Introduction to Marketing?

Marketing is the art and science of identifying customer needs and wants, developing a product based on customer needs and wants, and finally formulating a strategy for the right product marketing mix. One important thing to keep in mind is that marketing and sales are not the same. Marketing activities involve before the development of the product, on the other hand, sales only come after the development of the product for the purpose of selling the final product to the customers.

Marketers always aim to develop products that solve customer problems and also explore the new opportunity to offer something new in the market to surprise customers. We have success stories of innovative products or services from 3M, Apple computers, Amazon, and eBay. Today, customers admire these giants for their unique ideas.

Most products fail in the early stages of the product life cycle, which does not mean that products cannot meet the needs and wants of customers. There could be many reasons for product failure such as weak distribution, setting high customer expectations on product advertisements, pricing strategy, segmentation and others. Marketers must build the marketing plan carefully to do justice to each marketing factor.

Today, Dell, Microsoft, HP, Amazon, Google, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart are enjoying the ride of success not only because of the products and services they offer, but also because of their tremendous and innovative way of marketing to reach the right audience. Marketing is not the single activity, it is the set of activities to gather requirements regarding customer needs and wants, communicate specifications to the product team, develop product rights and marketing plan.