Table of Contents

Introduction
The evolving discipline of marketing
Roles of marketing
The marketing process
- Strategic marketing analysis
  - Market segments
  - Market niches
  - Marketing to individuals
  - Positioning
- Marketing-mix planning
  - Product
    - Product development
    - Packaging and branding
    - Marketing a service product
  - Price
  - Place
  - Promotion
    - Sales force
    - Advertising
    - Sales promotion
    - Public relations
- Marketing implementation
- Marketing evaluation and control
  - Marketing control
    - Annual-plan control
    - Profitability control
    - Efficiency control
    - Strategic control
  - Marketing audit
The marketing actors
- Customers
  - Consumer customers
    - Factors influencing consumers
      Cultural factors
      Social factors
      Personal factors
      Psychological factors
    - Consumer buying tasks
      High-involvement purchases
      Low-involvement purchases
      Brand differences
    - The consumer buying process
  - Business customers
    - Factors influencing business customers
    - The business buying process
- Marketing intermediaries: the distribution channel
  - Channel functions and flows
  - Management of channel systems
  - Wholesalers
    - Merchant wholesalers
      Full-service wholesalers
      Limited-service wholesalers
    - Brokers and agents
    - Manufacturers’ and retailers’ branches and offices
  - Retailers
    - The history of retailing
    - Store retailers
      Specialty stores
      Department stores
      Supermarkets
      Convenience stores
      Superstores
      Discount stores
      Off-price retailers
    - Nonstore retailers
      Direct selling
      Direct marketing
      Automatic vending
    - Retail organizations
      Corporate chains
      Voluntary chains and retailer cooperatives
      Consumer cooperatives
      Franchise organizations
      Merchandising conglomerates
- Marketing facilitators
  - Advertising agencies
  - Market research firms
  - Transportation firms
  - Warehousing firms
Marketing in different sectors
- The government market
  - The civilian establishment
  - The military establishment
  - Purchasing procedures
- Consumer-goods marketing
  - Convenience goods
  - Shopping goods
  - Specialty goods
  - Unsought goods
- Services marketing
- Business marketing
- Nonprofit marketing
- Social marketing
- Place marketing
Economic and social aspects of marketing
- Marketing and individual welfare
- Marketing and societal welfare
- Marketing’s contribution to individuals and society

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marketing

business

Also known as: merchandising

Written by Philip Kotler, Kent A. Grayson, Jonathan D. HibbardSee All

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: May 11, 2023 • Article History

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Key People:: Jacques Coeur Susan Wojcicki Stanley Marcus Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Charles Atlas

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marketing, the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. For a discussion of how words, images, and associations are used to represent and distinguish a product or service in the marketplace, see brand marketing. Marketing’s principal function is to promote and facilitate exchange. Through marketing, individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. Such a process can occur only when there are at least two parties, each of whom has something to offer. In addition, exchange cannot occur unless the parties are ...(100 of 15359 words)

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