Marketing
"An Overview"
Marketing is the link between the organization and the consumer. All organizations - profit oriented or nonprofit - must serve consumer needs if they are to succed.
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.
The Exchange Process
Marketing activity begins when the exchange process becomes important to society. Exchange is the process by which two or more parties give something of value to one another to satisfy felt needs.
Consider a primitive society consisting of two family units who each produce their own food, clothing, and shelter. One of the families is an expert at producing clothing; the others are skilled farmers.
Without exchange, each family must satisfy all of its own food, clothing, and shelter needs, even though the members excel in only one of these areas.
The exchange process allows the families to concentrate on their strongest areas and to trade clothing for food and vice versa. This specialization and division of labor leads to increased total production and a higher standard of living for both families. The exchange process would not occur unless each family marketed its outputs. Thus, marketing is a prime determinant of society's overall standard of living. In fact, in advanced societies, marketing costs rang between 40 and 60 percent of selling prices.