Managing Marketing Strategies

Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals (Ideas, 2012).

Marketing has changed over the decades. In the earlier days, marketing was closely allied with sales and promotion. Today, marketing is generally concerned with the strategic business functions that need to be addressed beyond sales and revenue.

What marketing entails

Product orientation focuses on product characteristics. It helps a company focus on the quality of their products so that they meet the needs of the customers.

Sales orientation puts more effort into selling products that maximize revenue for an organization (Lagos, Steel& Hall, 2018). They include offering discounts, personal selling, offering price incentives, persuasive promotional campaigns, celebrity endorsements, among others (BPP Learning Media (Firm), (2013).

The marketing orientation is an approach that puts the needs of the consumers at the heart of a marketing campaign, and making sure that what is the business does is what is best for the consumers and the company.

Positives and Negatives

Product orientation - Its main advantage is the quality of products with technological investment. The products are made with some good quality because all the focus is on the product. The negative part of product orientation is that it focuses more on the features of a great product, whereas customers may look for benefits more than features

Sales orientation- The main positive part of this strategy is that companies are able to get immediate sales for the short term as customers are influenced by the sales strategy. The negative part of sales orientation is that it does not allow customers to become loyal, rather they are dragged into a situation, where they are forced to buy a product, which they might not want to buy

Marketing orientation- The major positive part of this strategy is that it allows customers to trust in a company, so they become more loyal and satisfied, as their needs are met. The negative part of this strategy is that it needs constant change in strategy and a lot of investment in research & development, which comes with various planning issues

Example of Market Orientation

An ideal example of a company that practices market orientation is Amazon. The company has developed and grown with constantly adding features and specific processes that clearly address some requirements and concerns of its consumers. For instance, in the context of delivery charges; Amazon Prime offers an annual fee charge for free delivery meant for almost all of its products (investopedia.com, 2019).

The effectiveness of market orientation for Amazon company can be seen in how Amazon applies product differentiation as its advertising strategy with a purpose to clearly identifies the features that differentiate its brand from other competitors.

Section Two: Market Research

Definition of Marketing Research

Market research is the systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals or organizations using the statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social sciences to gain insight or support decision making.

Types of Market Research

Quantitative of Marketing Research

The "when," "where," "how many", and "how often" of a population’s approach to a product (Lagos, Steel& Hall, 2018)

The positives from Quantitative market research are such as:

Information collected from the research is efficient to create quantifiable charts and graphs

This is an ideal tool to generate brand awareness

Provides sufficient insight along with perception for progressively marketing the product

The limitations of Quantitative market research are:

Quantitative market research has a limited capability to explore answers

Quantitative market research might be quite costly

Qualitative of Marketing Research

Sales records

Website analytics

Social media comments

Customer feedback

Published surveys

The tools used comprise of observation, mystery shoppers, test marketing and in-house or outsourced methods.

The positives from Qualitative market research are such as:

Provides better knowledge of viewpoints and innovative perspective

The positive from authentic and spontaneous reactions are better and can be utilized to the general conclusions of the market research

The limitations of Quantitative market research are:

Reliant on the skills and experience of an interviewer

Feedback is not deliberated, neither are they statistically delegate

Why research?

Market research in product development helps out new products, adds to the range of existing products and improves on a product through making modifications (Ideas, 2012).

The market research also helps marketers make better and informed decisions about their products. It helps companies assess the possible future outcome of their choices especially with regards to their products.

It also gives an organization the opportunity to get feedback from the market (BPP Learning Media (Firm), (2013).

It also helps them avoid expensive failures.

Market research limitations

Market research is limited in several ways.

For starters, it assesses a likely response to something and therefore cannot predict the future. It might also be a bit inaccurate, and it also depends on sufficient sample sizes; the larger the sample size, the lower the margin of error.

A researcher may also be limited to the information collected on secondary data. Moreover, opinions could refer to different actions (BPP Learning Media (Firm), (2013).

Research results have to be interpreted; otherwise, the data means nothing much than raw data. Also, markets change rapidly, and they keep on changing, prompting new researches each time.

An excellent study cannot make up for an inferior product (Moore& Pareek, 2009).

Studies could also provide a false sense of security, alert the competition, is expensive and only provides information on the questions asked and nothing more.

A real example of Quantitative Market Research

Apple Customer Pulse research group is one of example from how Apple Company uses market research. Since these are presented as online surveys, thus, the company was able to assemble and analyze the data faster,  in addition, to make it easier to manage the surveys with no need of many efforts.

The efficient of this market research can be seen from how the surveys in the market research have directed to special designs and also alterations of Apple product (surveypolice.com, 2019).

