What Has Marketing Provided to Our Economy and Our Lives?

by Vince Rogers

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as "the activities, institutions, and processes that create, communicate, deliver, and exchange products and services that provide value to businesses, consumers, and society at large." The benefits that Marketing activities such as Advertising, Public Relations and Sales Promotion provides to businesses are pretty easy to understand.  These activities help companies to; Increase Revenue; Maximize Sales; and Attract Customers. So what’s in it for us?

Marketing helps to create Competition between companies.  Competition between companies results in 3 Major Benefits to Consumers. These benefits are 1) Promotion of Good Customer Service; 2) Availability of a Wide Variety of Products and Services and 3) Lower Prices for Consumers.

Companies use marketing activities to Promote Good Customer Service.  They must make good on their claims of providing good customer service in order to satisfy their customers.  Companies know that if they promote good customer service, but don’t make good on that promise, they will lose their customers to the competition.

Competition between firms results in the availability of an almost unlimited Wide Variety of Products and Services being produced and made available to consumers. Companies are constantly creating and promoting new varieties of products to compete for market share with their competition. This abundance enables consumers to have access to options that best suit their specific needs and tastes.

Maybe most important to consumers is the fact that competitive marketing activities between companies results in Lower Prices for Consumers. Because competing products usually have similar prices, marketing is used to promote discounts, coupons, rebates or any other price incentives. These attributes are designed to lure customers away from competing products. Also, companies use marketing to promote other non-price differences between competitor’s products and services such as new features, free shipping, extended warranties or anything else that will appeal to targeted consumers.

The benefits that marketing provides to businesses and consumers helps to expand the economy by making sure that consumers are provided with a wide variety of well priced products and good customer service.  These factors help to create a strong economy that produces successful businesses, low unemployment, and sufficient tax revenue to provide people with essential government services. All of these factors combined should contribute a higher quality of life for all of us.

This article is a companion to the  “Business Success” Video Series presented by Vince Rogers for eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_12239455_business-success.html

Learn about the Keys to business Success with help from the Principal Change Agent at Vince Rogers & Associates www.vincerogers.biz