What is Marketing? A Brief Overview

Defining marketing is one of today’s most challenging tasks. This vital business function encompasses many market aspects and is crucial for growth.

Can you grow your business without increasing sales or the average ticket price of products sold? You’ll probably say no. So, here’s another question: How can you sell more without investing in marketing? Difficult. That’s why, for many, marketing is what makes the world go round.

Marketing is essential for increasing sales and average product prices. The ability to create, explore, and deliver value satisfies market and consumer needs. It aims to attract customers, increase brand awareness, generate new relationships, and produce profitable results.

The term has become so prevalent that professional and academic courses are now dedicated to it. However, make sure its broad scope is clear to you. At its core, marketing is about understanding and meeting customer needs.

In the following sections, we’ll explore what marketing is and provide you with the essential knowledge to understand this dynamic field.

What is marketing?

Suppose you have ever looked into the concept of Marketing. In that case, you must have come across the following phrases:

Comparing these definitions, we see that the AMA’s version is broader, reflecting the multifaceted nature of modern marketing. This expansiveness is necessary, as different marketing approaches – such as affiliate and internal marketing – often have distinct objectives.

In this way, marketing balances what the customer (or target audience) desires and the company’s goals. After all, good marketing aims to generate value for the company and its target audience.

Marketing encompasses all these aspects and more. As a field, it continually evolves, seeking innovative strategies to approach, delight, and engage its audience.

READ MORE: 9 Sales KPIs Every Sales Team Should Be Tracking

What is the origin of marketing?

Tracing the origins of marketing is challenging, as it depends on how one defines propaganda and persuasion. Notable figures in philosophy and culture used forms of marketing to attract followers and leave their mark on history. Aristotle and Napoleon, for instance, are names that have endured through time.

However, one thing is certain: marketing today is very different from the “advertising” of the past. This is because today, marketing is a field of knowledge, with books and texts covering its main concepts, producing qualified professionals and opening up a range of possibilities that further complicate the use of the term. 

Below is a timeline that can help you better understand marketing and its origins. Check it out!

Marketing timeline

As we have already said, marketing has been present in society for a long time, even if it was hidden in the past. It is possible that many merchants were marketing without knowing it since they defined their products, positioned them, priced them, and advertised them (the famous word-of-mouth marketing ).

One invention that facilitated the development of marketing was Gutenberg’s printing press, invented in 1450. This device revolutionised communication and facilitated intellectual distribution. In addition, some theorists argue that marketing gained momentum during the Industrial Revolution, at the end of the 18th century, when mass production exploded, and competition increased. 

With more than one supplier selling similar products and services, the competitive market triggered companies to go beyond just negotiating. With widespread competition, it was more necessary than ever to position, price, and promote the product before selling it.

Year	Event
1450	Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press
1609	Printing of the world’s first newspaper (the Germanic Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, or Report of All Illustrious and Commemorative News)
1741	First magazine printed (The Gentleman’s Magazine)
1839	Using posters becomes illegal in London
1867	1st registration of rental of a billboard for advertising purposes
1922	1st commercial broadcast on radio
1941	1st TV Commercial
1967	Launch of Philip Kotler’s book, “Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control”
1970	The term “telemarketing” is coined
1971	The World’s first email is sent
1981	World’s first personal computer launched
1994	The world’s first online sale is made (it was a Sting CD called Ten Summoner’s Tales and was sold through the NetMarket website)
1995	Altavista, the world’s first search engine, is launched
1998	Google launches its own search engine
2000	Google Adwords launches for 350 advertisers
2003	WordPress and LinkedIn Launch
2004	Facebook Launch
2005	Google Analytics and YouTube Launch
2007	Popularisation of 3G
2009	WhatsApp Launch
2010	Instagram Launch
2017	Cell phones become the main internet connection channel in Brazil
2018	32% of Brazilians buy online
2020	Coronavirus pandemic accelerates companies’ digital transformation process
2022	E-commerce revenue in 2022 is 785% higher than before the pandemic
2023	Resumption of physical sales and scaling of omnichannel strategies

The 4 Ps of marketing

The concept of the 4Ps of marketing was created by Professor Jerome McCarthy and widely disseminated by Philip Kotler. It is also known as the marketing mix and represents the four basic pillars of any marketing strategy.

The 4 Ps of marketing are:

• Product.
• Price.
• Place.
• Promotion.

Check out what each one means below in more detail.

Product

The concept of product encompasses everything the company offers customers, such as shape, design, packaging, quality, warranty, technical assistance, services, etc. Kotler states, “a product can be offered to a market for appreciation, acquisition, use or consumption and to satisfy a desire or need”.

