Define marketing

Define Marketing Answer A Though there are many definitions of marketing but Kotler and Armstron defined it as the process by which companies build a close customer relationships by creating value for customers.
Selling was a concept that was in vogue earlier in the market place before marketing concepts started evolving. A selling concept prevailed in the market in the early industrialization days without any focus on customers. Sales persons would sell whatever their organization produced; in that process, eventually salesman would resort to hard selling regardless of whether customer liked the product or not – whether the product fulfilled the need of customers or not. Smart marketers came into the play when they started getting the feedback from the customer what exactly they needed. This feedback helped them to produce the goods in a new way – incorporating the features in reference to its utility, aesthetics and as per the needs and wants of the customers. The companies who incorporated this philosophy in their production planning process found that their sales are bouncing without any further need to hard sell the product. Sales people gradually became less important for the organization as marketing techniques came into the forefront. A strong marketing perspective virtually needs no sales person; the product sells on its own. Apple is the most glaring example of true marketing philosophy in recent days that has rocked the market.
Currently, there is not a single product in the market place where marketing concepts are not employed. Relationship with the customer is built through product and services offered to them. The sales concept aimed at building the relationship through the efforts of sales person. In fact, a strong marketing vision needs to be at the place and the organization with orientation focused on sales only cannot survive in the current market situation.
Answer B
While marketing is so important for an organization; it is obvious that marketing plan is also equally important in an organization because the plan helps implement the marketing perspective of the company in a proper way to achieve desired results that the organization wants to achieve in the given time frame.
Marketing plan has many important components such as mission, organizational objectives, SWOT analysis, setting assumptions, marketing objectives and strategies in line with organizational objectives, formulation of strategies, budgeting, and implementation program. The marketing plan has a lot of tactical details that spell out various actions to be taken in a given time frame with clearly defined responsibility on a person or group of persons. At times, marketing planners incorporate a strategic perspective too into the planning process for obvious reasons (McDonald, 2011).
There is a need to convince seniors to prepare a suitable marketing plan and that can be done giving examples that all successful organizations do have a marketing plan in place. That helps organization to achieve desired objectives in a more systematized manner using minimal resources. Not only that a well-laid down marketing plan also helps to undertake a corrective action at the most appropriate time as and when needed due to urgency created by the market forces. Preparing a formal marketing plan is not restricted to any particular sector of the business but rather it is prepared and implemented by a variety of sectors across the globe that include even service sector organizations.
Works-Cited
Kotler, Philip, Armstrong, Gary. “ Principles of Marketing.” 2010. Prentice Hall. New Jersey. Print.
McDonald, Malcolm and Wilson, Hugh. “ Marketing Plan: How to prepare them, how to use them”. Seventh Edition. 2011. John Wiley & Sons. UK. Print.