School of Business

What is Marketing?

According to the American Marketing Association, “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.” Simply put marketing is the connection between business and consumer. A business may have a phenomenal product but without marketing, the consumer knows absolutely nothing about it.

There are four key factors to marketing referred to as the “4 P’s”, which are all constrained by internal and external factors in the business environment.  

Product: Product refers to the good or service the business is offering to its customers. In a perfect business model, the product would fill an unfulfilled consumer demand or be something so innovative that consumers believe they need to have it. To be successful marketers must understand that products have a lifecycle and must be marketed differently in each stage.

Price: Price is what the product costs consumers. Marketers must link the products’ price to both its real and perceived value while keeping in mind the products’ associated costs, discounts, and competitors’ pricing. Businesses may increase prices to give the illusion that their product is a luxury and may lower the price to allow more people to try the product.

Place: Place is where the product is to be sold. It is obvious that you don’t want to sell luxury sedan-type vehicles in locations where there are more rocky dirt roads versus paved roads. But place can also refer to product placement in movies/television shows and where the product is located in a store. You don’t want to place your new vitamin supplement in the pet food aisle unless it is for pets.

Promotion: Promotion is telling people about your product and includes advertising and public relations. The goal of promotion is to tell consumers about the product and reveal to them why they need it and why they should pay the requested price for it.