What is Marketing?

When we see this word it really brings several thoughts depending on the usage. Mostly we see marketing along with a number of other words.

Alone the meaning is fairly straightforward with the buying or selling of a product or service.  Commercially speaking it is usually related to this, but to me the meaning goes a bit deeper then that. Over the course of this article we will explore this and who it does effect.

Everyday whether you realize it or not you are marketing yourself, yes it is a shocker to think that every single person markets themselves in one way or another.  Depending on the situation your actions (marketing) results in the outcome of what you are trying to achieve. This could be a job you are trying to get, an item you are trying to sell, or even an extra cookie from the cookie jar.

If you do not market yourself or your product successfully, your outcome will not be what you wanted.  Failure to get what you wanted, means you must analyze what you did wrong, correct the mistakes and try again. I think it was Thomas Edison who had about 2,000 attempts to make a light bulb.  Talk about perseverance.  He was trying to market a light bulb, but could not really market it until he got it to actually work.

When we put the word marketing with another word we can get a broad meaning or even a singular meaning.  Internet marketing could be a broader meaning when you dig down into it.  It can range from just the Internet itself, or products and services that relate to the Internet.  Real Estate marketing could be termed as a singular meaning, marketing property either commercially or privately. Job marketing’s singular meaning: to be looking for a job.  All of these are just some examples, and can be put in pretty much any form. Can you think of more?  I am sure you can once you really start looking.

Most marketing relating to the commercial term, needs buyers or traffic.  Take for example you have lots of extra stuff at your house to sell, so you are gonna have a garage/yard sale.  You clean up the product if need be (presenting the product to market), you have the kids go around putting up yard sale signs on the day(s) of the sale (advertising marketing to get the buyers or traffic).  Place the yard sale signs in high traffic area’s, then hope it doesn’t rain on your yard sale!

So now we have 3 key ingredients product(s), advertising, traffic placement.  Each of these is marketing.  Product marketing does not have to mean a item like a bike or clothing, this could be services or learning tools etc.  Advertising marketing would be what the ad says how it says it and is it targeting the kind of traffic you want.  Placement marketing of these ads is also crucial, if your kids put the yard sale signs on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere you would have bad placement.  If they only did one sign, this would also not work out to well.

What marketing means to you and me can be two different things, depending on the context that we use it in.  When you are trying to get something out of your own life, think of the word marketing, and what it means to you.  Then apply that to your own situation, you will be really surprised.


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