Marketing management is a business discipline focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities.
Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand in a manner that will achieve the company's objectives.
Marketing is one of the most important functions in business.
It is the discipline required to understand customers' needs and the benefits they seek.
In nutshell it consists of the social and managerial processes by which products (goods or services) and value are exchanged in order to fulfill the needs and wants of individuals or groups.
What is Marketing?
In general, marketing activities are all those associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then going about satisfying those customers better than the competitors.
This involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution.
Definition:
Marketing is the process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products and/or services.
The key word in this marketing definition is "process"; marketing involves researching, promoting, selling, and distributing your products or services.
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumers' requirements profitably .
This puts even more emphasis on identifying the needs of the clients, and on providing a service or product which is of the required quality.
It also brings the well-being of society into the equation, and leaves out the profit motive (in order to include not-for-profit organizations).
However, if an organization has profitability as one of its objectives, then that will be an important factor when marketing objectives are being drawn up.
A phrase which often comes up is 'exchange relationships'. Exchange, in this context, means the provision or transfer of goods, services or ideas, in return for something of value.
The Marketing Cycle
The marketing process is cyclical:
- Formulate a MISSION for your information service / library (where do we want to be?)
- Review your current position (where are we now?), and identify opportunities, using techniques such as SWOT and PEST
- Formulate marketing objectives
Undertake MARKET RESEARCH
- Modify marketing objectives
- Formulate marketing strategies (how do we get there?), balancing various components of the MARKETING MIX.
- Implement Marketing strategies.
- Monitor success (how do we find out whether we got there?)
- Review strategies - and objectives and mission if necessary (starting again from the top)
Marketing Mission
A mission statement should embody the vision and values of an organization and ensure that everyone knows what they're aiming for.
It is important that the staff of an organization identify with and 'own' the mission.
If they do not, the mission is unlikely to be achieved, particularly if you are offering services (which depend on the commitment of staff).
The other stakeholders (customers, funding bodies etc.) should also be able to fit the mission to their idea of what the organization is about.
If there is too much of a mismatch (e.g. if you were running a small college library and had as your mission 'to be the best library in the world'), people are very skeptical about the stated mission.
A mission statement is a formal description of the mission of a business.
The mission statement might be published in several places (e.g. at the front of an annual report and accounts, on promotional material, in the board room and on the factory floor).
There is no standard format for a mission statement. However, an effective mission statement should contain the following characteristics:
- Brief – it should be easy to understand and remember
- Flexible – it should be able to accommodate change
- Distinctive – it should make the business stand out
Mission Statements of Well Known Enterprises
3M
"To solve unsolved problems innovatively"
Merck
"To preserve and improve human life."
Wal-Mart
"To give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same thing as rich people."
Walt Disney
"To make people happy."
Reviewing your position
Before you can decide where you want your business to go and how you are going to get there, you need to find out where you are now.
SWOT and PEST analyses are techniques that can be used to help determine your position in your market.
SWOT stands for
- Strengths
- Weaknesses,
- Opportunities; and
- Threats
For example, you may think that a 'large collection of books' is a strength, but it may be more important to the users that the books should be up-to-date - they would be happier with a smaller collection if it were more current.
Therefore it is a good idea to take a brainstorming approach, and consider undertaking market research, to test your hypotheses about strengths and weaknesses. Some factors (e.g. the internet) can be seen as both threats and opportunities.
PEST stands for the
- Political factors and legal factors
- Economic factors
- Social factors; and
- Technological factors
Political factors: include legal aspects (eg copyright), the general political ethos;
Economic factors: include the effect of the economy (eg in recession) on individuals, and on organizations;
Social factors: include demographic change (eg changes in proportion of age groups), changes in social habits (where people go to shop, leisure expectations), educational changes.
There are obviously a wide range of technological factors affecting libraries and information centers (e.g. the Internet, telecommunications, the media in which people expect to find information).
Formulate marketing objectives
Marketing success can be measured on several non-financial market metrics.
These measure are important since these often shed light on underlying conditions and circumstances facing the company that are not easily seen within financial measures.
For instance, a company may report strong sales for a product but market share information may suggest the product is losing ground to competitors.
The marketing objectives will indicate targets to be achieved across several marketing decision areas.
Target market objectives
Market share
- total
- by segments
- by channel
- total
- number/percentage new
- number/percentage retained
- rate of purchases
- size/volume of purchases
Promotional objectives
- Level of brand/company awareness
- Traffic building
- (e.g., store traffic, website traffic)
- Product trials
- (e.g. sales promotions, product demonstrations)
- Sales force
- (e.g. cycle time, cost per call, closing rate, customer visits, etc.)
Channel objectives
Dealers
- total
- number/percentage new
- number/percentage retained
- on-time rate
- shrinkage rate
- correct order rate
Market research objectives
- studies initiated
- studies completed
- product development
- partnerships developed
Undertake MARKET RESEARCH
Marketing Research is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information--information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. .
Marketing research specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications
Market research is supposed to be a systematic activity - orderly and impartial.
The cycle for market research normally involves:
Defining the problem (eg 'Department X scarcely ever asks me for information')
Developing a hypothesis (eg 'They don't realise how much relevant information I could access')
Deciding how to test it (using either secondary data, or primary data - see below)
Information gathering
Collation and interpretation
Decision making
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