What is Marketing? A Beginner's Guide to Marketing

Marketing is the process of teaching consumers why they should choose your product or service over your competitors. If you are not doing that, you are not marketing. It’s that simple! The key is finding the right marketing method and defining the right marketing message to use to educate and influence your consumers.

Companies make the mistake of thinking that marketing is just “one” thing, but marketing is everything that the consumer encounters when it comes to your business, from advertising, to what they hear, to the customer service that they receive, to the follow-up care that you provide.

It’s all marketing and creating the decision within the consumer whether or not to choose you initially or for repeat business.

Marketing is often confused with advertising and sales, but it is important to know the key differences. These articles will give you a better understanding of marketing, advertising, and sales roles:

Marketing vs. Advertising: What's the Difference?

Marketing vs. Sales: What is the Difference?

That said, let's take a closer look at what marketing is and how it's used.

How Is Marketing Defined?

On the first day in many Marketing 101 courses, professors often define "marketing" as "all the processes involved in getting a product or service from the manufacturer or seller to the ultimate consumer." It includes creating the product or service concept, identifying who is likely to purchase it, promoting it and moving it through the proper selling channels.

How Can You Identify Marketing?

Marketing is best identified using what are called the 4 P's or a mix of marketing: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.

Starting with products, companies have many procedures they must undertake to ensure their products are ready for selling. The first stage is called the "ideation stage," where the idea for the product is conceived. Then, marketing departments usually test new product concepts with focus groups and surveys to ascertain interest levels among potential buyers.

If the interest level is high, marketers may then sell products on a limited basis to track sales. If product sales are high, products are then rolled out on a national level. Before products go to the market, companies must decide what styles, sizes, flavors, and scents they should sell and the packaging designs they should use. Consumers have much input in these decisions.

Price is also tested through focus groups and surveys. Companies must know the optimal price to sell their products to achieve maximum return. One way to determine price is to set it at a level comparable to competitors; that is if the company can recover all associated product expenses and still make a profit. If the company is introducing a new product that has never existed, they must determine how much the consumer is willing to pay for it. Customers will only pay so much for products. Price a product higher, and sales can drop off exponentially.

Promotion pertains to brochures, ads, and information which companies use to generate interest in their products. For more complex concepts, like spas or computers, companies may promote their wares at trade shows. Promotions usually have two purposes: generate leads for sales reps or initiate actual purchases.

Place in marketing nomenclature is the distribution. It is how and where products are sold. Consumer product companies, for example, sell to wholesalers who, in turn, sell to retailers. In the industrial market, the buying process is longer and involves more decision makers. Some companies also sell products or services on a local level, while others sell nationally and even internationally. All distribution decisions are part of the overall marketing process.

What Is the Purpose of Marketing?

Business consultant Evan Carmichael's does a great job of identifying the three main purpose of marketing:

• Capture the attention of a target market.

• Facilitate the prospect's purchasing decision.

• Provide the customer with a specific, low-risk and easy-to-take action.

With these purposes in mind, coupons, sales and even merchandising, or how products are displayed, are part of the marketing process.