Page 552 - Business Principles and Management

Chapter 20 • Nature and Scope of Marketing

and sell them to other businesses. The thousands of businesses that sell services,
rather than products, are also included. In addition, advertising agencies provide facts
promotional services, finance companies offer loans and other financial services, &
and transportation companies handle and move products. All of these types of
business as well as many others that support the marketing efforts of other busi- figures
nesses are directly involved in marketing.
Many manufacturers have marketing departments with employees who do
marketing tasks. For example, marketing department employees do market It is estimated that the average
research, design products, and sell the products. Other types of marketing jobs consumer sees about 1 million
involve advertising and sales promotion, customer service, credit, and insurance. marketing messages a year—
The many jobs range from clerk to vice president in charge of all marketing about 3,000 a day. One trip to
activities. Well over one-third of all people employed in the United States work the supermarket alone can
in a marketing job or a marketing business.
expose you to more than
10,000 marketing messages.
CHECKPOINT
List the three primary business organizations that engage
in marketing.

Nature of Marketing

When many people think of marketing, they think only of advertising and selling.
However, many marketing activities must occur before a product can be advertised
and sold. To better understand marketing, we will examine the major marketing
activities, the cost of marketing activities, and the role of marketing in business.

MARKETING ACTIVITIES
The following are the most common marketing activities:
• Buying Obtaining a product to be resold; involves finding suppliers that can
provide the right products in the right quality and quantity at a fair price.
• Selling Providing personalized and persuasive information to customers
to help them buy the products and services they need.
• Transporting Moving products from where they were made to where con-
sumers can buy them.
• Storing Holding products until customers need them, such as on shelves,
in storage rooms, or in warehouses.
• Financing Providing money to pay for the various marketing activities, such
as by obtaining credit when buying and extending credit when selling.
• Researching Studying buyer interests and needs, testing products, and
gathering facts needed to make good marketing decisions.
• Risk taking Assuming the risk of losses that may occur from fire, theft,
damage, or other circumstances.
• Grading and valuing Grouping goods according to size, quality, or other
characteristics, and determining an appropriate price for products and
services.

COST OF MARKETING

Whether the product is paper clips for offices or huge generators for utility
companies, businesses must perform all eight marketing activities just described

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