Definition of Marketing

Marketing; a tricky topic to define and frame in. the Marketing studies or field has rapidly moved and reached a very high level but;still defining is into some fixed variables is just impossible. Search the term “marketing define” in Google you will receive something like this-“The action or business of promoting and selling products or services”. Marketing is the part of management process which responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.  Let’s  try to understand the definition of marketing and also get a sense of its importance, reach, and radius in business, corporations, organizations and in your life.

The AMA (American Marketing Association) is a prestigious and influential organization not just in USA but also in the international arena. They definition of marketing in 1964 was-

The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, services, and ideas to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives

It was until AMA approved and punished another on 2004;

Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders

In October 2007, they published a new one;

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

The three definitions are not that different but there is a significant difference between them. I like to call them generation gap.

In the first definition of AMA “create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives” indicates that marketing is there for creating exchanges for the involved parties to serve their purpose. They totally forgot about me and you; the customer’s benefit or value. They also somehow put a boundary to the marketing functions; “process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods, services, and ideas”.

In the second definition; they include us-the customers’ value but “in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders”. Here they showed the Extend of the marketing activities; “function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value”.

The third definition of marketing by AMA is to me the most precised one, or the closet on. Well they put values of customers and society at equals to the organizations objectives.  Also they put it in front and regarded it is as the main force behind the marketing activates. See the third change come very quick.

And it is rightly so. Businesses have found out that it is customers who are the only reason for the success not the large capital or the product/service they produce. For some of them it had to be found in a hard way. We can say that marketing is all about delivering customer value and the businesses should be too. Businesses in any trying to get customers attention and marketing includes all those activates.

Regis McKenna

The marketing guru of Silicon Valley; Regis McKenna defined marketing in a very short and outrageous way;

Marketing is everything

Bold statement from Regis McKenna’s but take a look again and it’s very true. Marketing functions are not fixed on just products, pricing, promotion, and distribution. It is all the activates that has an effect on how your customer perceives your company.  So in that sense; everything is actually marketing. Marketing is for understanding what the customer needs and then to provide it requires marketing to go beyond the marketing department.

And at the end we are defining marketing like this-

every actions of an organization; either orbits around, depends on, forced by the activates that marketing makes to communicate with customers for indicating product’s or service’s value to them.

Leave a comment on this topic. Say how you see and define marketing.