The techniques used in marketing include choosing target markets through market analysis and market segmentation, as well as understanding methods of influence on the consumer behavior. The marketing planning creates strategies for the company to place advertising to the dedicated consumer.

From a societal point of view, marketing provides the link between a society's material requirements and its economic patterns of response. This way marketing satisfies these needs and wants through the development of exchange processes and the building of long-term relationships-

A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not determining new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible.

Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes that would diminish demand-