Definition of marketing #3
January 22nd, 2007Wikipedia is getting more relevant, useful and influential every day. I had a look at the “Marketing” entry and thought that their “definitions” section. It provides a good illustration why people struggle so much with the definition of something that is “almost as old as humanity itself.”(See “History” section)
This is the opening definition: “Marketing is a social and managerial function that attempts to create, expand and maintain a collection of customers.”
I like that, but for my purposes I would say:”Marketing is what we do to create, expand and maintain a collection of customers profitably.” Customers would also have to include members and donors I guess…
But wait…there is more…
This is the list of definitions that follow. Do me a favor, I have numbered them so write a comment and tell me which one you like.
- In a nutshell marketing is any activity which aim is to make humans behave in a desired manner.
- Marketing is “Satisfying a need for a profit.”
- Marketing (traditional), as suggested by the American Marketing Association is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.
- Marketing, as suggested by the American Marketing Association, 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”.[1]
- Philip Kotler, in his earlier books, defines marketing as: “human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes”.
- Still another marketing definition, coined by Brian Norris: “The process of repeatedly moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow, refer, upload, download, obey, reject, conform, become complacent to another person’s, society’s or organization’s value. Simply, if it doesn’t facilitate a “sale” then it’s not marketing.”[2]
- Identifying needs/wants and finding and implementing solutions that satisfy those needs and wants.
- Add to Kotler’s and Norris’ definitions, a response from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). The association’s definition claims marketing to be the “management process of anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer requirements profitably”. Thus, operative marketing involves the processes of market research, market segmentation, new product development, product life cycle management, pricing, channel management as well as promotion.
- Marketing-”taking actions to create, grow, maintain, defend and own markets”.
- Allen Weiss of USC writes, “Marketing is, in fact, the analysis of customers, competitors, and a company, combining this understanding into an overall understanding of what segments exist, deciding on targeting the most profitable segments, positioning your products, and then doing what’s necessary to deliver on that positioning.*An approach to business that seeks to identify, anticipate and satisfy customers needs.”[3]
- Al Ries and Jack Trout defined marketing as simply “war” between competitors.
- Any activity that connects producers with consumers.
- At a macro level, marketing is the process of raising the standards of living, by identifying the existing problems and unsatisfied needs of people and then satisfying that need with a product/service that delivers value to the customer.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
i voted #3 definition because it captured the essence of marketing.The close rival, #4, sounds complicated and it emphasizes more the company than consumers