What Is Marketing?

I guess the thing that anyone who works in Marketing gets asked more than any other is "What is Marketing?" - well that's the polite version anyway!

So... I figured I might try and explain what it's all about. Now I've put a page on my website which goes into a bit more detail about what Marketing is, but a brief explanation might help.

Marketing is developing a product (or service) that people want to buy then persuading them to buy it. Simple eh?....... So how's that different from sales then?

This is where it's easy to get unstuck, start talking in specifics, confuse people and generally further fan the belief that Marketeers are full of waffle. Somewhere along the line, you get the question, "No, what do you ACTUALLY do?" So the beleagured Marketeer ends up saying "I design brochures and mailshots" to escape the whole embarassing situation.

OK, so how do we explain it. Well I believe that the best way to describe what Marketing covers is to go through the Marketing Mix - the 7 Ps that show what Marketing should cover:

• Product

• Price

• Place

• Promotion

• Physical Evidence

• People

• Process

The titles are fairly self-explanatory, but if you want to know more just go to http://www.simonbrandon.com/marketing.htm for more information. The thing to note is that Promotion (which most people think IS marketing, is only 1/7th of the whole lot. The thing is, it's the easiest one to describe, so when you next collar a Marketeer down the pub and demand they explain themselves, don't be surprised if that's what they talk about!