Marketing is a way of thinking and an approach to business that is based on the organisation's attempt to meet its customers' needs as best it can and to simultaneously create value for the organisation and for the customer.

As an activity marketing is a process that matches the wants and needs of customers with an organisation's ability to meet these wants and needs by providing appropriate goods and services. It creates value for the customers by:

• giving them suitable products (goods or services)
• at a price that they think represents a reasonable exchange of value in return for their money, time and effort
• available at times and in places that are accessible and convenient
• communicated (or promoted) in ways that get the customers' or audiences' attention, and stimulate them to respond.

Marketers may tell production what to produce, but only after production has told marketing what it is capable of producing. The process is circular. Marketing provides the interface between the organisation and its customers. It is the only function that principally focuses on generating revenue.

Marketing people market 10 types of entities: goods, services, events, experiences, people, places, properties, organisations, information and ideas.

Source: Kotler, Keller & Burton, 2009.

Marketing's increased importance is predicated on three key trends: increasing competition., increasing consumer choice and consumer power., technology and access to information.

Environmental changes have led to business response and marketing responses to both of them. Some key features include; Relationship marketing, Marketing based on customer lifetime value, Increasingly smaller segmentation and targeting of markets, Greater use of database and data-mining activities, Integrated marketing communications.

We talk about marketing as a philosophy because it is founded on a discipline that focuses attention primarily on the customer, but at the same time helps to deliver the outcomes that the organisation is seeking. [WTF does that have to do with philosophy?!]

To be successful, the organisation needs to:

• Create value that better meets the needs and wants of the target group of customers (or stakeholders) that they want to interact with
• Communicate the value in ways that triggers the customers/stakeholders to respond
• Deliver the value in a manner that generates satisfaction for the customer/stakeholder
• and profit or some other desired outcome for the organisation
• Sustain this value exchange with the customer/stakeholder in a way that creates an ongoing valuable relationship.

Marketing cannot be effective without the full support of the whole organisation, from the board, executive and management team to the frontline employees. If they are not coordinated in their efforts customer value creation, satisfaction and loyalty will suffer. [In other words, marketing requires your organisation to act like a cult.]

However not all organisations have adopted and applied the marketing concept—a customer-centred approach focussed on creating and managing mutually valuable
exchanges. Many successful organisations still operate with a technical, cost-focussed, production or sales mindset. While marketing orientation doesn't guarantee success, it is more likely to mean that the organisation can win and maintain a base of customers who want to exchange value.

Generally speaking, organisations tend to adopt one of the following approaches or orientations in their marketing behaviour.

- Production orientation—also known as the production concept—stems from the belief that customers will seek out and be attracted to readily available and affordable products or offerings that they perceive best meet their needs.

- Product orientation—also known as the product concept—arises when the driving philosophy for the organisation is based on the idea that customers look for the 'best' (superior) goods or services—those that offer the highest technical level of quality, performance, etc.

- Sales orientation—also known as the sales concept—is where an organisation first creates the goods or services that it thinks customers want (or should want), and then seeks to persuade customers to prefer them.

- Marketing orientation—also known as the marketing concept—is adopted by organisations that understand the wants and needs of customers so that they can develop goods and services that meet customer needs and create value for both the customer and the organisation.

- Societal orientation—also known as the societal marketing concept—applies to organisations that carry out their activities and reach out to their audiences in ways consistent with the principles or values of their customers. This is in addition to satisfying customer wants and needs.

Based on the understanding of these different orientations, we now need to focus on the specific orientation that marketing (the philosophy) suggests is more likely to lead to success. There are four key characteristics of a marketing-oriented organisation, one which
demonstrates the marketing concept:

[There is is again... Marketing is NOT a philosophy]

Customer satisfaction is a central focus., Products are defined by customer needs., Marketing is integrated across the organisation., Marketing intelligence is valued, captured and shared [except with competitors, amirite?]

Current thinking is that service marketers rely on not just the 4 Ps of product, price, promotion and place but also on distinctive value communicated through people, process and physical evidence as cues designed to overcome intangibility, perishability, variability and inseparability.

Interesting factoid: In developed regions like Australia, North America and Western Europe more than 70% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and a similar proportion of employment comes from organisations doing business with other organisations, rather than doing business directly with the final consumers.