Marketing is a holistic business activity, which throughout the whole process of business activities. The process of marketing includes development, pricing, promotion and distribution activities to a product, a service or an idea. Its purpose is to meet the organization or target individual needs through exchange and transactions.

 

Marketing is the central link of the whole enterprise activities, and the decision element to judge its production and operation activities. So, marketing plays an important role in business activities. The purpose of this essay is to talk about what is marketing and discuses why marketing is important. This paper will first introduce the concept and connotation of marketing. In the following, it will illustrate why marketing is important from two aspects.

 

 

什么是營銷—What is marketing

 

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, client, partners, and society at large. Marketing embodies new modern business ideas. The core is based on consumer demand-oriented. This is a new kind outgoing thinking way, which contrary to the traditional that find customer from the inside according to products. The marketing concept is a managerial prescription relating to the attainment of an entity’s goals （Houston, Franklin S., 1986). More simply, marketing is providing products and services at the right time, place, the right price, the appropriate information communication and promotional tools to the right consumers in the market.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

 

Marketing is a social process that individuals and groups meet their needs and desires by creating and exchanging products and value with others. Marketing has two levels: first of all, it is a philosophy, an attitude, a point of view, a management and putting customer satisfaction in the first place. Besides, marketing is a series of activities and the implementation of the concept. Secondly, the core of marketing activities is the exchange, but its scope is not limited to the exchange of commodities circulation process, it also includes the activities of pre-natal and post-natal. Product marketing activities are often longer than the circulation process.

 

為什么影響重要—Why marketing is important

 

Marketing is the central of the whole enterprise activities and the decision elements to judged production and operation activities. In a sense, talking about marketing should discuss what marketing can do for the enterprises. Marketing takes meeting consumer demand as a point of departure and destination to accurately determine their target market, make marketable products, establish a reasonable distribution channels to facilitate the purchase, develop appropriate pricing strategies and use effective promotional tool to attract consumers. Why marketing is important has the following reasons.

 

First of all, marketing plays an important role in the development process of enterprise. All aspects of the marketing mix show a positive short-term direct effect on sales of the enterprises（M. BERK ATAMAN, HARALD J. VAN HEERDE, and CARL F. MELA，2010).Marketing contribution to businesses mainly manifested in it solves the basic growth and development problems in the enterprise and provides strategic management principles and complete strategy for business growth. Marketing guides enterprises to establish a correct concept of marketing, market-oriented production process and circulation and continue to fundamentally solve the key issues in business growth. All of these can help enterprises clearly learn meet consumers’ needs and how to meet those needs. Besides, marketing can not only enhance the corporate culture, but also develop the charm of corporate culture. The marketing as its institutionalized set of practices has become a key institution of modern culture （A. Fuat F?rat, 2012). Moreover, marketing is the intermediate links between he needs of the community and the corporate reaction. It is also the basic way for enterprise changing market opportunities of the consumers’ needs into profit opportunities.

 

In addition, marketing can help companies get competitive advantage in the market. It can make enterprises to serve the target market through product prices, promotions, distribution and other factors in the competitive environment in their field. This new management tools can provide early warning intelligence for the actions that competitors will take. It offers the in-depth understanding and coping strategies as well as to help enterprises achieve high profit in the competition. In the modern enterprise management and marketing functions are in the core position. Verhoef and Leeflang’s study also suggests that the influence of marketing within the firm also focus on marketing department-specific factors （Verhoef and Leeflang’s, 2009). This is because the main task of the business is to attract, maintain and expand the customer. If the companies can not win more customers, the enterprise will lose the value and meaning of existence. The basic tasks of marketing are to achieve the interests and needs of customer satisfaction through quality products, reasonable price, and full range of services. But achieving a high degree of satisfaction of customer needs, the functional departments must be co-operation and coordination. However, this collaboration should take marketing management as the center. Because the higher the presence of marketing in the organizational structure, the higher its influence relative to other functions（Omar Merlo，2011). The basic tasks of the enterprise management is to research the customers’ needs of the target market, optimally combine various resources to provide products or services that can fully meet customer wants and needs. Marketing departments have capabilities related to accountability, innovativeness and customer connection. Marketing can create customer value through cooperation with other departments （Peter Leeflang, 2011). Marketing is the basic functions for realizing the effectively connected between market demand and the business. Other activities of enterprises must serve the marketing, or else it will lose the practical significance of its management.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Secondly, the marketing play a significant role to community. First of all, marketing can solve the contradiction between production and consumption and meet the needs of the life consumption and production. Marketing can establish a unique corporate image and selective focus customer groups based on understanding the consumers’ psychology. Marketing will segment the market and generate effective role in the life. Besides, marketing can achieve the value of goods and value-added. Marketing can make the value and added value of the goods recognized by social through product innovation, distribution, promotion, pricing and service. Moreover, marketing can avoid the waste of social resources and enterprise resource effectively. Marketing arrange production according to demand conditions from the view of the customer, which minimizing the product that can not be sold and avoid the waste of social resources and enterprise resource. Last, marketing can meet customer needs and improve the people’s standard of living and quality of life. The goal of the marketing is to maximize meet customer’s needs through various means, and ultimately improve standard of living and quality of life.