Marketing the science of matching capablities to market opportunities and constraints to maximise gain (eg profit) by optimising the mix of Product, Place (market segment, distribution), Price and Promotion.
Our definition is based on the following from a marketing textbook:
"The focal point of an organisation's activities should be the wants of its customers. Marketing provides the match between the organisation's human, financial and physical resources and these wants. It must do this against a background of the dynamic characteristics of the environment in which the matching takes place. This includes direct and indirect competition, economic uncertainties, legal and political constraints, cultural and social trends, technological change and institutional patterns.
The matching is typically undertaken for an
organisation by a formalised department headed by a senior
executive at board level. He plans, coordinates, and controls the
product or service offered, the price that is
charged, the style of promotion and the place where
it is to be made available. In doing so, he is concerned with not
only the separate effects of these four 'P's, but also their
interactive effects. This blend of the four 'P's is known as the
marketing mix."
- Wills et al (1983)
Another definition of marketing is:
"A management orientation that holds that the key task
of the organization is to determine the needs and wants of target
markets and to adapt the organization to delivering the desired
satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than its
competition."
- Kotler (1981) quoted by Pederson et al (1984)
Marketers who believe in this definition welcome feedback:
"Consumerism ... represents not a
threat to profitable enterprise but an opportunity. It helps to
define and calrify customers' changing expectations, and so aids
the marketer in his task of relating his company's resources to
the needs of his customers."
- Wills et al (1980)
Pederson, Wright, Weitz. Selling: principles and methods. 8th Ed Homewood, Illinois. Irwin 1984
Wills G et al. Introducing Marketing. London Pan Books 1983