This page was written for students in my classes at Eastern Kentucky University. Any visitor interested in reviewing the basics of marketing is cordially invited to browse. The page is organized into the following sections:

Marketing Review Topics List
Marketing: An Overview
Foundation Concepts
Consumer Behavior and Marketing
Marketing Research
International Marketing
Marketing and Society
Internet Marketing

MARKETING: AN OVERVIEW
Marketing is one of the broadest areas in business. Most Americans experience marketing personally as we live in the most competitive consumer marketplace in the world. At the same time, marketing is not easy to define. People too often think marketing is only selling or advertising. This is a very narrow view of a broad and expanding set of activities. Marketing today is practiced by businesses, governments, not-for-profit organizations, institutions, and individuals. They market ideas, causes, places, services, groups, and people, along with goods. Marketing brings buyers and sellers together to make exchanges that will benefit both parties. Marketing occurs in traditional ways (in bricks and mortar, land-based venues) and electronically, on the Internet and particularly, the Internet's World Wide Web.

Of the functional areas of business, only marketing is directly responsible for generating revenue. Because marketing interacts with consumers in the marketplace, marketing becomes an information channel for consumers to communicate with the business and for the business to make its offers known to consumers. Marketing targets can be current customers, lapsed customers, or potential customers. They can be personal use consumers or businesses and organizations that purchase products for resale, as components in their production processes or to run their own operations.

The American Marketing Association (AMA), the association of marketing professionals, defines marketing as "... the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives." Another useful definition is offered by marketing scholar, Philip Kotler: Marketing is "... the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of carefully formulated programs designed to bring about voluntary exchanges of values with target markets for the purpose of achieving organizational objectives. Marketing involves the organization in studying the target market's needs, designing appropriate products and services, and using effective pricing, communication, and distribution to inform, motivate, and service the market" (Philip Kotler, "How Effective is Your Marketing?", Nonprofit World Report, May-June 1983, pp. 10-15.)

Marketing creates value. Value is defined by the customer. It is the worth added to products through marketing activities designed to satisfy consumers and build their loyalty, so they will repeat purchase over a purchasing lifetime. This establishes a relationship between marketer and consumer, although they may never meet personally.

Marketers are the people and organizations that perform marketing functions. Marketers connect a business and its target customers in exchanges. This can be in face-to-face contacts with customers or by mail, telephone, or over the Internet. Marketers collect and use information about customers' needs, desires, and behaviors to develop insights for making effective marketing decisions. This information often is collected into a database. When buyers make a purchase they surrender information about their needs, preferences, and behaviors. Marketers collect and study this information, then use it to make strategic and tactical decisions on how to facilitate subsequent exchanges.

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FOUNDATION CONCEPTS
Like all areas of study, marketing has foundation concepts. These include:

Exchange is a voluntary trading of things of value between parties, with the expectation that the parties will be better off after the trade than before it.
Utility is what marketers seek to create; the benefit or value buyers receive from exchange. In economic terms, the sole reason for exchange is to create utility.
A market in economic terms consists of sellers and buyers. As defined by marketers, a market is the set of all actual or potential buyers of a product (good, service, idea).
A marketplace is where exchanges are negotiated and made. Except for a monopoly, a market has many sellers often competing head-to-head with comparable (parity) products targeted to the same buyers.
Buyers (customers) can be individuals, households, businesses, and organizations, and other enterprises. Consumers who are specifically targeted for marketing efforts are current or potential customers. Buyers have considerable leverage in the marketplace since they can favor one seller over another.

A need represents a state of tension caused by a deprivation; it is something that the consumer must have, for example, food.
On the other hand, a want is a socially molded need. Marketing activities that promote a particular brand or product help influence consumers and increase wants. So, while the consumer needs food but prefers a particular brand of hamburger, marketing probably helped develop this brand preference.

Customer satisfaction is very important to marketers and customers. It's not always clear what satisfies them and often customers, particularly consumers, themselves don't know, won't tell, or will not tell the truth. Marketers know it is harder and more expensive to find a new customer than to keep an old one, so keeping an old customer happy is a goal and considerable challenge.

