What Is Marketing?

by Alvin J. Silk, Alvin J. Silk

Sometimes you need more then a one-sentence answer. While the term marketing generally refers to what a company does to create value for customers, practicing marketers know they have a major role in setting their company’s strategic direction. Successful marketing requires a deep knowledge of customers, competitors, and collaborators―and great skill in serving customers profitably. The book provides the foundation for developing those skills and insights. It’s organized according to the design of the first-year marketing course in Harvard Business School’s MBA program. Each chapter was written by HBS faculty and used by MBA students to analyze marketing opportunities and develop and execute successful marketing strategies. Areas covered

Genres: Business

207 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this in my Core MBA Marketing class. EXTREMELY dry. But if you have never been introduced to the concepts/frameworks for marketing, its worth a gander. Though there are probably other books that could teach you the concepts in a more engaging way.

[James Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cannot Give an Accurate Review

This is one of my introductions to marketing. It has a lot of information and reads like a textbook. Chapter 2 was by far my favorite. It explored the importance of using modern psychology and neuroscience to understand markets.

[Jasmine · Rating 2 out of 5]

"What is Marketing? Sometimes you need more than a one-sentence answer." Yeah, but RARELY do you ever need a whole book for an answer.

I was assigned to read this for my position at work. Pretty informative and definitely has some good points. It looks at marketing as the overall effort of placing "the right product in front of the right customer at the right time and at the right price" rather than what you would typically think of as marketing (ie., advertising, sales, etc.,) although of course it covers those too.

I made a couple of notes and copied some charts but I think I would have been okay just skimming through the first couple chapters of this.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admittedly, this is the first book on marketing I have read in recent memory. However, as a non-marketer, I really appreciated the methodical progression through marketing logic. In fact, I almost view this book as a "how to" book for marketing. A framework based on the chapters in this book is like a blueprint for how to market your....whatever.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good general overview. If you've had a class in marketing, this will be very boring.

[Walter Sorto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your basic marketing book. Good overview and practical approach.