Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. With its focus on the customer, marketing is one of the premier components of business management. Marketing management often conduct market research and marketing research to perform marketing analysis. Marketers employ a variety of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include: Qualitative marketing research, such as focus groups and various types of interviews Quantitative marketing research, such as statistical surveys Experimental techniques such as test markets Observational techniques such as ethnographic (on-site) observation Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to help identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis Auditing is an important aspect of towards Marketing Management A brand audit is a thorough examination of a brand's current position in an industry compared to its competitors and the examination of its effectiveness. When it comes to brand auditing, six questions should be carefully examined and assessed: 1.how well the business’ current brand strategy is working, 2.what the company's established resource strengths and weaknesses are, 3.what its external opportunities and threats are, 4.how competitive the business’ prices and costs are, 5.how strong the business’ competitive position in comparison to its competitors 6.what strategic issues are facing the business Marketing strategy: Two customer segments are often selected as targets because they score highly on two dimensions: The segment is attractive to serve because it is large, growing, makes frequent purchases, is not price sensitive (i.e. is willing to pay high prices), or other factors; and The company has the resources and capabilities to compete for the segment's business, can meet their needs better than the competition, and can do so profitably. A commonly cited definition of marketing is simply "meeting needs profitably" The implication of selecting target segments is that the business will subsequently allocate more resources to acquire and retain customers in the target segments than it will for other, non-targeted customers. In some cases, the firm may go so far as to turn away customers who are not in its target segment An executive summary includes 1.Situation analysis to summarize facts and insights gained from market research and 2.marketing analysis 3.The company's mission statement or long-term strategic vision 4.Implementation choices for each element of the marketing mix Marketing Strategies includes: Specification of target customers Identification of principal products or services offered Specification of the geographic scope of operations Identification of core technologies and/or core capabilities An outline of the firm's commitment to long-term survival, growth and profit