What is marketing? A simple definition and 12 roles
What marketing is: a simple and an official definition, what it's for, the 4Ps of the marketing mix, the funnel, the customer journey and 12 roles.
In 30 seconds
- Marketing is the set of activities through which a company understands what people want, creates an offer, makes it known, sells it and brings customers back.
- The classic tools are the 4Ps of the marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion (E. Jerome McCarthy, 1960).
- The customer goes through 4 stages: getting known, getting found, convincing and selling, bringing back and measuring.
- Each stage has its own roles: we cover 12 in total, from SEO specialist to CRM manager.
Marketing is the set of activities through which a company understands what people want, creates a product or service that meets that need, makes it known, sells it and makes sure customers come back. It isn’t just advertising: it’s also choosing the right product, the price, the sales channels and the way of talking. In one sentence: marketing is about getting known, getting chosen and bringing customers back.
What is marketing? The definition
The simple definition
Think of the last thing you bought online. How did you find it? Why did you choose that one? Will you buy it again? Behind each of these answers is someone’s marketing work.
The official definition
The American Marketing Association (AMA), the US association of marketing professionals, uses this definition, approved in 2017:
“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
It contains four key verbs: creating (the product), communicating (making it known), delivering (getting it to people), exchanging (selling it). And it says who it must create value for: not just customers, but society too.
What marketing is for
- Understanding customers: what they look for, what holds them back, how much they’re willing to spend.
- Getting known: letting people know the product exists.
- Getting chosen over competitors.
- Selling: leading people to buy.
- Bringing customers back: keeping a customer costs less than finding a new one.
- Measuring: understanding what worked to do better.
The marketing mix: the 4Ps
The marketing mix is the set of levers a company controls. The most famous model is the 4Ps, proposed by American professor E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960:
| P | Question | Example for a tea shop |
|---|---|---|
| Product | What do we sell? | Organic teas with a brewing guide |
| Price | How much does it cost? | Mid-range, €6-12 per pack |
| Place | Where can you buy it? | Website, marketplaces, some supermarkets |
| Promotion | How do we make it known? | Social media, SEO, newsletter, seasonal offers |
Richer models have appeared over the years: the 7Ps for services (Booms and Bitner, 1981) add people, process and physical evidence (the setting, the packaging); the 4Cs (Robert Lauterborn, 1990) look at the same levers from the customer’s side: customer needs, cost, convenience, communication.
The marketing funnel and the customer journey
The funnel is a way of picturing the path from the many people who discover a brand to the few who buy. The oldest model is AIDA, attributed to American advertiser Elias St. Elmo Lewis (late 19th century): Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.
The customer journey is the same idea seen from the person’s side: all the steps and touchpoints (a post, a Google search, a review, the website, the delivery, an email) from the first encounter with the brand to the repeat purchase. It isn’t a straight line: people often go back, compare, ask a friend.
The 4 stages of the customer journey
To keep things simple we use four stages, combining the funnel and the customer journey:
- Getting known (awareness): the person discovers the brand exists.
- Getting found (consideration): when they search for something, they find us.
- Convincing and selling (conversion): they choose our product, online or in a shop.
- Bringing back and measuring (loyalty): they buy again, and we understand what worked.
The 12 marketing roles, stage by stage
| Stage | Roles | An example |
|---|---|---|
| Getting known | Brand manager, Social media manager, Influencer marketing, PR and communications | Deciding the brand’s tone, preparing posts, choosing a creator, writing a press release |
| Getting found | SEO specialist, SEA / PPC specialist | Getting a page to appear on Google, for free or with ads |
| Convincing and selling | Product marketing, Trade marketing, Partnerships | Launching a product, placing it on the shelf, working with another company |
| Bringing back and measuring | CRM manager, Market research, Marketing analytics / martech | Emailing customers, running a survey, reading the website data |
Types of marketing
- B2C and B2B: aimed at individuals or at other companies.
- Digital marketing: SEO, online ads, social media, email, websites. Almost everything is measurable.
- Content marketing: attracting people with useful content (articles, videos, guides). See content strategy for beginners.
- Brand marketing: building a recognisable, loved brand over time. See brand identity.
- Performance marketing: campaigns paid by results (clicks, sales), optimised with data.
- Trade marketing: working with shops and supermarkets.
An example: one tea, twelve jobs
Five Leaf is Peacchy’s fictional tea shop. To sell a new herbal tea, the brand manager decides how to talk about it and product marketing chooses its price and launch. The SEO specialist gets it found on Google, while the social media manager and a creator show it on Instagram. Trade marketing gets it into supermarkets. Then the CRM manager emails customers, market research asks what they think and analytics reads the numbers to see what worked.
How to find out which role suits you
The best way is to try them. On the Roles page you’ll find what each one does, and in the practice company you can try an exercise for each role, free and without signing up.
Sources
- Definition of Marketing (American Marketing Association)
- E. Jerome McCarthy, Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach, Irwin, 1960
Who takes care of bringing back a customer who has already bought?
Correct! The CRM manager looks after the relationship with existing customers, for example with emails and loyalty programmes.
Not quite. Close: SEA brings new visits with ads, trade marketing works in shops. Bringing customers back is the CRM manager's job.
Frequently asked questions
Are marketing and advertising the same thing?
No. Advertising is just one part of promotion, which is one of the 4Ps. Marketing also includes understanding customers, deciding product, price and channels, looking after the brand and bringing back people who've already bought.
What's the difference between marketing and sales?
Sales closes the deal with the individual customer; marketing prepares the ground: it makes the product known, brings in leads and builds trust. In small companies the same person often does both.
What is digital marketing?
It's marketing done through digital channels: search engines (SEO and ads), social media, email, websites and apps. It uses the same ideas as traditional marketing, with the advantage that almost everything can be measured.
What do B2B and B2C mean?
B2C (business to consumer) is marketing to individuals, like an online tea shop. B2B (business to business) is marketing to other companies, like selling software to businesses: slower decisions, more people involved, more technical content.
Which role should I start with?
The one you're most curious about. If you don't know, the quiz on the Roles page gives you a first suggestion.
Topics:BasicsMarketing roles