Section Three: The Marketing Mix

Definition of The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is defined in terms of the four ‘P’s, product, price, place, and promotion. Others have added process, physical evidence and people to the marketing mix.

Product defines the physical feature of the goods and services being offered (Constantinides, 2006).

Deciding on the price relies on the competition, whether the market is new or established, customer loyalty, company objectives and the investment on the product, among others.

Place refers to distribution policies and procedures involved in getting the product to the consumer.

Promotion is an extensive element that ranges from traditional marketing media like tv, radio, and press, to the contemporary ones like online marketing, mobile advertising, blogs and social media marketing, among others (Moore& Pareek, 2009). The process is the procedures and activities used to deliver goods and services to the consumer. 

Physical evidence refers to the environment in which the product or service is delivered (Constantinides, 2006). For instance, the ambiance of a restaurant or the facilities in a sports club. People are the vital touchpoint between the seller and the customers. Positive encounters with the people encourage a sale while negative ones can lose it (Fifield, 2007).

Coordinating the marketing mix

Coordinating the marketing mix relies on several factors.

For instance, in small businesses, it relies solely on the owner.

In larger organizations, it relies on several people including the Marketing Manager or Marketing Director (Ideas, 2012).

They have to work together with other departments such as finance, production, and human resource to implement marketing campaigns that influence the development of new products, create marketing business cases for investment and build working relationships with key stakeholders.

Evaluating the Marketing Mix (the positives and limitations)

It is important to evaluate the concept of the marketing mix for every company so that they can understand its positive and negative points

The marketing can be a complex process, but the beauty of the marketing mix is that it brings so many things in one place, which is easy to understand for every company and industry

The other activities are not included in the marketing mix, so a company can focus only on marketing efforts with the help of the marketing mix

Different elements of marketing mix allow measuring the effect on each other so that considerable decisions can be made accordingly

The negative part of the marketing mix is that client behavior is not considered by it and it is oriented on internal thinking, which can have the wrong assessment

The service marketing may have different elements to consider, but those elements are not considered by the marketing mix

The marketing mix lacks the essence of building any relationships with the customers

The managerial implications of marketing mix

The managerial implications of marketing mix include the fact that

marketing management often competes with other parts of an organization, thereby causing conflicts. The marketing department might conflict with other departments as it requires a lot of funding and attention.

The marketing mix also highlights the importance of organizational culture (Moore& Pareek, 2009). Culture is crucial as it affects how people think, behave and feel at the workplace, changing how they do their jobs.

It also brings about different management structures from the functionality, product, geography, and matrix-based structures. Functionality structures are based on specialization by expertise or function. They make coordination much more accessible, lowering duplication of efforts in an organization (Ideas, 2012).

Finally, matrix structures are defined when there are multiple lines.

Real Example of marketing Mix

McDonald’s is one of the companies that apply the marketing mix globally. For instance, the company has made the standards for its productivity and implement them in the management of every single company-owned and franchised location. Furthermore, McDonald’s also applies various strategies and plans to execute its marketing plan to achieve related strategic goals with a purpose to develop the company to multinational restaurant chain business (panmore.com, 2018).

Section Four: Managing Marketing Strategies

Definition of Managing Marketing Strategies

An organization's corporate strategy is a road map for the future direction an organization needs, or wishes, to take. Such an approach could also define a long-term view of an organization. A business needs to meet and manage both their long-term and short-term objectives (Fifield, 2007).

Example of Managing Marketing Strategies

For instance, a company that has just employed new staff should be able to assess the effectiveness of this move in the short term. An organization needs to strike a balance between its long-term and short-term strategies. Corporate and marketing strategy is essential for providing a long-term vision, but an organization will not achieve its long-term goals unless they survive the short term.

Positives of Managing Marketing Strategies

Reduces the number of customer complaints and the number of product returns.

It also increases the number of people visiting the company website (Fifield, 2007).

It brings about more press coverage especially in PR campaigns as well as the number of visitors in a seminar or trade show.

It also increases the click-through-rate from online ads.

Moreover, it analyses how much online content is shared, enables for the fluent flow of customer, retailer, suppliers and distributors' feedback (Lagos, Steel& Hall, 2018).

It increases the average order values, improves the internal communication of an organization, allows for online comments and feedback, increases the number of new dealers or distributors who sign up and expands the business from specific sectors.

Limitations of Managing Marketing Strategies

It will be highly cost

It will expose the weaknesses of the company

Real Example of Managing Marketing Strategies

Red Bull is an Austrian company that has done an excellent job of managing its marketing strategies. One of its greatest and successful strategies is to host huge sports events from whole over the world, from the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix to the Red Bull Air Race located in the UK. Thus, this strong marketing strategy has brought the company’s brand to become famous across the world (BERGSTROM).