The marketing mix or marketing mix variables are the controllable variables -- 4Ps of product, price, place (distribution) and promotion -- that marketers use to satisfy consumers and earn revenue. They are the tactical tools (for example, advertising and sales promotions, store characteristics including opening and closing times, merchandise mix, and location, pricing and product characteristics) that marketers use to achieve their strategic goals. Target market selection is an important part of this process; you must know what consumers you are attempting to satisfy in order to make wise marketing mix decisions.
Products are the "ideas, goods, and services" offered by sellers to buyers; the things of value that the seller brings to the exchange and the buyer needs and/or wants. Products have features that benefit consumers through form utility. Products also may be places, people, causes, events, or organizations.
Price is what is exchanged for a product. When a product is sold at a certain price, it generates revenue that (hopefully) cover costs and provide a profit. Marketers often have considerable flexibility in setting and changing prices. Likewise, buyers have considerable latitude in deciding whether or not to accept the seller's price, since typically there are many substitutes or alternatives available, often at a better price. Price often is used as a competitive weapon.
Place or distribution refers to where, when and how the product is made available to consumers. Place is under the marketer's control and is used to satisfy consumer preferences for convenience through place and time utilities. Retailing and wholesaling are parts of distribution.
Promotion is how marketers communicate with consumers and includes such promotion mix activities as advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sales promotions, publicity and public relations, and now, electronic promotions on the Internet's World Wide Web. The goal of promotion is to persuade, inform, remind, and entertain targets.

Advertising is nonpersonal uniform promotional messages directed to a mass market.
Personal selling utilizes one-to-one communication to communicate with customers face-to-face, on the telephone, or over the Internet.
Sales promotions are short term, temporary inducements offered in the form of discounts, cents off coupons, point-of-purchase displays, contests, and the like.
Public relations uses press releases and interviews to develop a positive image or favorable reaction.
Publicity uses the mass media but is not paid for by the sponsor, hence there is almost no control over the content.
Direct marketing uses databases and interactive systems to develop personalized communications with consumers targeted through telemarketing, direct selling, direct response advertising, and other forms. Electronic promotions use computers and networks such as the Internet's World Wide Web to communicate with consumers. Other forms use CD-ROM as well as virtual reality (VR) software. Electronic promotions can increase the level of interactivity dramatically.

The marketing concept has become a prominent, if not dominant, philosophy of business operations during the latter half of the 20th Century. During this time, supply typically exceeded demand as domestic and international competition intensified. When supply exceeds demand, it's a buyer's market. When demand exceeds supply, as in a time of shortage, it's a seller's market. Since we live in a free market economy, where supply and demand are free to vary, price is a key factor in determining whether or not marketing activities can clear a market of excess supply. The marketing concept is the operating philosophy for consumer-oriented companies like General Electric, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and many others. It requires a long-run strategic perspective.

The marketing concept philosophy has customer satisfaction at its core and requires that not only marketing, but all business operational areas cooperate to satisfy consumers and achieve business goals (i.e., typically revenue production, profit, efficiency, survival, or not-for-profit service delivery).

Marketers often use segmentation, targeting, and positioning in their effort to effectively offer products to consumers. Segmentation is a process that takes a large group (like the population of the U. S.) and breaks it into groups whose members are more like one another and different from others. Because marketers believe that there are meaningful differences among groups of consumers, segmentation is a key process in marketing. For marketers, the first step in segmentation is separating consumers into groups based on whether or not they are or might become purchasers. In order to be meaningful, these groups must be definable, reachable, and large enough to be profitable. Groups then are further differentiated using such demographic bases as age, sex, location, income, education, and other readily collected, observable, statistically-based factors. Other groups might be formed based on such psychographic variables as lifestyle, activities, or interests. Once groups are identified, marketers select specific groups to target. Targeting is a focusing process that directs product, price, place, and promotion to reach definable groups of people, for example people over 65, women of child bearing years, men 25 to 35 years of age who like to play golf. Positioning means establishing a place for your product in the consumer's mind. Obviously, marketers want to establish a preferential position for their product (or brand) in comparison to competitor's products (or brands). Advertising is an effective tool for helping consumers develop a mental position for brands by showing it in use.

Businesses and organizations try to reduce the risk and uncertainty of decision making in a variety of ways, one is through planning. Plans are coordinated, integrated, systematic sets of decisions that act as blueprints to guide future actions during a pre-specified time period. Marketers plan ahead to take advantage of windows of opportunity as well as to avoid traps that can suck the business into a downward spiral of costly mistakes. Windows of opportunity exist when there is a good match between a need or gap in the marketplace and a businesses' unique competency to fill that gap with consumer-pleasing products.

