The activities of marketing are all around us. Goods stream from forests, farms, and factories to marketing units. We are all familiar with outlets such as grocery or department stores that retail goods to customers. Behind these retail stores are the wholesalers, agents, brokers, warehouses, advertisers, and transporters. Goods are frequently on the move to meet people's needs and wants. Marketing is a vital and integral part of our economic system.
The term marketing is defined as the process of planning and executing the development, pricing, promotion and distribution of an organization's goods or services. When marketing is successful, it helps satisfy the needs of both the organization doing the marketing and the individuals to which the market is targeted.
The selling of goods and services - an important aspect of marketing - requires, of course, a market. What do people in the marketing profession mean when they use this term? Basically they are referring to all individuals, businesses, and organizations with particular need that may be willing and able to satisfy the need through purchase or other forms of exchange.
Marketing has changed over the years. In the early days of the US business, marketing was product-oriented. The idea was to produce as many goods as possible, because companies could usually sell whatever they produced. This orientation toward production had begun to change, however, by the end of the 1800's.
By this time, many businesses had become very large and were mass-producing their products, causing excess supply of some goods. As a consequence, some firms turned to increased advertising, more personal selling, and broader distribution of their goods and services. The focus of marketing shifted from the product to the various aspects of selling. Marketing was now sales oriented.
After World War II, business in the United Sates burgeoned and marketing began changing again. Managers saw the call to work with their customers, and another approach, which came to be known as the Marketing Concept, emerged. The marketing concept, which remains largely the same today, has three components. Customer orientation, Profit orientation, Integration of marketing activities.
In this series of articles on Marketing, we describe and illustrate the process of marketing to help you understand such things as the marketing concept, functions of marketing, and the role of the consumer in marketing.
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