This is where analyses are made of the aspects of the product, its function, appearance and design. It is also time to develop an analysis of the product levels, such as:

Product core (the essence of the product) – the basic product (the benefits it can bring) – the product itself (colour, brand, physical aspects) – augmented product ( after-sales aspects, such as warranty, delivery, installation, support, etc.).

It is worth mentioning that the study of this first P also includes the product life cycle, that is, its introduction to the market, growth stages, achievement of maturity, decline, and withdrawal from business.

Some questions that help define what a given company’s product is are:

• What customer desire or need does this product satisfy? What makes a specific audience need to have your product?
• What functions or new features does this product need to attract attention?
• What is the production process for this product?
• What makes your product different?
• What is its design like, including technical features?
• What is your product’s life cycle?

To answer them, it is essential to know the target audience for which a given company’s product is aimed, and to try to understand which attributes are valued by the public and ignored by the competition, precisely to create a product that stands out. 

Using the BCG Matrix may be a good strategy if you have encountered difficulties studying your product. After all, the methodology looks specifically at the company’s products and how they perform in the market, taking into account elements that generate more profitability and others that end up causing losses.

Price

This refers to the amount charged for your product or service. It encompasses both how much customers pay and the payment methods accepted. Products can fall into various price categories, from budget-friendly to premium or luxury offerings.

Kotler emphasises that the price can be charged once or in periodic instalments – usually monthly. It is the only component of the 4 Ps that generates revenue and is one of the main elements in determining a company’s market share and profitability. 

Pricing is more complex than simply calculating production, distribution, advertising, personnel, and sales costs, dividing by units sold, and adding a profit margin. The process involves additional factors and considerations.

Pricing is a strategy designed to define the product’s positioning and value proposition. It is how the product or service will be positioned in the consumer’s mind. The market sets the price, but the customer defines how much they are willing to pay, and this is one of the fronts on which companies need to act.

More than calculating everything that is spent in the production and sales process, it is necessary to take into account the added value that your product has beyond the concrete and measurable benefits.

All of this must be thought out in a way that leaves the customer satisfied but does not harm your working capital. It is important to understand that price volatility is linked to a brand or product’s market positioning.

Place

Place, also called distribution, is the pillar that addresses how the product and/or service are distributed in the market and how the customer reaches the product/service, whether through points of sale, distribution channels, websites, etc. In short, this is the ‘P’ responsible for answering how you will reach your customer.

In this ‘P’, more than just distribution channels, it is also necessary to think about logistics, such as making the product visible in the market through digital marketing strategies or trade promotion marketing, etc. Distribution systems can be transactional, logistical or facilitating. Distribution analysis involves coverage studies (areas of operation, scope), selection of channel types and characteristics, logistics, motivational elements for the channels and the service levels that each element of the chain must offer and comply with.

Again, when considering this aspect, it is necessary to have a good understanding of your buyer personas. After all, investing in the best places (physical and digital) is only possible to distribute your product if your audience is there.

Promotion

For Kotler, promotion is related to communicating and selling to potential customers. Since promotional campaigns involve high costs, it is interesting to perform a break-even analysis to check whether the strategy will have a cost compatible with the additional consumers it will bring. In other words, whether the increase in customers and the benefit will be greater than the promotion cost.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about more than just distribution channels here. We’re also addressing the communication style and language you’ll use to reach your personas. It’s about making your brand known and showing how your product meets your audience’s needs and desires.

Some interesting questions to answer:

• How do your competitors promote their products and services? What influence do they have on your actions?
• If your market is seasonal, what should be the timeline for taking advantage of sales and promotion opportunities?
• What are the best channels (print, internet, radio, TV) and public relations actions to present your actions to potential customers?
• When and where can you effectively communicate your business’s marketing messages to your target audience?
• Another important aspect to consider is the company’s voice and tone of voice. Is the communication more relaxed or more serious? Formal or informal? Aggressive or calm?

Again, it all depends on your personas and who you want to establish a dialogue with. This is related to branding work.

READ MORE: 3 Keys to a Winning Social Commerce Strategy

What types of marketing exist?

Below, we will see the main types of marketing that exist and the main characteristics of each of them.

Digital marketing

Perhaps the most famous of all and the one largely responsible for the digital transformation we are experiencing. If our lives are no longer the same with the internet, the same can be said of the purchasing process.

Digital Marketing employs strategies tailored for internet-connected devices. These include smartphones, notebooks, and desktops. It also addresses various content formats consumed online, such as blog posts, videos, and reels.

