Defining Marketing 1

Defining Marketing

Debi Tucker

University of Phoenix

MKT/421

Larry Rine

June 28, 2010

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Defining Marketing

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as ‘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’

(Bennett, 1989). Important in this definition is that marketing involves a planning process

that begins before the product or service is created. In addition to the development of an

idea, product, or service, marketing includes the development of pricing, promotion, and

distribution plans. Finally, it is important to note that the exchanges must be satisfactory

to both the customer and the organization. Marketing activities are ongoing and include

continuous research about customers, their preferences, and lifestyles. Marketing requites

a long-term view of business whereby change is expected, accepted, and adapted to.

Adaptations necessitate cooperation among the organization's constituents, such as

managers and other employees, intermediaries, and complementary businesses.

Lewis and Chambers (2000) offer an easier and sensible marketing definition. They

state that marketing is ‘communicating to and giving the target market customers what

they want, when they want it, where they want it, at a price they are willing to pay’ this is

the ultimate goal of marketing efforts in the hospitality and tourism organization.

Marketing Concept

The marketing concept is the idea that a business should be intuitively aware of its

customers' needs and wants and practice a management style that revolves around these

items. The four bases of the marketing concept are (1) customer orientation, (2)

integrated company effort, (3) profit or goal orientation, and (4) social responsibility. The

philosophy implies that a firm's success is dependent upon its ability to understand its
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customers, deliver value to its customers, have employees that are customer oriented, and

be more effective and efficient than its competitors. The customer focus must extend

beyond marketing personnel to all employees and managers in an organization. The result

of a business that practices the marketing concept is that the business will yield favorable

results and benefits from long-term profitability Companies that follow the marketing

concept do not believe they are in business to sell goods, but rather to satisfy customers.

They understand the social and economic reason for operating is to fulfill and adapt to

customers' ever-changing desires. These activities should be carried out in a socially

responsible manner. Companies will often invest in customer satisfaction surveys and

employee training to accomplish their mission.

Establishing a target market, exploring market opportunities, and conducting market

research on a continuous basis are the key in applying the marketing concept. It views

marketing as more than a set of activities, but a way to be.

Marketing Information System

A marketing information system is a routine, planned, gathering, sorting, storage, and

retrieval system for market information relevant to the operation of a particular business.

A marketing information system is intended to bring together disparate items of data into

a coherent body of information. As Kotler's definition says, a marketing information

system is more than a system of data collection or a set of information technologies:

A marketing information system is a continuing and interacting structure of people,

equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute pertinent,

timely and accurate information for use by marketing decision-makers to improve their

marketing planning, implementation, and control.

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It is suggested that whilst the MIS varies in its degree of sophistication, a fully-

fledged MIS should have four main constituent parts; the internal record, marketing

research, marketing intelligence, and information analysis.

Marketing Research

Marketing research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information

in an attempt to reduce the uncertainty surrounding marketing decisions. The first step in

the marketing research process is to define the problem. The researcher determines the

problem from the marketing manager's perspective and then translates it into a research

problem. Once the research problem has been defined, the second step is to plan the

research. Secondary data analysis is the process of reviewing existing information that is

related to the research problem. Primary data analysis is the process of collecting new

data that is specific to the problem at hand. Secondary data analysis is quicker and less

expensive, but primary data analysis is normally more complete and accurate.

The third step in the marketing research process is to collect the data. The decisions

made during this step involve choosing a data collection method, designing data

collection forms, and determining the sampling plan. The primary data collection

methods are observation, experiments, and surveys. Data collection forms can be

questionnaires for surveys or some other form used to compile the results from

observation or experiments. The goal of the sampling plan is to obtain information from

people or sampling units that are representative of the population being studied.

The fourth step in the research process is to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis

uses aggregate data to describe the average, or typical, respondent, or sampling unit.

Inferential analysis is used to test hypotheses and estimate population parameters using
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sample statistics. The fifth step is to prepare the final report. The final report should

summarize the activities performed in the previous steps in a clear and concise format

using visual aids where applicable.

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References

Bennett, Peter (1988) Dictionary of Marketing Terms, Chicago: American Marketing

Association, p. 115.

Lewis, Robert C. and Chambers, Richard, E. (2000) Marketing Leadership in Hospitality

Foundations and Practices, 3rd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Zeithaml, Valerie A.; Bitner, Mary Jo (2003) Services Marketing Integrating Customer

Focus across the Firm, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kotler, P.; Bowen, J.; Makens, J. (1988) Marketing Management: Analysis Planning and

Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, p. 102.

Reid, R.; Bojanic, D. (2001) Hospitality Marketing Management, 3rd edn. New York:

John Wiley & Sons, pp. 159-172.