Winning with Marketing

The role of marketing in any organization is to improve performance by establishing and nurturing worthwhile relationships (for companies, “worthwhile” usually means profitable) with customers, clients, sponsors, or other stakeholders. The professional practice of marketing, however, is more complicated than the unfortunate media-created stereotypes of fast-talking salespeople and manipulative advertisers. Indeed, marketers have many ways to win. This note explains the major choices that all marketers face and the ways in which marketing decisions can be made to obtain winning relationships with stakeholders.