What is marketing?

Marketing is a management process of identifying customers’ needs and want, anticipating future wants and satisfying them profitably.

If we break this definition we get the following

• Management process: it is continuous activity not a onetime act and usually formulated by the managerial brains of the business
• Identify customers’ needs and wants: Business finds out what the customer need through Marketing Research
• Anticipating future wants: Finding out where is the market is heading and the future trends, changing environment
• Profitable: The products that the business develops should be easy, affordable; practical to produce and most of all should be profitable to the business.

Objectives of Marketing

Different businesses may use marketing as a tool for different purposes. We can outline the objectives as follows

• To increase sales revenue
• To improve and maintain image of the product or the business
• To increase market share
• To target a new market
• To target a new market segment

Product Oriented and Market Oriented

If we look around we can find different business with different approach to market. Businesses which first develop a product and then find a market for it are Product Oriented. Usually we find these businesses in who are into developing new technologies.

On the other hand most of the businesses today are Market oriented. These businesses first find out what the customer needs through market research and then go about developing the products which satisfy the customers.

Classification of Products

Product can be goods or service.

Goods are of two types:

Consumer goods: Goods which are consumed by people such as chocolate, washing machine, television etc.

Producer goods: Goods which are used by producers or manufactures to produce further goods and services e.g. bottling plant, machinery, trucks etc.

Services are also of two types