What is Marketing
Marketing is a multi-faceted business discipline. In its simplest form, marketing might be coined as the act of satisfying the needs of customers through a planned set of activities that allows the organization to achieve its goals.

Goal
An organization must first determine its goals. If you are a fisherman, is your goal to make enough to cover your fishing habit? Is it to make enough money to save for an earlier retirement? Do you want to increase the dollar per pound price each year? Are you looking to expand the number of markets you sell to? Before planning a marketing strategy, it is important to determine what you want to get from your business.

Target Market
In order to achieve your goals, (realizing it might not always be possible) you need to determine your target market. There are several components to identifying a target marketing including, consumer need and willingness to buy, purchase power, and ability.

Marketing Mix
Once a target market is identified, a marketer will determine an appropriate marketing mix. Marketing mix is often referred to as the 4 Ps of marketing:

Quentin’s Corner provides a good overview of these concepts and the Seafood Marketing Presentation reviews them in more detail and discusses their relationship to salmon and other seafood.

In order to develop a successful marketing program, an organization needs to factor each of the “4 Ps” into its strategy. Organizations like ASMI, Kodiak Fishery Industrial Technology Center, and others, are but pieces of the puzzle. As of yet, a formal, comprehensive marketing strategy for seafood has not been put into place.