Marketing consists of the spectrum of activities that link the production of goods and services with individual consumers or industrial users.
Marketing management involves planning, implementing, and controlling marketing activities.
These activities include designing products and services to satisfy customers' needs, developing pricing strategies to achieve a firm's financial objectives, implementing distribution procedures to facilitate an efficient flow of goods and services from producers to consumers, and designing advertising, promotional, and sales strategies that provide information consumers need to make decisions. Marketing managers are also concerned with the social impacts of marketing activity, and must consider the collective social good, in addition to the needs and wants of consumers and industrial users when developing strategies. The effect of packaging on the environment, the effect of products on consumer health, and the effect of advertising on social values are all issues of concern to marketing managers. While it is common to think of marketing activities as occurring only in large, profit-making firms, it is actually an important business function in many types of organizations. A variety of career paths are open to marketing majors.