Well, Marketing is a broad and dynamic term that people have defined in various definitions. Even if you are working as a marketing professional, it will be hard for you to answer “What is Marketing?“. So, let’s first read the simple definition of marketing as per me, and then we’ll be looking at how people and associations have defined marketing.
Marketing is a management process that helps in marketing a product to its end customer that includes communication, pricing of product, packaging, promotion, and sales. There must be more things you can include in this definition, but as I mentioned earlier, the definition of Marketing cannot be fixed. It changes from person to person and business to business.
Now, let’s take a look at how people around the globe have defined Marketing:
Marketing is a process of making people interested and potential for your product or service. This process of marketing happens through market research, analysis, and understanding customer’s interests. Marketing pertains to all aspects of a business, including product development, distribution methods, sales, and advertising. ~ Hubspot
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. ~ American Marketing Association
Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. ~ Investopedia
What is Marketing? – Let’s Understand in Simple Words
Marketing is basically the activities which a business or a person performs to sell its product to a customer. That process can be easy, like selling a t-shirt or can be complicated, like selling an insurance policy. The success of a marketing campaign depends on factors like how well you know your ideal audience, methods of marketing you are using, and the quality of the product.
The type of marketing we mostly see and perform today is Modern Marketing. Modern Marketing started in late 1950s when people moved to other mediums of marketing instead just print media. TVs started showing advertisement, and even today, TV network is the most significant advertising medium. After the few years of Television marketing, Internet marketing arrived and opened door for easy advertising and accessibility for marketers around the globe.
Here’s a really explainatory example about what marketing is. Have a look at it:
Understand Marketing with an Example | Credits: Mackalski
These few simple terms will help you in understanding marketing in a better sense if you are still not clear about it. Have a look at these terms:
- Understanding your customer, building relations with customers, and maintaining a healthy relationship with customers is marketing.
- A TV ad, Facebook sponsored ad, hoarding on roads, promotional message on your phone, an application rewarding you for sharing the application, store offering 1 free on 1 purchase, and many other things, all this is marketing.
- Marketing is a parent topic and offline or digital is the sub-division of marketing.
- Building an audience for your Facebook page and gaining more likes is marketing.
- Serving a product in a solution to a problem is marketing.
- Packaging your promotion for the best presentation is marketing.
- An influencer collaborating with another influencer is marketing.
As an agency owner, One thing that I’ve observed in marketing, along with selling a solution, it is also about selling ideas, selling dreams, and selling future. How? Let me explain it to you. When we capture a client, first we study its product or service. We estimate the market potential by researching the market. Then we present where the client’s product can reach, how many potential customers exist in the market. This is like selling a dream, but this dream cannot be sold alone. You need a plan that helps in achieving the dream you are selling.
Well, the above sentence I told about marketing and dreams is relevant to the business I do. It cannot be relevant to marketing in general, but as I told above. The definition and boundaries of marketing cannot be fixed.
4 Ps of Marketing – You Must’ve Heard Before
4 P’s of Marketing | Credits: Klood
If you ever had studied Business Studies then you must know about the 4 P’s of Marketing. 4 P’s of marketing are considered as the most influencing factors of marketing. As you can see above, these 4 P’s are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Marketing Mix is another term that is used for 4 P’s of marketing.
All size of companies around the globe uses the 4 P’s to identify important factors of their business that includes customer’s needs, how they gonna deliver their product to the customer, how much their product is capable of serving to the customers, how they are better from their competitors, and how they are going to reach the customers to achieve sales.
Let’s have a look at these P’s and see what they stands for:
Product
A product is something that aims to fulfill the customer’s needs or wants. It can be tangible or intangible. It can be a product or a service. For example, a piece of cloth and antivirus software, plumber and car mechanic, all these are products and services. Something which can be sold in exchange for money is a product.
While planning or creating a product, the owner of the product must make sure what their product stands. It is also essential to study how their product is better or different from competitors. With the help of the internet, it became easy for everyone to examine their product and potential market.
Price
Once is product is ready, the second step in the marketing mix is to price the product. Pricing of a product is a complex task that involves competition study and careful calculations. A product must be rated high or low based on various factors like your brand value, spending capacity of your customers, costing of the product, your profit margin percentage, quality of your product, and many more. So, a product must be priced well based on all the significant factors affecting your profit and customer’s pocket.
Place
You must have heard that it is essential to put the right product at the right place, the right price, and the right time to sell it successfully. With the new age of internet marketing, it has become both easy and hard to place a product. We now have global access, and we can sell our product anywhere in the world.
For example, if you are selling a dress, it must be placed in a shopping market instead of local streets, or you can list it on shopping websites. So, placing your product in the shopping market or shopping websites will give you easy access to customers. But, if you put that dress in a shop on local streets, chances of getting sold are meager because those who are going to shop clothes will head towards the market, not to some shop in local streets.
Promotion
We studied product planning, pricing, and place of selling so far. It is time for planning how people get to know about the product. In 4 P’s of Marketing, Promotion stands for marketing communications.
Marketing communications use different channels of marketing, like public relations, advertising, direct marketing, cold sales, email marketing, social media marketing, banner advertising, and many more. In the digital age, the promotion has reported the highest growth. Now in the Digital Age, We have a wide range of advertising and marketing solutions available for businesses of all sizes. So, it becomes for every company to market its product around the globe.
I hope that the concept of marketing is clear to you now. If you have any question or suggestion then please do let me know in the comment box below. I’ll be getting back to you quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
AWhat are 4 P’s of Marketing?
4 P’s of marketing are considered as the most influencing factors of marketing. 4 P’s are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Marketing Mix is another term that is used for 4 P’s of marketing. All size of companies around the globe uses the 4 P’s to identify important factors of their business’s marketing strategy.
AIs marketing is an easy process?
Marketing process can be easy, like selling a t-shirt or can be complicated, like selling an insurance policy. The success of a marketing campaign depends on factors like how well you know your ideal audience, methods of marketing you are using, and the quality of the product.
AWhat is Marketing?
Marketing is a broad and dynamic term that people have defined in various definitions. Marketing is a management process that helps in marketing a product to its end customer that includes communication, pricing of product, packaging, promotion, and sales.
