There is a plethora of definitions out there defining marketing but the definition that works for me is that coined by The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). According to CIM, “Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.
The Keyword for me there is ‘customer requirements. Identifying, anticipating and satisfying are all management processes that must be executed with precision, but marketing is all about customer needs. For example, people are starting to take health seriously and a luxury watch brand releases a range that caters to monitoring health while not neglecting the core of the business. That is marketing.
Majority of the time, people are more focused on their products than customer needs. So, they acquire or produce the product and try to force it down the throat of customers with adverts on every marketing channel. That is not marketing. When marketing focuses on customers needs, always all the time, it is profitable.