The field uses specific techniques and metrics designed for the digital landscape. Think of Digital Marketing as a large umbrella. It covers new marketing branches like email marketing, content marketing, and outbound marketing.

Content marketing

Content Marketing is the strategy of producing content for your target audience that helps them throughout the purchasing process and naturally and spontaneously attracts them to you. It is the fuel of Inbound Marketing.

The idea is to inform people so that in the future, they will not only respect your brand and use it as a reference, but also become customers of your company. It is worth mentioning that there are several ways to apply and execute a good Content Marketing strategy, such as:

• Blog.
• Rich content.
• Videos.
• Social media.
• Email Marketing.

As you can see, content marketing is not just about writing a text on a blog or creating a post on Facebook; it is also about waiting for the results to appear on your desk magically.

You need to consider what to write, when to publish, which channel to promote on, which format to use, which persona to target, and what result you want to achieve.

Inbound marketing

The main goal of Inbound Marketing is to attract and retain customers. The main idea is not to go after the customer, but to arouse their interest so they come to you and become interested in your company’s offerings.

This attraction is achieved through quality content for your audience. Since content production is the main fuel for Inbound, this content must communicate with the right people.

Just as the main idea is to attract the public and spark their genuine interest in the company’s products or services, it is necessary to understand who this public is. In other words, first find out what their interests, doubts and challenges are, and then offer materials that help them solve their problems or make them see a business opportunity with your company.

This path is what we call the sales funnel, in which your company’s objective is to help this audience “walk” to the bottom of the funnel and effectively become a customer.

Outbound marketing

Outbound Marketing, or traditional marketing, aims to go after customers and offer products or services. The idea is to prospect actively and not necessarily generate genuine interest from this potential customer in your company.

You’ve been interrupted by an advertisement while watching a video online. This methodology uses banners, mass emails, and pop-ups, among other types of advertising.

Investment in Outbound differs from Inbound because the media is much more expensive. In Outbound, if, for example, you need to cut investment from one moment to the next, you “disappear” from the media. This does not happen in Inbound since your content remains on the internet and can be accessed anytime.

Relationship marketing

Relationship Marketing encompasses strategies for building and disseminating a brand, prospecting, building loyalty and creating authority in the market. The goal of the relationship is to win over and retain customers and turn them into advocates and promoters of the brand.

Another goal is to become a reference in the market, mainly due to the good experiences offered to the user. To achieve all this, the company creates a relationship that gives advantages to its customers and prospects.

Companies like Apple understand this very well, and for this reason, they have legions of fans. The impact is significant: satisfied customers boost sales, revenue, and company longevity.

Technology allows you to build lasting relationships using internet tools. For instance, WhatsApp can help you maintain contact with customers and leads. You can use it to offer relevant promotions and keep them engaged.

Product marketing

Product Marketing is the segment of marketing that deals with promoting and marketing a product to potential customers, recurring customers, etc. It is also responsible for introducing a company’s new product to the market.

The focus here is to connect the company’s product with people, finding the ideal audience for this product. Some of the functions of this segment of Marketing include:

• Product positioning.
• Create the company’s message about the product.
• Develop the product’s competitive edge compared to its competitors.
• Alignment between Sales and Marketing teams.

In general, there are seven stages of Product Marketing: developing the consumer profile, positioning and message; educating the company about the positioning and message; developing a launch plan; developing content for the launch; training the team; and launching.

Guerrilla marketing

Guerrilla marketing is a strategy companies use to promote products and services unconventionally. It is an alternative tactic designed to create a memorable experience for the consumer.

For a guerrilla marketing campaign to be successful, spending large amounts of money is unnecessary. The most important thing is to have creativity and energy. That is why these actions are often carried out in public places with much foot traffic, such as shopping malls, parks and beaches.

Viral marketing

Viral Marketing can be defined as any marketing strategy that exploits connections between people to spread and go viral. It is considered a technique with lower costs than traditional actions since the media is the target audience.

You’ve probably been impacted by a marketing campaign that went viral, that is, shared by many people and spread through conversation circles and timelines.

READ MORE: Referral Marketing Guide: Turn Fans Into Advocates

SEO marketing (search engine optimisation)

SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimisation, is a set of practices and techniques for improving a website’s positioning in search engines like Google.

It doesn’t matter if your business is small, medium or large. It doesn’t matter if it’s B2B, B2C or even if you sell online or not. You will always need potential customers to know about your business.