The marketing plan is a blueprint for what marketing is to accomplish and how. Usually written for a one year time span, it contains essential information about what marketing is expected to accomplish (goals and objectives), an analysis of the competitive environment, an analysis of the company's ability to make a successful market offer, strategies for achieving the goals and tactics set for the marketing mix variables to achieve, a budget, and feedback mechanisms for evaluating the success of the plan. Two sets of building blocks go into building a plan. Goals are long-range, general and relatively unbounded ends to be achieved while objectives are the subgoals that must be achieved in order to reach the point specified in the five-year goal. A strategy establishes broad directions for future actions and tactics provide specific details on what must be done to advance the strategy. Marketing does not occur in a vacuum. It is at the center of a number of volatile environments that affect all marketing decisions and actions directly and indirectly. These environments are internal as well as external.

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CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND MARKETING
Consumer behavior is all the activities involved in selecting, purchasing, evaluating, and disposing of products. Some consumer behaviors can be observed directly; others cannot. Consumers are the targets of marketing activities and marketers must understand them in order to be able to bring about mutually beneficial exchanges. Consumer targets are either individuals purchasing products for personal use or people obtaining products for their business or organization.

Business/organization consumers purchase products to use in production, operations, or for resale. They are classified into one of eleven major groups by a U.S. Department of Commerce Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code number. They include the industrial market, reseller market, government market and nonclassified institutional market of universities, hospitals and health centers, professional and charitable organizations and other not-for-profits.Consumer satisfaction means narrowing the gap between what the consumer expects and the marketer delivers.

Marketers can anticipate situations where consumers may become dissatisfied and take steps to reduce or eliminate the dissatisfaction. Marketers know that consumers often experience postpurchase dissatisfaction, also called buyer's remorse or cognitive dissonance, after they've made a high price, high risk purchase decision.

Not all consumers behave rationally according to a single model of good consumer behavior. Some consumers act in bad faith, destructively, and even illegally. They may shoplift, change prices, deface merchandise or store fixtures, or exhibit other deviant behaviors. Deviant consumer behaviors represent a variety of actions in the marketplace that deviate from norms expressed by other consumers, marketers, and society.

Both personal and business consumers must decide whether to make, lease, or buy products. Straight rebuys, sometimes called standing orders, are repeat purchases of products that are bought and consumed on a regular basis. A new task buy is a purchase made for the first time that requires gathering additional information and selecting between alternatives before a purchase can be made. Modified rebuys require greater effort than straight rebuys, a need for more information and consideration of alternatives, yet typically takes less effort than new task buys.

A buying center is a more-or-less formal group of people who work together to make a purchase decision. A family acts as an informal buying center when family members participate in decision making. Buying center members in businesses, organizations and families play certain roles, including: the initiator suggests the need to consider a purchase; the gatekeeper collects and distributes information; the influencer(s) attempt to affect the decision; the buyer makes the purchase; the user(s) use the products.

External influences on consumers are more clearly recognizable than internal influences and may affect different consumers simultaneously, although not necessarily identically. They include social influences, where people exert social influences on other peoples' purchase decisions. Two of the most direct, small scale, personal, and powerful social influences on consumers are families and reference groups.

The importance of reference groups can be seen in the power of opinion leaders, people who are highly regarded by group members and set the pace in consumer purchases. Class is an external influence on consumers. Social classes in the United States are not as rigid as in other countries, yet even here there are relatively homogeneous, stable groups of people with similar incomes, power and prestige holding related beliefs, attitudes and values. Class cues are subtle signals alerting the consumer about what products a particular class is expected to purchase. Internal influences, sometimes called psychological factors, are individual and unique. They cannot be seen but must be inferred by observing actual behaviors or using research techniques to uncover them.

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MARKETING RESEARCH
Information is knowledge that can be used to solve a problem, for example, to help marketers make a decision about whether or not to market their company's products in a foreign market. Data are facts, figures, observations, reports, research results, documents and other raw materials that can be converted to usable information. Often the terms "information" and "data" are used interchangeably.

