The Marketing of Services: An Approach.

This paper has sought to suggest an approach to the marketing of services which has not been discussed in the literature. A service is an activity offered for sale which yields benefits and satisfactions without leading to a physical change in the form of a good. Although there is little agreement on a definition of a service, there is little disagreement with the statement that the service sector of Great Britain economy is large and growing. Many of the service industries have traditionally avoided any really positive marketing activity, nevertheless the expenditure on marketing in certain services industries has reached large sums. The paucity of marketing literature on this topic can only be justified if the problems of marketing services really are basically no different from the problems of marketing other products. Without doubt experienced marketing managers in these areas have worked instinctively in the manner suggested here. However, there seems to be a need to seek to explore a more general approach to this problem and it seems possible that such an approach might speed up the development of a body of knowledge and experience in the field of the marketing of services.