What is marketing exactly?

[Varon Cook]

First, let me say that your background in graphic design can be very useful depending on the precise field of marketing you go into. Marketing has many branches, including public relations, advertising, brand management, market research, and advertising. Many people consider Marketing the creative side of business.

Marketing is not sales, but it is everything that takes place before, during, and after the sale is made. As a marketer you may be called upon to determine whether or not a market exists for a particular product, how best to promote a product, and what features a product is lacking that would help it to sell. As a brand manager you could be given ownership of an entire brand, possibly including many graphic options. Advertising would of course lend itself well to graphic design, and with your technical knowledge you could easily work with a team of graphic designers to implement your marketing strategy.

Marketing concerns itself with how do we gain new customers and how do we keep the customers we already have? An appealing graphic design is typically a big part of that process, though it is only one element. Price point must be considered, needs and buying power of the target customer comes into play, customer preference can be gleaned from market research. So marketing is a broad field which every business uses in one aspect or another. Social media marketing is big now, and it's low cost, too; but there are always new markets to be discovered and accessed.