Purpose of Marketing

In today's competitive environment, a strong focus on customer satisfaction is essential to the success of any organization. Rapid globalization means that companies now compete in markets all over the world. Foreign and domestic organizations are realizing that profit will only be achieved through the use of marketing. Marketing is the business function that focuses on satisfying the needs and wants of coustemers through exchange processes. It is the only revenue-producing activity for the organization. Drucker says, "Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two - and only two - functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation create value, all the rest are costs." (See Drucker, Peter F., People and Performance, Harper college Press, 1977, p. 90) Thus, sound marketing is critical to the success of the organization, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, foreign or domestic. 

The idea that profit is not the primary goal of business is not a new. In 1954, Peter Drucker made the point in his book, The Practice of Management. "Profit is not the explanation, cause or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but the test of their validity." Profits are an essential result of business success. Again, the true purpose is the creation of customers: the efficient provision of goods and services which people want to buy. Satisfy customers and profit will follow. 

Many people think that marketing is just selling and advertising. Peter Drucker explains marketing this way: "The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him or her and sells itself." This is not to say that selling and advertising are unimportant, but rather that they are part of a larger "marketing mix" that must be orchestrated for maximum impact on the marketplace. 

Jerome McCarthy delineates the marketing mix as the four Ps (product, price, promotion, and place). Thus, a marketing mix is a specific combination of four strategies -- product, price, place or distribution, and promotion or marketing communications -- designed to satisfy customers. The focus of marketing is to do such an excellent job of developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing a product to customers that the product practically sells itself.