In order to be useful, information must be current, reliable, suitable, sufficient, affordable and available. In a rapidly changing marketplace, any business that fails to continuously collect and use information courts disaster. Good information wisely used can help the marketer identify profitable windows of opportunity and avoid threats to the business' survival.

Marketing is information-intensive. It takes considerable skill based on experience and judgment for marketers to use information wisely in planning, program implementation, management and control. Marketers often use descriptive information that describes what consumers do, buy and say; prescriptive information helps marketers make decisions and solve marketing problems. Some information like check-out scanner reports on retail sales is collected routinely, even on a daily basis. Other information is gained from research conducted only when there is a "need-to-know".

Marketers must manage information in order to ensure the right information is collected and made available when and where needed. Information overload occurs when there is so much information to digest that the marketing decision maker is overwhelmed, thus the mass of information overwhelms and jeopardizes good decision making rather than aids it. A popular response to the challenge of information management is to create a marketing information system (MIS). A marketing information system is a process where one or more people work usually with computer hardware and various programs to manage information that can be used to make marketing decisions. A contemporary MIS is made up of three sets of activities: information collection, information analysis (sometimes called information integration) and information dissemination. A smoothly operating MIS should reduce the time needed for information collection; speed the decision making process; save money by reducing labor costs; improve the quality of the information available to decision makers; and, increase the amount and complexity of the information being evaluated. These benefits are realized only if the people running a computerized MIS correctly instruct the machines, collect the right information and use the analyzed information output wisely.

Information collection is like vacuum cleaning, steadily scooping in information and in a marketing information system, routing it to the next MIS function. Before data collecting can begin, it must be decided what information is needed and whether or not it is readily available. There are three commonly used sources of information; internal company records, external information, and the results of marketing research.

Both quantitative and qualitative information are usually collected from primary and secondary sources. Quantitative information includes objective facts and figures, statistical reports, sales data, scanner records and other numerical items. Qualitative information is more subjective and includes intelligence collected by sales people, summaries of conversations with customer service representatives, analyses of competitors' actions, observations made by suppliers and members of the distribution chain, anecdotal reports and casual accounts of events occurring in the environment. Primary data are collected specifically for the task or problem at hand. Reports and other materials collected for other purposes than the one specifically at hand are called secondary data.

Marketing has made a significant contribution to business and society through the advancement of marketing research techniques. According to the American Marketing Association, marketing research links the consumer, customer and public to the marketer through information - information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process.

Market research is more narrowly defined as research performed to answer questions about market potential, share, targets, sales and other issues related to specific markets. Advertising research is research on such advertising issues as ad and copy effectiveness, recall and media choice. Consumer behavior research answers questions about consumers and their behaviors and preferences in the marketplace. Research is also performed on each marketing mix variable, for example product research on packaging, testing, new product development; price research on pricing issues; place research on retail store location choice, stocking and distribution issues.

Marketing research should be conducted when new information or old information needs to be updated. The goal is to conduct a systematic, objective, bias free inquiry that can withstand careful scrutiny. Marketing research must proceed methodically through a well-defined series of steps:

1. Identify the problem - state the research question
2. Develop a plan - state how the answer is to be found
3. Execute the plan - collect the information
4. Analyze and interpret results - conduct statistical analysis and draw conclusions
5. Report findings and recommendations - what should be done in order to solve the problem

Exploratory research may be conducted in order to search for information that will help redefine or clarify the problem. This often is a preliminary step before conducting more sophisticated descriptive or causal research after the problem has been clearly stated. Descriptive research is designed to describe a situation; causal research attempts to find cause-effect relationship between factors.

Researchers must ensure that their efforts have validity, reliability and generalizability. Research that falls short on any of the three must be used only with the utmost caution, if at all. Validity means truly measuring what you are trying to measure; asking the right questions, collecting the right information for the problem. Reliability indicates that the data are accurate and free from random error. If you perform the same research again under identical circumstances and make the same measurements, the results will be the same because the data are consistent. Generalizability means the data come from a representative sample population so that the results can be projected from the small research population to the greater population or universe that the research was designed to test.

