What is Marketing?

Marketing is the discipline employed by individuals or businesses (mostly businesses) with the aim of attracting customers to itself. Marketing can pertain to a product or a service. In some settings as in a competitive industry that deals with employing people (Human resources, outsourcing companies) a specialized recruitment marketing exists.
Marketing is about creating a game plan to generate awareness, interest and profit for its subject. Marketing is closely related to advertising in the sense that advertising is a key component in making a marketing venture a success. For instance, an ad agency develops an ad campaign. This ad campaign would be launched using a marketing strategy. Marketing is not just a theoretic discipline, it needs a medium to make it work.
Creating a marketing strategy is a complex process which involves a lot of study. For one, an effective marketing strategy needs to definitively identify who its target audience is. Then the marketing team needs to create a set of plans that will best speak to this target group, or the market. Budget is also a big part of a marketing team’s job, as they would need to define whether a specific marketing initiative is worth the investment, and if it will eventually lead to a return on investment or ROI. A marketing team needs to forecast these data.
Marketing can be broadly subdivided by three: traditional marketing, non-traditional marketing and guerilla marketing. Under traditional marketing falls TV, newspaper, radio (called tri-media) and other conventional means such as billboards, banners. Under non-traditional falls materials such as lamp post banners, internet advertising, or dressing up waiting sheds. Guerilla marketing on the other hand, are unexpected and unconventional marketing efforts, such as the production of a viral video.