Marketing

Marketing is often understood to be closely allied to sales efforts. Marketing purists would disagree. In their eyes ‘marketing is the dialectic interface between customers and the organisation’. If this interface is managed properly then the right products/ services will be available at the right price for the intended audience and extensive sales efforts will hardly be necessary.  It is usually done for the benefit of the organisation paying for it. Historically marketing has been a function in private sector companies, but ‘social marketing’ is a recognised sub-category and is increasingly used in health service contexts. Knowing and understanding your ‘customer’ needs is, after all, vital for any organisation or programme and so this field seems relevant to the questions raised here.