Author Description

Today's business environment is consumer-responsive, global, and more marketing-driven than ever. Savvy managers in all parts of the organization must be attuned to marketing and its impact on their job. For a short yet thorough course, there is no better guide than Marketing for Nonmarketers. "Our purpose is to explain and illustrate what marketing is all about, what marketing professionals do, what roles nonmarketers play, and how marketing functions within the corporate structure," say the authors. The result is a no-nonsense reference that makes it easy to find the information you seek (each chapter stands alone)--and thus helps you work more productively with your marketing colleagues. Marketing for Nonmarketers clarifies the marketing role by presenting it in familiar terms and concepts: data collection and analysis, policy setting, planning and implementation, and decision making. It takes you inside the marketing function to reveal how its practitioners assess opportunities, first by gathering and analyzing marketing intelligence, and then by interpreting consumer behavior to achieve a competitive edge; structure the strategic marketing plan by determining long-term policy and short-term tactics; and execute the marketing presentation by turning plans into operating strategy. In practical terms, Marketing for Nonmarketers takes the mystery out of marketing. It answers the questions that the rest of us may be afraid to ask aloud: Is marketing based on theory or luck? Are marketing budgets too high? Couldn't many marketing expenditures be eliminated? Why do marketers sometimes drop top products? How do selling prices relate to production prices? Why do marketing executives seem to operate under different rules than do others? Why does so much marketing activity seem to occur at the last minute? Do marketers really know what they're doing? This book is also packed with instructive true stories that illuminate maverick marketing tactics and common tr