Marketing is one of the most essential elements to a business’s development as well as their ability to compete successfully against other businesses in any market. The term ‘Marketing’ in its broader sense, refers to the interactive process by which an organization undertakes in order to interact with its target market, build strong relations to create value for clients in return for money, and create an organizational culture that is grounded and focused on its strategic objectives. While it has been said, ‘Marketing is the new business’, there are many common mistakes that marketers regularly make, which significantly reduces their effectiveness.

One of the most common mistakes that marketers make is to focus on selling rather than marketing. Selling encompasses much more than publicizing, packaging, branding, and advertising. In fact, this concept is often used in direct marketing campaigns or mass media advertising where it is understood that it is an essential element of the overall strategy. Marketing on the other hand, is often limited to offering information about the product or service and how it can help a consumer.

Another mistake that many marketers make is to rely on customer satisfaction surveys as a means of measuring marketing success. Surveys provide quantitative data about customer needs and the ways in which marketing efforts may be aligned to meet these needs. This concept is at the foundation of most modern marketing research, and the ability to collect data and construct relevant questions is essential to the success of any study. Customer satisfaction surveys however, are not the only tools at a company’s disposal for quantifying marketing efforts. There is also the concept of coordinated marketing. Coordinated marketing involves the creation of a set of goals and services designed to align all elements of marketing, development, sales, and service to create a single, integrated experience for customers.