to satisfy the needs and wants of consumers. According to the Basic Marketing text, marketing provides needed direction for production and helps make sure that the right goods and services are produced and find their way to consumers (Perreault & McCarthy, 2004). Marketing plays an essential role in providing consumers with the need-satisfying goods and services and, more generally, in creating customer satisfaction (Perreault & McCarthy, 2004). Marketing decisions generally fall in to the following four categories, product the right product to satisfy the needs of your target customer. Price the right product offered at the right price. Place (distribution) the right product at the right price available in the right place to be bought by customers. Promotion informing potential customers of the availability of the product is price and place.

Promotion, the last variable in the marketing mix is promotion. Various promotional tools are used to communicate messages about products, ideas, or services from firms and their customers. The promotional tools available to managers are advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and publicity. For the promotional program to be effective, managers use a blend of the four promotional tools that best reaches potential customers. This blending of promotional tools is sometimes referred to as the promotional mix. The goal of this promotional mix is to communicate to potential customers the features and benefits of products.

Product can be described as the first element in the marketing mix is the product. Products can be either tangible or intangible. Tangible products...