1.1 Introduction to Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategy provides an overview of the many marketing elements that must come together to make a successful business. It determines how to go about selecting products, customers, competitors, appropriate distribution, pricing, and promotion plans.

What Is Marketing?

What is marketing? Initially people think marketing is advertising or selling. Yes, advertising and selling are part of marketing, but marketing is much more. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the “activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Important Components of Marketing

This definition suggests two important components of marketing:

1. Marketing is the exchange that takes place between sellers and buyers.

2. Marketing creates, communicates, and delivers value to facilitate exchanges.

We add a third component to the definition, often referred to as the marketing concept:

3. By delivering value, marketing satisfies customer needs and wants, at a profit.