The American Marketing Association defines marketing as, "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx
Marketing is often confused with advertising, sales, promotion and even public relations. Marketing, in fact has a wider breadth, encompassing to some degree all of the activities previously listed in order to meet the needs of a customer base, which has been built and developed, for the purpose of obtaining value in return.http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
Marketing often involves two principle streams of activity, referred to as inbound and outbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing refers to activities conducted by a company that are designed to utilize its resources to determine current needs in the marketplace which may be filled by the skill set of your company, or which could represent opportunities in the future once that particular skill set is acquired.http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
This can involve a series of related activities which are analytical in nature, such as research and development of products and services; and analysis of your competitive set. Advances and data obtained from this analytical phase is then transformed into effective intelligence which may be used to perform the other outbound marketing activities of product positioning and development of a pricing strategy.http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
It is this flow of different specialized activities, encompassing both the analytical as well as the effective that the term "marketing" is used to describe.
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is a term used to describe the practical components and activities of marketing that tend to interact in an manner extrovert to a company. Due to this fact, these are the activities that the layperson often misinterprets as the sole functions of marketing.
These activities include actively promoting a product or service through direct and indirect means. It also includes the creative element of designing and implementing an advertising strategy. Other elements of outbound marketing require direct contact with the customer base or many of the collateral public environs which support preferable market conditions for the goods or services being created by the company. The most common examples of these efforts are those of sales and public relations.http://www.managementhelp.org/ad_prmot/defntion.htm
Marketing Tips from the SBA
In this video from the Small Business Administration (SBA), basic techniques involved with marketing are presented by four small business entrepreneurs. Activities which can be defined as being a part inbound and outbound marketing are discussed in a context that is practical to the day-to-day operation of a small business.
References
Fast Facts
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Fact:
Advertising, sales, promotion and public relations are only components of Marketing
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Fact:
Marketing also includes analytical components such as R&D and competitive analysis
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Fact:
The two main branches of marketing are identified as inbound and outbound marketing
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Fact:
A broad definiton of marketing is a process in which opportunities are recognized or developed in the marketplace for a product or service from which your company can derive profit
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Fact:
The end purpose of marketing is to maximize profit
