A Definition of Marketing:
What is Marketing?

Use Sample Marketing Plans to Build Your Plan

A definition of marketing and its importance to the success of your business. What is viral marketing? Is marketing mix important? Can sales management software increase sales? How does marketing work and impact business growth and success? Understanding how to develop effective marketing programs is important to your business success.

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A Definition for Marketing

Much is written about marketing. But what is the definition of marketing? Do a search on the internet and you will find millions of results.

My definition of marketing is that it is the foundation of all selling. When building a business plan, you need to use marketing insight to focus your efforts on the marketplace and on your customers' needs.

Use a marketing plan outline to get started. Specific marketing activities will help you identify your customers (through target marketing and marketing segmentation); help you define your customers' needs and wants; and help you supply those needs and wants better than your competition.

Marketing planning will also help you address competition issues, such as how to define market share, how to better understand what is market share, and how to increase market share.

Marketing Plan:

Your marketing plan needs to include market research (and choosing the right market research process) on customers, on competition in business, on suppliers and the industry related to your products or services and related to the geography of where you want or plan to sell. Your approach also needs to consider product positioning and product life cycle and the tactics you will use as your marketing mix product moves through its life-cycle stages. (Use an example of a marketing mix program to develop your own mix strategies.)

Your marketing plan needs to consider different marketing tactics or approaches, such as online social networks (very do-able for small business owners - from a competition, time and resources perspective).

For example, popular small business marketing concepts or approaches include Guerilla Marketing and, more recently, it includes social media marketing and building your brand through online social networks (an understanding of 'what is viral marketing>' is important in today's environment).

You will need to target your market through a comprehensive market segmentation and through comprehensive market research (including competitive intelligence). Your marketing activities also need to include marketing mix decisions and strategies on product (for example, product differentiation) price and pricing strategies, place and/or distribution (which is one of the forgotten 4 Ps of Marketing) and promotion (also known as marketing mix promotion). You need to understand how to define marketing mix in the context of your overall marketing strategy.

A review of sample marketing plans will help guide you to the steps you need to take to develop your plan.

Your marketing plan will need to address how you will reach your existing and/or target customers: will you build a postcard marketing program or a specifically targeted and personalized direct marketing campaign? Will you focus on personal selling or on telemarketing? Will you use sales management software to increase and manage sales? And so on. Your marketing plan and marketing research plan will help you develop the right program for your business and will help you to build your own business definition of marketing.

If your business is related to selling services, then you will need to know to expand your marketing mix in include packaging/physical evidence, process and people - the 4 Ps grow or extend to 7 Ps of Marketing Services.

For example, if you operate a software company (for example, sales management software) and need to focus on software marketing activities, you will need to thoroughly understand your industry and market, which has undergone significant changes recently, and how to specifically market those services.

And taking what you've discovered in your research and activities will lead you to developing your marketing tactics, strategies and objectives (see a sample marketing plan excerpt of objectives).

Once you've developed your marketing plan, you must continually update and improve your plan. Develop a marketing communication plan to address changes in the market or in the economy. Your plan will be more relevant to your business if you keep it current and updated.

Understanding the Definition of Marketing and its Importance:

To thoroughly understand the definition of marketing and its importance and relevance to your business, think about what it might be like to be dumped into the icy ocean and trying to swim (to save yourself); without knowing how to swim.

The swim analogy to marketing: How do you sell your products or services without a strategic marketing plan to guide you in small business sales of those products and services: helping you segment your marketing, focus on your target market, develop your marketing objectives and strategies and produce the marketing mix tactics that will allow you to enact your plan?

Learn how to swim: develop your marketing plan.

And once you understand "What is Marketing?" and develop your plan using the marketing insight you gain through your marketing activities, your marketing concept will become a very key element of your small business success.

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