Primary research is original research designed to collect data unique to the project. There are a number of different approaches to the collection of primary data. Qualitative research uses such methods as individual interviews with consumers, focus group interviews, projective techniques, and consumer ethnography where a trained observer views the consumer in a situation, such as cooking or shopping to determine how products are used. Quantitative research is objective, numerically based and lends itself to statistical analysis. Quantitative techniques include various types of surveys (in-person, mail, telephone, fax, computer), experimentation, and case studies. Surveys tend to be on a large scale; some involve thousands of people. A growing problem with the use of survey research involves people who refuse to cooperate. If there are too many non-cooperators, survey results may be biased and therefore not usable.

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INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
International marketing is not just domestic marketing extended unchanged to other countries. Although the marketing tasks may be the same or similar, an additional layer of complexity is added with each market targeted. Before going international, the marketer must evaluate many factors for each market being considered. Some factors that can affect the product offer are consumer demand, culture, consumer characteristics, economic structure, and legal/political factors. The marketer also must analyze the level of direct and indirect competition, the availability of suppliers and distributors, the market's technology level, infrastructure, geography and climate.

Culture is how a society lives through its social institutions, values, beliefs, attitudes, customs, languages and preferences; how its people solve problems, regulate interactions, establish order and avoid chaos. Culture is dynamic and evolves to meet peoples' needs. It teaches people acceptable ways to think and behave through a learning process called socialization. Japan's population is homogeneous or more culturally alike than the ethnically diverse (heterogeneous) population of the United States. Marketers must understand the culture and core values of the ethnic groups they are targeting, regardless of whether the cultures are macro or micro, domestic or international. Cultures borrow from one another, some more than others and not always willingly. Cultural borrowing occurs when elements from one culture are adopted and usually adapted by another. The United States is particularly rich in cultural borrowings because of its immigrant history. This is reflected in language, food, clothing and other aspects of daily life. Cultural change refers to how these borrowings can change the culture that borrows them. Marketers often are culture change agents as they bring new products, ideas, and activities to markets.

Domestic marketing is marketing within a businesses' home country. When a business offers its products across national borders usually to two or more other host countries, it is engaged in international marketing. To export means offering finished products, supplies and raw materials to markets in other nations; to import means bringing finished products, supplies and raw materials into your home country domestic market. The United States is a dominant force in world trade as both the world's largest exporter and importer. Although exports leaving the United States are worth over $400 billion annually, the value of imports is even greater, therefore the United States is running a trade deficit (imports greater than exports) and consequently, is the world's largest debtor nation. Major United States trading partners are Canada, Japan, Mexico, The United Kingdom and Germany.

Not all businesses belong in international markets. The United States domestic market is the world's most desirable market, but as a result it is extremely competitive and saturated in many product classes. International markets offer opportunities to increase sales which may allow for production economies at home as well as extend product life. By being in more than one market, a business spreads its risks. It can also better serve its domestic business customers who have gone abroad. Some countries offer tax incentives to companies willing to enter their markets. Products that are not saleable in the domestic market may be sold abroad. However, marketers should not go international with unsafe products, products that are being dumped (sold below fair market price or production cost) or inferior quality products that could ruin a businesses' reputation.

Three industrialized trading blocs, the Triad, dominate the volume of world trade although they represent only a small part of the world's land mass and population. They are the United States-Canada, the European Union and Japan. Markets that are growing and represent great potential are called emerging markets.

Entry strategies differ in the level of commitment required, risk and the degree of control the business retains over its marketing mix. Many countries erect barriers to stop foreign products from being imported and undermining protected domestic industries. Protecting domestic business at the expense of foreign business is called protectionism. A common form of barrier is a tariff, a tax on selected imports designed to protect native industries. There also are many types of non-tariff barriers including import quotas, embargoes, exchange controls and local content laws.

Exporting is the least risky entry alternative. Indirect exporting means the company assigns its products to an agent who takes on the responsibility of marketing the products abroad, to be paid either by commission or through a buy/sell agreement where the agent purchases the products and resells them. This alternative carries the least risk but also the least control for the business over product marketing. Direct exporting requires the business to take greater control of its marketing mix, which also increases the risk.A lternately, the business may enter into a joint venture arrangement where it works with another company or even several others to market products abroad. This way the risk is shared, but so is control. Through direct ownership, the company owns the production facilities and manufactures and markets products abroad without partners. This means it has full control but also takes all the risk.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico created the largest free trade area in the world. On December 31, 1992 the 12-nations of the European Union formally established a free trade zone between their countries. This economic integration abolished border stoppings, established community-wide product standards and generally encouraged the free passage of people, capital and products within its borders.

