Doing it Right

Marketing is a general term used to describe all the steps that lead to final sales. It is the process of planning and executing pricing, promotion and distribution to satisfy individual and organizational needs. From this definition it is easy to see that marketing is more than just the process of selling a product or service. Marketing is an essential part of business, and without marketing, even the best products and services fail. Companies constantly fail because they do not know what is happening in the marketplace and as a result, they are not fully meeting their customer’s needs. They mistakenly believe that with the proper amount of advertising, customers will buy whatever they are offered.

Marketing consists of making decisions on the four P’s:

• Product

• Place/Distribution

• Promotion

• Pricing

Before a business owner can make decisions on the four P’s, he/she must devise a plan. A plan provides a busines s with guidance on making decisions. This chapter includes directions on how to devise a plan that will assist in making decisions about the four P’s. This type of plan is a sixstage process that is commonly referred to as strategic marketing; a strategic marketing plan is an important part of a business plan.