Marketing is one of the broadest areas of study in the business fields. It is a dynamic process that touches us throughout our lives.

We are all familiar with marketing from our personal experiences and observations as consumers in the most advanced consumer-oriented society in the world. Our complex contemporary marketing system of buyers and sellers demands that businesses effectively compete in the marketplace. If they do not, they will not survive.

Today when we speak of marketing, we include the activities of for-profit businesses, government, not-for-profit organizations, institutions, and individuals. We market many different things in addition to goods, including ideas, causes, places, services, performances, groups, and people. Marketing targets our present and potential customers. These may include personal-use consumers, like our families, as well as other businesses and organizations that purchase products for resale, as inputs to production, or to run their own operations.