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MARKETING AND SOCIETY
A society is an entity (political, geographical,social) defined by the rules, regulations, values and behaviors its people accept and live by. The United States is a complex society of over 260 million people from many different ethnic, racial, cultural, and national backgrounds. Our society of people, businesses, organizations, and institutions depends on marketing, yet at the same time often directs serious criticisms at marketers and marketing activities. In part, the criticism is deserved. However, marketing also is vulnerable to criticism because marketing activities are more visible to consumers than most other business areas and deal with sensitive issues like pricing, advertising and selling. Marketers often must make decisions in grey areas not clearly governed by laws or regulations or where regulations are not up-to-date or consistently enforced. This makes the marketer vulnerable to legal, regulatory and/or ethical missteps. Marketers often face ethical dilemmas, difficult situations where there are valid but conflicting alternatives and it may not be clear which action or decision is right. A small minority of marketers act illegally and/or unethically.

Marketing is boundary spanning because it is the business process that links the business directly in exchanges with its external environments, consumers, markets and members of the marketing network (suppliers, distributors). As a result, marketers are often caught in a cross fire between consumers who claim marketing should satisfy their needs and the marketer's business that claims marketing should generate revenue. Consumer satisfaction needs and business profit needs often seem to conflict and the marketer is caught in the middle trying to balance the claims and satisfy all parties. The societal marketing concept proposes that in addition to operating by the marketing concept, a business should also operate in the public interest, for the good of society.

Where marketing activities are not clearly governed by laws or regulations, the marketer sometimes faces tough ethical choices with no clear cut right alternative. Ethics are the usually unwritten rules of conduct that a society enforces to maintain order, including such things as fairness, honesty and trust, and adhering to right conduct while avoiding the wrong. Ethics are moral principles, values that establish expectations for peoples' behavior and determine standards that set limits and define boundaries where good becomes bad. Ethical marketers have a social contract to adhere to the letter and spirit of the law, abide by rules and regulations, and some believe, provide for the good of society. Ethical marketing behavior in the long run is also in the best interest of the business and marketer. Marketing is also regulated by codes of conduct and ethics codes that have been written and agreed to by trade associations, industries, store chains and individual businesses.

Laws are formal statements that guide actions and set limits and penalties for infractions. Marketers are bound by federal laws that have nationwide, interstate jurisdiction and state and local laws that have jurisdiction within states where the business operates. Regulations are the rules, standards and guidelines that government agencies issue to implement laws. Marketers face copious regulations, some of which conflict, are outdated, not enforced or administered unevenly. Like laws, regulations can be promulgated at the federal, state and local levels. The federal agency exercising the greatest and broadest control over marketing activities is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Consumerism is "... a broad reaction against bureaucratic neglect and corporate disregard of the rights of the public." It is a constantly changing association of people, organizations, agencies and even businesses which arises because people believe the imbalance in the market between buyers and sellers has gone too far. Typical outcomes include the passage of major new laws and the establishment of new regulatory controls.

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INTERNET MARKETING
Some observers believe we have entered a new era because of the effects of the Internet on business and society. The Internet dates from the linking of four computer nodes in 1969. The Internet's graphical sector, known as the World Wide Web, was developed at CERN, the European High Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, by Tim Berners-Lee, and released in the winter of 1991-1992 as a non-proprietary set of protocols embedded in computer software. The advent of the commercialization of the Internet and Web dates from 1993 and the release of the first graphical browser. From literally no commercialization to today, adoption of the Internet and Web by consumers has been rapid and widespread. According to NUA, there are now over 605 million people worldwide who use the Internet.

What is the role of marketing on the Internet? Return to our basic definition of marketing ... it applies to bricks & mortar businesses and organizations, as well as those that are entirely virtual (clicks only). Marketing on the Internet still must bring buyers and sellers together, facilitating their exchanges, and ensuring the satisfaction of all parties. Marketing on the Internet still must generate revenues, something that many virtual businesses seem unable to do at this time! This topic is considered in greater depth in two courses offered at EKU: MKT 401 Internet Marketing and MKT 851 e-Commerce Marketing Strategies. You are invited to take either the undergraduate MKT 401 or the MBA MKT 851.

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