What Is Marketing

In simple terms, marketing refers to the promotion of products or services. Its primary objectives are to understand consumer needs, determine how to fulfill those needs, and sell products to generate profit.

While there are over two thousand definitions of marketing, here is a simplified one: Marketing is a human activity aimed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange.

The American Marketing Association provides a more comprehensive definition: Marketing is the process of planning, creating, pricing, promoting, and delivering ideas, goods, and services that exchange value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Marketing is a fundamental function of business, encompassing a multitude of processes. It is also a scientific discipline taught in universities and business schools. Within marketing, there are numerous concepts, tools, and methods.

Functions and Tasks of Marketing

Marketing is often associated only with sales. In fact, it is much broader.

Textbooks identify four functions of marketing. This is a theoretical classification, but it can help to understand what marketers actually do. These functions are:

• Analytical. Marketers study the company's competitors, the target audience of the product, and their behavior. They try to understand what is important to consumers. To do this, they use a variety of methods. For example, web analytics, cross-channel analytics, big data research. Or simpler methods - surveys of target audience representatives.

• Production. Thanks to the analysis, the marketer understands what customers expect from the product and determines what the product should be like so that it meets the expectations of consumers and can compete with others. For example, when developing an application, the marketer explains what functions it should have.

• Sales. In some sources it is called the sales function. The marketer does everything to sell more: deals with pricing, manages the assortment, attracts customers and manages relationships with them. For example, collects feedback and improves service based on reviews.

• Management function. This is the planning, organization and control of any marketing activity. For example, a marketer develops a promotion strategy for a new market, looks for contractors, provides them with the information they need to work, and monitors the achievement of KPIs.

Some sources identify other functions of marketing. For example, innovative - to create a new product and bring it to market. Or formative - to convince the buyer that the product meets his needs and to stimulate him to buy it.