Marketing involves identifying customer needs and satisfying them profitably. It is the process of anticipating customer requirements and delivering benefits that enhance customer value. The goal is to match organizational capabilities with customer needs better than competitors. Marketing is a management process and philosophy that places customer needs at the center of all business activities.

1. What is Marketing?<br />Some basic definitions of marketing and the marketing concept<br />There are many definitions of marketing. The better definitions are focused upon customer orientation and satisfaction of customer needs.<br />Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. <br />Kotler.<br />Marketing is the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably. <br />The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).<br />The CIM definition (in common with Barwell's definition of the marketing concept) looks not only at identifying customer needs, but also satisfying them (short-term) and anticipating them in the future (long-term retention).<br />The right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price <br />Adcock.<br />This is a snappy and realistic definition that uses McCarthy's Four Ps.<br />Marketing is essentially about marshalling the resources of an organization so that they meet the changing needs of the customer on whom the organization depends. <br />Palmer.<br />This is a more recent and very realistic definition that looks at matching capabilities with needs.<br />Marketing is the process whereby society, to supply its consumption needs, evolves distributive systems composed of participants, who, interacting under constraints - technical (economic) and ethical (social) - create the transactions or flows which resolve market separations and result in exchange and consumption. <br />Bartles.<br />This definition considers the economic and social aspects of marketing.<br />The Philosophy Marketing and the Marketing Concept.<br />The marketing concept is a philosophy. It makes the customer, and the satisfaction of his or her needs, the focal point of all business activities. It is driven by senior managers, passionate about delighting their customers.<br />Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of the final result, that is, from the customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise. <br />Drucker.<br />This customer focused philosophy is known as the 'marketing concept'. The marketing concept is a philosophy, not a system of marketing or an organizational structure. It is founded on the belief that profitable sales and satisfactory returns on investment can only be achieved by identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs and desires. <br />Barwell.<br />The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition. <br />Jobber.<br />Implementation of the marketing concept [in the 1990's] requires attention to three basic elements of the marketing concept. These are: Customer orientation; An organization to implement a customer orientation; Long-range customer and societal welfare. <br />Cohen.<br />What is Marketing? Stay updated through Twitter. ID learnmarketing2 Facebook: Become a fan ID Learnmarketing<br />The term marketing has changed and evolved over a period of time, today marketing is based around providing continual benefits to the customer, these benefits will be provided and a transactional exchange will take place. <br />The Chartered Institute of Marketing define marketing as 'The management process responsible for identifying , anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably'<br />If we look at this definition in more detail Marketing is a management responsibility and should not be solely left to junior members of staff. Marketing requires co-ordination, planning, implementation of campaigns and a competent manager(s) with the appropriate skills to ensure success. <br />Marketing objectives, goals and targets have to be monitored and met, competitor strategies analysed, anticipated and exceeded. Through effective use of market and marketing research an organisation should be able to identify the needs and wants of the customer and try to delivers benefits that will enhance or add to the customers lifestyle, while at the same time ensuring that the satisfaction of these needs results in a healthy turnover for the organisation. <br />Philip Kotler defines marketing as 'satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process'<br />Within this exchange transaction customers will only exchange what they value (money) if they feel that their needs are being fully satisfied, clearly the greater the benefit provided the higher transactional value an organisation can charge. <br />Marketing is the process of performing market research, selling products and/or services to customers and promoting them via advertising to further enhance sales.[1] It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments.[2] It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.[2]<br />Marketing is used to identify the customer, to satisfy the customer, and to keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. Marketing evolved to meet the stasis in developing new markets caused by mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries.[citation needed] The adoption of marketing strategies requires businesses to shift their focus from production to the perceived needs and wants of their customers as the means of staying profitable.[citation needed]<br />The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions.[3] It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors<br />