Introduction
Welcome to the wonderful world of marketing! Marketing is not a new word but evokes feelings of freshness each time it is used. For there is so much happening in this field that even the oldies have something new to learn every day. In your class itself, I am sure that there are quite a few students opting for marketing than any other discipline. Surely, there must be something in this word marketing, that everyone feels attracted to it.
Marketing is ancient art. The first marketing trans- action can be perhaps attributed to Adam and Eve. Its emergence as a management discipline is of relatively recent origin. And within this relatively short period, it has gained a great deal of importance. In fact today marketing is regarded as most important of all management functions of business.
Some definitions of Marketing –
• Much of marketing is concerned with the problem of profitably disposing of what is produced.
• Marketing is the economic process by which goods and services are exchanged between the producer and the consumer and their values determined in terms of money prices.
• Marketing originates with the recognition of a need on the part of a consumer and terminates with the satisfaction of that need by the delivery of a usable product at the right time, at the right place and at an acceptable price.
• Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function. It is really
the whole business seen from the point of view of the final result, i.e., from the point of view of the customer.
• Marketing is a viewpoint, which looks at the entire business process as a highly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy consumer needs.
• Marketing is the delivery of a standard of living to society.
American Marketing Association –
“It is the process of planning & executing the conception, pricing, promotion & distribution of ideas, goods
& services to create exchange that satisfy individual & organisational goals”
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines Marketing as
“Marketing is the management process for identifying, anticipating & satisfying customer requirements profitably.”
Peter Drucker
There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim is to know and understand the customers well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.
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