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To the ordinary person, the word market invokes a picture of a place where buyers and sellers
gather together to exchange their goods. This is the traditional view of a market. The meaning of
a market has been extended to include new perspectives. These are captured in the explanation
below:

Kotler (1997:13) defined a market as "all the potential customers sharing a particular need or
want who might be willing and able to engage in exchange to satisfy that need or want".
Nwokoye (1996:7) defined the market for product or services as "individuals or organizations
that have purchasing power and that are current or potential buyers of a product or services". The
two definitions show that:

1. A market consists of individuals or organizations - business firms, nonprofit organization and

government who take the form of buyers or sellers.

2. That such market participant has a common need - current or potential.

3. That the market participants have the willingness to participate in the transaction.

4. That the participants have the ability to engage in the transaction - purchasing power or
something of value.

From the two definitions, it is clear that a broad range of participant are involve in marketing,
namely the producers, manufacturers or processors, farmers, retailers, consumers, transportation
companies, advertising agencies, marketing research firms and users. There are different types of
markets based on their shared characteristics. Examples include consumer markets, industrial
markets, reseller markets, government markets, automobile markets, regional markets and
international markets, etc.
cn this article, the term market is operationally defined as a social system that facilitates
exchange of goods and services between and among individual, households, groups, and
organization to satisfy their shared needs and wants.



 is a very important aspect in business since it contributes greatly to the success of the
organization. Production and distribution depend largely on marketing. Many people think that
sales and marketing are basically the same. These two concepts are different in many aspects.
Marketing covers advertising, promotions, public relations, and sales. ct is the process of
introducing and promoting the product or service into the market and encourages sales from the
buying public. Sales refer to the act of buying or the actual transaction of customers purchasing
the product or service. Since the goal of marketing is to make the product or service widely
known and recognized to the market, marketers must be creative in their marketing activities. cn
this competitive nature of many businesses, getting the product noticed is not that easy.

Strategically, the business must be centered on the customers more than the products. Although
good and quality products are also essential, the buying public still has their personal
preferences. cf you target more of their needs, they will come back again and again and even
bring along recruits. cf you push more on the product and disregard their wants and the benefits
they can get, you will lose your customers in no time. The sad thing is that getting them back is
the hardest part.


 


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ct has already been mentioned in the previous paragraph that getting the product or service
recognized by the market is the primary goal of marketing. No business possibly ever thought of
just letting the people find out about the business themselves, unless you have already
established a reputation in the industry. But if you are a start-out company, the only means to be
made known is to advertise and promote. Your business may be spending on the advertising and
promotional programs but the important thing is that product and company information is
disseminated to the buying public.
Various types of marketing approaches can be utilized by an organization. All forms of
marketing promote product awareness to the market at large. Offline and online marketing make
it possible for the people to be educated with the various products and services that they can take
advantage of.

A company must invest in marketing so as not to miss the opportunity of being discovered. cf
expense is to be considered, there are cost-effective marketing techniques a company can embark
on such as pay-per-click ads and blogging.

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Apart from public awareness about a company¶s products and services, marketing helps boost
sales and revenue growth. Whatever your business is selling, it will generate sales once the
public learns about your product through TV advertisements, radio commercials, newspaper ads,
online ads, and other forms of marketing. The more people hear and see more of your
advertisements, the more they will be interested to buy.

cf your company aims to increase the sales percentage and double the production, the marketing
department must be able to come up with effective and strategic marketing plans.

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cn order to conquer the general market, marketers aim to create a brand name recognition or
product recall. This is a technique for the consumers to easily associate the brand name with the
images, logo, or caption that they hear and see in the advertisements.

For example, McDonalds is known for its arch design which attracts people and identifies the
image as McDonalds. For some companies, building a reputation to the public may take time but
there are those who easily attract the people. With an established name in the industry, a business
continues to grow and expand because more and more customers will purchase the products or
take advantage of the services from a reputable company.
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Before enumerating the functions of marketing, it is pertinent to note that, the major objectives
of marketing activities is to fill these exchange gaps or separations, thereby facilitating the flow
of goods, services and ideas from the producers to the end users. For marketing to conceive and
deliver a bundle of satisfaction through an exchange process, it must undertake some basic
functions. These functions are divided into three types. Namely: Transactional, Logistic and
Facilitating.

1. 
 
 


These include the following activities:

(a) Buying: Seeking and choosing from alternative products or assessment of goods.

(b) Advertising: An impersonal presentation and promotion of goods and services through the
mass media.

(c) Personal Selling: this is person to person conversation and presentation of goods and services.

(d) Sales Promotion and Merchandising: Activities that stimulate consumer purchasing and
dealer effectiveness.

2. 



These include:

(a) Selecting channels of distribution and channels members.

(b) Transportation and storage and the physical handling of goods.

3.   


(a) Financing of products by providing capital

(b) Risk taking - by holding or taking ownership

(c) Proving market information

(d) Post sale transaction- give after sales services.

A synthesis of the above functions shows that by performing the above listed functions,
marketing create four basic utilities: form, place, time and possession utilities.

Form utility: Marketing creates form utility by transforming marketing information into goods,
services or ideas.

Place utility: This means making the product available where consumers need it.

Time utility: Having it available when it is needed.

cn summary, marketing objectives is to have the right product at the right place, at the right time,
and for the right person.