What is Marketing?

What is marketing?

First of all let me introduce myself! My Name is Alexis Combs and I am a junior at Saint Michael’s college in Colchester Vermont! I am currently enrolled in a marketing course! I am going to be learning about marketing and at the same time I am going to be informing you about my experience.

I am going to try and make my blogs interesting, useful, fun and also interactive. Also feel free to comment on anything if you feel I should add more information on things or if my blogs are getting dry and boring. Now that we have all those things out of the way let’s get into marketing!!

Many of you probably have a good idea of what the definition of marketing is but others may not…

Marketing is an activity for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that benefit its customers, the organization, its stakeholders, and society at a large (Kerin). That for some may be way too much to take in. So a simple definition of marketing is a way to link customers with products.

You may think that all marketing is just a bunch of TV ads or annoying commercials that always interrupt your Pandora station; but marketing is more than that. The goal of marketing is to satisfy customers and to do so you have to be able to discover what the customer is looking for and then be able to fulfill their needs.

There are 4 important factors that are required to do so, those factors being

Ø  Two or more parties with unsatisfied needs

Ø  A desire and ability to be satisfied

Ø  A way of communication

Ø  Something to exchange

In connection with the four important factors listed above there is yet another  very important concept to successful marketing. That concept is understanding the four P’s of marketing; Product, place, promotion and price; all four of these elements are part of the marketing mix and are controllable factors which lead to successful marketing. Now let’s look a little deeper into what each actually stands for. 

Product:  The good, service or idea in which you are marketing.  

Price: What you are going to exchange your product for. This could be money, gold or sea shells.

Promotion: A way that you as a business or you as the seller are going to communicate with your customers or your buyers about your product.

Place: A way that you are going to get your product into the hands of your customer.

Every company has a marketing mix composed of the 4 P’s; some are very successful whereas some are not. Let’s take Ben and Jerry’s for example; Ben and Jerry’s is a very successful company that all started with two guys making ice cream in a garage, and are now selling their ice cream products all over the world. Let’s look at the 4 P’S of their company. 

Product:  Ice cream  

Price: The price of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is around four dollars and fifty cents a carton; but sometimes you can get it on sale; two cartons for five dollars.

Promotion: Ben and Jerry’s uses countless means of communication to promote their products to their customers ranging from coupons, to successful ads on billboard and magazines. They also do many promotions such as free cone day as well as a free ice cream on your birthday if you are part of their email club. (I know this because I am one!!)         

Place: You can purchase Ben and Jerry’s ice cream all over the world. Locally you can buy their ice cream in local grocery stores, small convenient stores, pharmacies, and retail stores such as Walmart and Target. You can also go to any of their local scoop shops and purchase their products as well as local factories in St. Albans and Waterbury Vermont. 

Scoop Shop

Factory in Waterbury Vermont 

Hopefully this puts into perspective how important the 4 p’s of marketing are for Ben and Jerry's but, for all companies.

The Following Video is a theme song that is related to the 4 P's of marketing! This will help to install the information in your minds!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiqHPHHmf_Q

Let's Recap on what we learned!

Overall there are two main topics that were addressed in this blog; those being.

4 important factors of marketing:

Ø  Two or more parties with unsatisfied needs

Ø  A desire and ability to be satisfied

Ø  A way of communication

Ø  Something to exchange

4 P's of marketing:

Product 

Price 

Promotion

Place

The attached video is a little mini lesson that will help you answer any more questions you may have on the topics that I went over in this blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLmsJEz3GD4

I hope this was a good introduction to marketing for you.  I am going to be posting as I learn more about the topics included in marketing! Be looking for another post from me within the next week!

Sources:
Home | Ben & Jerry’s." Http://www.benjerry.com. Web. 10 Dec. 2014. <http://www.benjerry.com/>.

Kerin, Roger A., and Steven William Hartley. Marketing. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2013. Print.