What is Marketing? Understanding the Core Concept for Libraries

Ask most people what marketing means, and they will point to flashy advertisements, social media campaigns, or a salesperson trying to close a deal. This is a narrow and often misleading view. Marketing is a much wider discipline that shapes how an organisation understands the people it serves and delivers value to them. For libraries and information centres, grasping this core concept is essential. A library that understands marketing does not simply promote its books; it studies its users, designs services around their needs, and builds lasting relationships. Let us unpack what marketing really means and why it matters far beyond the world of commerce.

Common misconceptions about marketing
Key definitions of marketing
Philip Kotler’s perspective
The American Marketing Association definition
Defining marketing for libraries
The role of marketing in service-oriented sectors
How marketing aligns with library services
Creating value and enhancing user experience
Marketing as a tool for better service delivery

Common misconceptions about marketing

The biggest myth is that marketing is the same as selling or advertising. In reality, selling and advertising are only small parts of a much larger process. Selling focuses on persuading someone to buy what an organisation already has. Marketing works the other way around: it starts by finding out what people actually want and then shapes the product or service to fit them.

The management thinker Peter Drucker captured this distinction memorably. He argued that the aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary by understanding the customer so well that the product fits them and sells itself. In other words, selling focuses on the needs of the seller, while marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer. Drucker even described marketing as the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, the customer’s point of view.

A second misconception is that marketing applies only to profit-making companies. This idea was challenged decades ago. The concept of marketing for non-profit organisations was first introduced by Kotler and Levy in 1969, who argued that organisations like libraries, which produce services rather than goods, can and should apply marketing principles. This was a turning point that opened the door to library marketing as a serious field.

A third misconception is that marketing is manipulative, designed to push people into buying things they do not need. Genuine marketing is the opposite. It is built on listening, understanding, and serving. When done well, it benefits both the user and the organisation.

Key definitions of marketing

To move beyond the myths, it helps to look at how leading authorities define marketing. These definitions reveal a consistent theme: marketing is about creating and exchanging value.

Philip Kotler’s perspective

Philip Kotler, often called the father of modern marketing, offers one of the most widely cited definitions. In his classic formulation, marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others. This definition is deliberately broad. It applies to any exchange of value, whether the offering is a product, a service, or an idea.

In a later and more strategic formulation, Kotler described marketing as the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market. He stressed that marketing identifies unfulfilled needs, measures the size of the market, and designs the right offerings to serve it. Kotler’s work is significant because he extended marketing thinking into social and non-profit contexts, connecting it to society’s needs and ethical concerns long before this became fashionable.

The American Marketing Association definition

The American Marketing Association (AMA) provides the definition most widely accepted in academic and professional circles. The AMA reviews and reapproves its definition every few years. Its current statement describes marketing as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

This definition rewards close reading. Notice that it mentions four activities: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging. Advertising fits only under “communicating,” which shows how small a part promotion plays in the whole picture. Notice too the phrase society at large. Marketing is not only about individual transactions; it carries a wider responsibility to the community. This wording was the result of careful revision. The AMA refined its definition through versions in 1985, 2004, and 2007 before arriving at the current statement, each revision reflecting changing demands on the discipline.

Defining marketing for libraries

When the concept is applied to libraries, the definitions become more specific. A widely used formulation in library science states that marketing of library services is the effective execution of all activities involved in increasing the satisfaction of users by providing maximum value to them. Here the language of commerce is translated into the language of service. The “customer” becomes the user, the “product” becomes information and services, and “value” becomes user satisfaction.

The role of marketing in service-oriented sectors

Marketing in service organisations works differently from marketing physical goods. Services have four well-known characteristics that make them harder to market. As Kotler observed for non-profit organisations, services are intangible, inseparable, variable, and perishable.

Intangibility means a service cannot be seen or touched before it is used. A user cannot inspect a reference consultation the way they inspect a book. Inseparability means the service is produced and consumed at the same time, often involving the user directly. Variability means the quality can differ from one interaction to the next, depending on who delivers it. Perishability means a service cannot be stored; an empty seat in a reading room during quiet hours is value lost forever.

These characteristics explain why service marketing relies on more than the traditional four Ps of product, price, place, and promotion. The framework expands to seven Ps, adding people, process, and physical evidence. For a library, “people” includes the staff whose helpfulness shapes the experience, “process” covers how smoothly a user can find and borrow material, and “physical evidence” includes the building, signage, and digital interface.

How marketing aligns with library services

A library is fundamentally a service organisation, which makes marketing a natural fit. The core marketing question, “What does the user need and how can we provide it?”, is also the core question of good librarianship. Marketing gives librarians a structured way to answer it.

In the library context, the marketing relationship can be mapped clearly. The library and its users form the market, the users are the consumers, the products are information and library services, and the library staff act as the providers. Marketing thinking pushes librarians to investigate potential users, segment them into groups with different needs, and identify what each group values most.

This matters more than ever. As users increasingly turn to the internet and other sources for information, libraries risk becoming invisible. A library that markets itself well can enhance its visibility, attract more users, and demonstrate its value in the modern information landscape. Without marketing, even excellent services may go unused simply because users are unaware they exist.

Creating value and enhancing user experience

The thread running through every credible definition of marketing is the creation of value. But value is not decided by the provider. As Drucker insisted, quality and value are not what the supplier puts in but what the user gets out and is willing to use. Value is defined by the user’s perception, not the librarian’s assumptions.

This principle reshapes how a library operates. Instead of asking “How do we promote our collection?”, the marketing-minded library asks “What outcomes do our users want, and how do we help them achieve those outcomes?” The answer might be a faster way to access journal articles, a quieter study space during exams, or training in research databases. Each of these is an act of value creation.

Marketing as a tool for better service delivery

When marketing is understood as value creation rather than promotion, it becomes a tool for improving the entire service. It is widely recommended that libraries place the needs and preferences of their users at the forefront of their strategy, gathering insights through regular user surveys, focus groups, and feedback mechanisms. These tools tell the library what users value most, which then guides decisions about collections, services, and spaces.

The payoff goes beyond a single transaction. Effective library marketing is not only about raising awareness but also about building an ongoing relationship with the community, enhancing the user experience, and ensuring that resources are fully used. A user who has a good experience returns, recommends the library to others, and supports it when funding decisions are made. In this sense, marketing strengthens the library’s long-term position.

Marketing, then, is best understood as a complex of activities that adds value to the services a library provides. It is a philosophy that places the user at the centre of everything the library does. Far from being a coat of advertising paint applied at the end, it is a way of thinking that begins with the user’s needs and works backward to design the service. For library professionals, adopting this mindset is the first step toward staying relevant in a world overflowing with information.

What do you think? If marketing is really about understanding and serving users rather than promoting services, how well does your own library or institution actually know what its users value? And which of the seven Ps do you think libraries most often neglect when planning their services?

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References

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Table of Contents

Common misconceptions about marketing 🔗

Key definitions of marketing 🔗

Philip Kotler’s perspective 🔗

The American Marketing Association definition 🔗

Defining marketing for libraries 🔗

The role of marketing in service-oriented sectors 🔗

How marketing aligns with library services 🔗

Creating value and enhancing user experience 🔗

Marketing as a tool for better service delivery 🔗