Graduate Marketing Association [GMA]
Georgetown University
McDonough School of Business
Washington, DC 20007
Marketing Overview
What is Marketing?
American Marketing Association defines marketing as “an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
The words stressed by most marketing professionals are process, value and customers. Marketing is the development of a process or plan on how to execute the creation and distribution of a company’s products or services. A marketing professional’s first goal is to provide value to its customers and its company. Customers will want the product or service based on the value, or perceived benefits, it delivers. Additionally, a product or service must be profitable. Lastly, marketers strive to know what their customers are thinking with the ultimate goal of being able to provide a product or service that responses to customer’s unmet needs or emerging needs.
Marketing is much more than the advertisements seen in magazines or television. It is even more than the global brands seen on the consumer landscape today such as Dell, Coke, and Tide. Marketing is at the center of business with involvement ranging from strategy formulation and product development to channel management and advertising. In short, marketing is about creating value for customers, employees, and shareholders which logically encompasses every facet of business.
