My 40-year career in marketing has produced some knowledge and even a little wisdom. Reflecting on the state of the discipline, it occurred to me that it is time to revisit the basic concepts of marketing.
First, I listed the 80 concepts in marketing critical today and spent time mulling over their meanings and implications for sound business practice. My primary aim was to ascertain the best principles and practices for effective and innovative marketing. I found this journey to be filled with many surprises, yielding new insights and perspectives.
I didn’t want to write another 800-page textbook on marketing. And I didn’t want to repeat thoughts and passages that I have written in previous books. I wanted to present fresh and stimulating ideas and perspectives in a format that could be picked up, sampled, digested, and put down anytime. This short book is the result, and it was written with the following audiences in mind:
- Managers who have just learned that they need to know something about marketing; you could be a financial vice president, an executive director of a not-for-profit organization, or an entrepreneur about to launch a new product. You may not even have time to read Marketing for Dummies with its 300 pages. Instead you want to understand some key concepts and marketing principles presented by an authoritative voice, in a convenient way.
- Managers who may have taken a course on marketing some years ago and have realized things have changed. You may want to refresh your understanding of marketing’s essential concepts and need to know the latest thinking about highperformance marketing.
- Professional marketers who might feel unanchored in the daily chaos of marketing events and want to regain some clarity and recharge their understanding by reading this book.
My approach is influenced by Zen. Zen emphasizes learning by means of meditation and direct, intuitive insights. The thoughts in this book are a result of my meditations on these fundamental marketing concepts and principles.
Whether I call these meditations, ruminations, or cogitations, I make no claim that all the thoughts in this book are my own. Some great thinkers in business and marketing are directly quoted, or they directly influenced the thoughts here. I have absorbed their ideas through reading, conversations, teaching, and consulting.
