Marketing Definition, Nature & Scope

Marketing refers to activities undertaken by a company to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a company.

Marketing as a discipline involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past clients is part of the work too, including writing thank you emails, playing golf with a prospective client, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting with clients for coffee or a meal.

Marketing is the process of converting prospective buyers into actual customers by communicating complete information of the product or services to the customer. The key elements which are the secret to a successful marketing practice are thorough market survey and research, framing a competitive strategy, designing a realistic marketing plan and implementing different tactics to execute the plan.

Marketing is an ongoing practice to capture customer’s attention towards a product or service. It is the core of all the business practices, without which any business will prove to be a colossal failure.

Nature of Marketing

Marketing is a complex function and does not sum up to sales alone.

To develop a better understanding of the marketing practices, let us know about its nature:

• Managerial Function: Marketing is all about successfully managing the product, place, price and promotion of business to generate revenue.
• Human Activity: It satisfies the never-ending needs and desires of human beings.
• Economic Function: The crucial second marketing objective is to earn a profit.
• Both Art and Science: Creating demand of the product among consumers is an art and understanding human behaviour, and psychology is a science.
• Customer Centric: Marketing strategies are framed with the motive of customer acquisition.
• Consumer Oriented: It practices market research and surveys to know about consumer’s taste and expectations.
• Goal Oriented: It aims at accomplishing the seller’s profitability goals and buyer’s purchasing goals.
• Interactive Activity: Marketing is all about exchanging ideas and information among buyers and sellers.
• Dynamic Process: Marketing practice keeps on changing from time to time to improve its effectiveness.
• Creates Utility: It establishes utility to the consumer through four different means; form (kind of product or service), time (whenever needed), place (availability) and possession (ownership).

Scope of Marketing

1. Study of Consumer Wants and Needs

Goods are produced to satisfy consumer wants. Therefore study is done to identify consumer needs and wants. These needs and wants motivates consumer to purchase.

2. Study of Consumer behaviour

Marketers performs study of consumer behaviour. Analysis of buyer behaviour helps marketer in market segmentation and targeting.

3. Production planning and development

Product planning and development starts with the generation of product idea and ends with the product development and commercialization. Product planning includes everything from branding and packaging to product line expansion and contraction.

4. Pricing Policies

Marketer has to determine pricing policies for their products. Pricing policies differs form product to product. It depends on the level of competition, product life cycle, marketing goals and objectives, etc.

5. Distribution

Study of distribution channel is important in marketing. For maximum sales and profit goods are required to be distributed to the maximum consumers at minimum cost.

6. Promotion

Promotion includes personal selling, sales promotion, and advertising. Right promotion mix is crucial in accomplishment of marketing goals.

7. Consumer Satisfaction

The product or service offered must satisfy consumer. Consumer satisfaction is the major objective of marketing.

8. Marketing Control

Marketing audit is done to control the marketing activities.