SEM (search engine marketing)

SEM (search engine marketing) is SEO’s paid cousin. Boosting your website’s organic search ranking can be challenging. Depending on your niche, it may require significant effort, take considerable time, and still not yield results — even if you do everything correctly.

There are types of services or products with high search competition, that is, many websites and blogs working on the terms, which can raise competition to almost impossible levels.

To make the game more profitable, you can sponsor some words so that you appear in the paid results. It is faster and simpler since 50% of the clicks go to the first and second results; you will undoubtedly get a lot of hits, but you will have to pay for each one.

Affiliate marketing

Imagine that you are the number one customer at a restaurant. You recommend the place to your friends, who eat with their families. When it’s time to pay the bill, they tell the manager that you were the one who recommended them. As a reward, the owner gives you a percentage of their bill.

This is affinity marketing, and it is increasingly being used. Referral programs with financial returns for those who refer are common online. Companies like Amazon and Uber work this way. You can share the link to a product from the Amazon store on a social network, and if a friend clicks on that link and buys the product, you receive a small commission.

Affiliate marketing generates passive income, and the online environment has enabled high financial gains without much effort. In addition, this strategy is excellent for generating results, and both parties (affiliate and company) win.

The affiliate can monetise their blog, website or page without having to think of an innovative product or dedicate time to its creation. In addition, of course, they can earn money working from home (or wherever they want!). The company also benefits, as its product or service will be widely promoted without having to bear the risk.

Internal marketing

Since marketing is the company’s communication with the market, internal marketing is nothing more than internal marketing, for the company’s employees.

In other words, this segment uses traditional marketing strategies to sell the company’s image and products to its own employees, engaging them to become brand ambassadors. The strategy also aims to reduce the company’s turnover rates.

What are the main marketing channels?

Marketing channels are the way your product or service reaches your target audience. Let’s examine the main ones.

Wholesale and retail

These are your products’ traditional distribution and sales channels. One way to work with them is to invest in Trade Marketing with attractive communication focused on winning sales. You can also invest in external actions that bring people into the stores.

Internet

Could the Internet be today’s most significant marketing channel? Customer experience and digital advances in the field indicate that it is. Invest in satisfaction and audience surveys to monitor this channel and build a website with good navigation and user experience practices.

READ MORE: What is Self-Service Customer Service?

Sales team

Having your own sales team or sales representatives who sell various products (including yours) is a great way to reach people since many segments still rely heavily on consultative sales before closing a deal. But remember that it’s very important to train them to be well-aligned with your business goals and target audience.

Telemarketing

Many people turn up their noses when it comes to Telemarketing, but the truth is that this channel is very strategic for many market segments. Once again, what will define its importance is your knowledge about the target audience so that your company is not one of those contacts blocked on the audience’s smartphones.

It is also essential to carry out training so that the service is as personalised as possible and avoids the everyday annoyances that we usually hear about telemarketing.

How to make a marketing strategy?

We’ve covered marketing in its various forms and seen how crucial a solid strategy is for business success. Now, let’s dive into creating a strategy.

Keep in mind that developing a marketing strategy isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. You must adapt these steps to fit your business’s unique needs.

Set goals

Establishing clear goals is crucial for any marketing strategy. Without well-defined objectives, you risk investing resources without a clear path to return on investment.

The first step in developing an effective marketing strategy is identifying your specific marketing goals. These should be distinct from other departmental objectives, such as sales targets. Marketing requires its own set of goals and metrics.

Consider involving your team in the goal-setting process to ensure alignment and commitment. This collaborative approach helps ensure everyone understands the priorities and can contribute effectively to achieving the agreed-upon objectives.

Keep yourself updated constantly.

Marketing is a field of constant change and evolution. Digital marketing, in particular, undergoes rapid transformations with ever-increasing demands. This dynamic environment underscores the importance of ongoing education and team development.

Embrace new strategies, tools, and updates to online advertising platforms as opportunities rather than challenges. These advancements should stimulate creativity and innovative thinking within your team.

Observe the results

Analysing results may seem obvious, but business owners and even some marketing professionals often overlook it. This analysis is crucial — it validates whether a strategy succeeded or failed. With it, you can know if your efforts paid off or if they’re worth repeating.

This is where online advertising shines compared to traditional methods. Digital marketing is fully measurable, while traditional advertising doesn’t allow for detailed data collection. With digital marketing, KPIs (key performance indicators) clearly show how consumers react to your strategies.

Have well-defined personas and ICP

Personas are essential for your strategy to be successful. They describe your audience and need to be created in detail and with great care. However, to build detailed personas, you need a well-defined ICP (ideal customer profile). 

