Marketing

Marketing- activities involved in getting goods from the producer to the consumer. The producer is responsible for the design and manufacture of goods. Early marketing techniques followed production and were responsible only for moving goods from the manufacturer to the point of final sale. Now, however, marketing is much more pervasive. In large corporations the marketing functions precede the manufacture of a product. They involve market research and product development, design, and testing.

Marketing concentrates primarily on the buyers, or consumers, determining their needs and desires, educating them with regard to the availability of products and to important product features, developing strategies to persuade them to buy, and, finally, enhancing their satisfaction with a purchase. Marketing management includes planning, organising, directing, and controlling decision making regarding product lines, pricing, promotion, and servicing. In most of these areas marketing has complete control; in others, as in product-line development, its function is primarily advisory. In addition, the marketing department of a business firm is responsible for the physical distribution of the products, determining the channels of distribution that will be used and supervising the profitable flow of goods from the factory or warehouse.