CIMA E1 Syllabus E2. Marketing - What is Marketing? - Notes ^{1 / 11}

Marketing is defined by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) as:

'The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies customer needs efficiently and profitably.'

In simple terms, marketing is concerned with the satisfaction of customer needs over the long term.

It goes beyond the traditional idea of sales and advertising.

It also aims at understanding the actual market place and the type of customers before best identifying how to satisfy the customers needs.

Ways of selling a product:

1. Marketing oriented - understand customer needs and then produce products based on their needs

2. Production oriented - Manufacture a large number to reduce the cost per unit

3. Product oriented - focus on product quality

4. Sales oriented - use advertising to attract customers

Push and pull marketing

Traditionally, marketing activities focus on the seller (usually the manufacturer) pushing goods out to retailers or consumers, for example, by offering to pay for in-store promotions such as “15% off for a limited time only!”

A ‘pull’ approach, on the other hand, involves trying to elicit consumer demand through advertising and publicity, which will pull products into retail outlets by end users ordering or inquiring with the retailer about those items