Marketing
One reason for studying marketing is that you – as a consumer – pay for the cost of marketing activities. Marketing costs about 50 cents of your consumer dollar. For some goods and services, the percentage is much higher.
Another important reason for learning about marketing is that marketing affects almost every aspect of your daily life. All the goods and services you buy, the stores where you shop, and the radio and TV programs paid for by advertising are there because of marketing. Even you job resume is part of a marketing campaign to sell yourself to some employer? Some courses are interesting when you take them but never relevant again once they’re over. Not so with marketing – you’ll be a consumer dealing with marketing for the rest of your life.
Still another reason for studying marketing is that there are many exciting and rewarding career opportunities in marketing. Throughout this course you will find information about opportunities in different areas of marketing – in sales, advertising, product management, marketing research, physical distribution, and other areas.
Even if you’re aiming for a non-marketing job, you’ll be working with marketing people. Knowing something about marketing will help you understand them better. It will also help you do your own job better. Even if you’re not planning a business career, marketing concepts and techniques apply to nonprofit organizations, too. Many nonprofit organizations have a marketing manager. And the same basic principles used to sell soap are also used to “sell” ideas, politicians, mass transportation, health-care services, conservation, museums, and even colleges.
An even more basic reason for studying marketing is that marketing plays a big part in economic growth and development. Marketing stimulates research and new ideas – resulting in new goods and services. Marketing gives customers a choice among products. If these products satisfy customers, fuller employment, higher incomes, and a higher standard of living can result.