When creating your personas, be thoughtful about the survey questions you’ll ask your audience. Take your time with the process and take steps. And remember, you only sometimes need multiple personas – depending on your market niche, one or two may be enough.

Choose the ideal KPIs

KPIs vary depending on your marketing strategy and goals. For instance, if you aim to increase website contact form submissions, your key metric might be the number of unique forms submitted. On the other hand, if generating traffic is your goal, you’d focus on metrics like sessions, new users, and pages per visit.

Work with reliable tools

Good tools solve practically all the challenges that a professional will encounter, from strategy, through process and execution, to metrics and results analysis.

There are countless options to make your daily work easier. These include image banks, Chrome plugins, and integrations between online tools. Look for anything that optimises your time, automates actions, and allows you to focus on your strategy.

READ MORE: 5 Small Business Marketing Tools To Generate More Leads

Extra materials to help you master the concept of Marketing

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve certainly learned a lot about what marketing is and all the details surrounding the subject. But how about delving even deeper into this knowledge? We’ve compiled a variety of resources to help you on this journey – from research papers and articles to films and books. Check it out!

Films about marketing

• Thank You for Smoking (2006), starring Aaron Eckhart, tells the story of a campaign manager for a large tobacco company who, despite knowing the problems the product causes, defends its consumption. It is a great lesson in lobbying and consumer strategies.
  
  Although Nick Naylor (Eckhart) is a competent professional, the film shows how marketing work can have adverse effects on people, and how manipulated information can lead people to consume what they do not need.
  
  However, the character shows that it is important to remain firm in your goals and use strategy to achieve your objectives and overcome challenging situations in your profession with creativity and proactivity. But of course, you cannot forget about ethics.
  
• The Social Dilemma (2020) is a Netflix documentary that caused a huge buzz when it was released. Directed by Jeff Orlowski, the work is divided into a fictional plot, which follows the life of a young man who spends a lot of time on social media and accounts from former employees and executives of so-called big tech companies. Some of those responsible for tools that revolutionised companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are interviewed.
  
  In addition to helping us understand the power of social media and how algorithms work, the documentary criticises the time spent browsing social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, directly relating it to polarisation, which is present in both Brazil and the US.

Books about marketing

• The Purple Cow – How to Transform Your Business and Stand Out from the Competition, by Seth Godin. This book is a more recent option among established marketing books and is ideal for those seeking strategies aimed at developing a competitive edge.
  
  In the book, the author uses the purple cow as a metaphor to say that you need to be different and memorable to stand out in today’s market – as would happen with a purple cow among a herd of common cows.
  
• Hacking Growth: The Innovative Marketing Strategy of the Fastest-Growing Companies, by Sean Ellis. The author, who is not only a writer but also an investor, coined the term growth hacker to define a person focused on growth. From this, Ellis developed the growth hacking methodology, focused on the scalable growth of companies. The goal of the strategy is to promote accelerated and sustainable business growth through the recognition of opportunities.

Articles about marketing

• 3 Ways Generative AI Will Help Marketers Connect With Customers, by Bobby Jania, Senior VP of Marketing, Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Ever wondered how artificial intelligence can impact marketing?
  
  In this article written by one of our executives, you’ll discover some predictions about how AI can improve business and generate connections.
  
• What Does ‘Real-Time Marketing’ Really Mean? by Martin Kihn, Senior VP of Market Intelligence at Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Working in real-time has never been more important, right? Thanks to the instantaneous nature of social media, customers have become accustomed to fast responses, and any wait time can be detrimental.
  
  In this article, Kihn discusses the real concept behind real-time marketing, demystifying misconceptions, and explaining the role of data intelligence in the entire process.
  
• How AI Is Helping Adidas Boost Its Personalised Email Marketing Game, by Armita Peymandoust, VP of Product Management at Salesforce. There’s nothing like a success story to understand the importance of marketing strategies. Here, we look at the email marketing process of giant Adidas and how Salesforce’s artificial intelligence helped change the performance of its emails to customers once and for all.

Did you enjoy learning more about what marketing is?

Digital and traditional marketing play crucial roles in expanding audience reach and capturing leads. When used strategically, Marketing promises to boost results and, as a bonus, further strengthen consumer engagement. Therefore, it’s essential to incorporate marketing strategies into your action plan.

Visit our Resource Centre for the latest in Marketing, CRM, and Sales, visit our Resource Centre. To learn more about Salesforce solutions, feel free to contact us.

We look forward to supporting your business success.