Marketing plans can be essential to a company's success in launching a new product or service. Without the proper research and development of a solid marketing plan, a new product or service could ultimately fail and cost a company a large amount of money. Prior to beginning to develop a marketing plan, one must first understand the definition of marketing. To some, including myself, it could be defined as advertising, price, consumer information and geographic information. Is this the correct definition or could it be more involved?
Ohiolink.edu, 2006 defines marketing as "In general, marketing activities are all those associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then going about satisfying those customers better than the competitors. This involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution". They also quote the definition from a popular marketing textbook, Contemporary Marketing Wired (1998), which defines marketing as "Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives." MSN Encarta dictionary, 2006, defines marketing simply as "selling of products or services: the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to make them desirable."
Companies that want to market a new product or service need to follow these definitions of marketing. The product and/or service needs to be desirable to the consumer. This would include the pricing, promotion and distribution of the produ ...