Marketing, more than any other business function, deals with customers. Although we will soon explore more-detailed definitions of marketing, perhaps the simplest definition is this one: Marketing is engaging customers and managing profitable customer relationships. The twofold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering value and satisfaction.

For example, Nike leaves its competitors in the dust by delivering on its promise to inspire and help everyday athletes to “Just do it.” Amazon dominants the online marketplace by creating a world-class online buying experience that helps customers to “find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” Facebook has attracted more than 1.5 billion active web and mobile users worldwide by helping them to “connect and share with the people in their lives.” And Coca-Cola has earned an impressive 49 percent global share of the carbonated beverage market—more than twice Pepsi’s share—by fulfilling its “Taste the Feeling” motto with products that provide “a simple pleasure that makes everyday moments more special.”2

Sound marketing is critical to the success of every organization. Large for-profit firms such as Google, Target, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft use marketing. But so do not-for-profit organizations, such as colleges, hospitals, museums, symphony orchestras, and even churches.

You already know a lot about marketing—it’s all around you. Marketing comes to you in the good old traditional forms: You see it in the abundance of products at your nearby shopping mall and the ads that fill your TV screen, spice up your magazines, or stuff your mailbox. But in recent years, marketers have assembled a host of new marketing approaches, everything from imaginative websites and smartphone apps to blogs, online videos, and social media. These new approaches do more than just blast out messages to the masses. They reach you directly, personally, and interactively. Today’s marketers want to become a part of your life and enrich your experiences with their brands. They want to help you live their brands.

At home, at school, where you work, and where you play, you see marketing in almost everything you do. Yet there is much more to marketing than meets the consumer’s casual eye. Behind it all is a massive network of people, technologies, and activities competing for your attention and purchases. This book will give you a complete introduction to the basic concepts and practices of today’s marketing. In this chapter, we begin by defining marketing and the marketing process.

The Marketing Process

Figure 1.1 presents a simple, five-step model of the marketing process for creating and capturing customer value. In the first four steps, companies work to understand consumers, create customer value, and build strong customer relationships. In the final step, ­companies reap the rewards of creating superior customer value. By creating value for consumers, they in turn capture value from consumers in the form of sales, profits, and long-term customer equity.

Figure 1.1

The Marketing Process: Creating and Capturing Customer Value

Figure 1.1 Full Alternative Text

In this chapter and the next, we will examine the steps of this simple model of marketing. In this chapter, we review each step but focus more on the customer relationship steps—understanding customers, engaging and building relationships with customers, and capturing value from customers. In Chapter 2, we look more deeply into the second and third steps—designing value-creating marketing strategies and constructing marketing programs.