Marketing Management : method of getting things done in the most efficient and effective way, doing operations in an organized timely way
To understand marketing management, one has to know what marketing is and what it involves. Marketing is a very broad concept that has to be interpreted in the right way. In layman’s terms, marketing incorporates all communion that takes place both internal and external to a firm. From brand mantras to slogans, advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorships, shopper marketing, and digital marketing.
Marketing defined
Marketing is defined as the fundamental continuous process of communicating brand vision and mission whilst introducing or promoting a particular product or service to a specific target audience making use of a variety of channels and platforms, which amongst the most popular is social media. The ultimate goals are to grow the business footprint, generate leads, improve customer relationships and increase sales. Marketing is an ongoing effort that needs to manage the right way to be effective and accurate. This entails proper market research to deliver to customer needs and wants. This will ensure optimum performance.
Marketing management defined
Management is the procedure or method of getting things done in the most efficient and effective way, doing operations in an organized timely way. Marketing management should be done in context, in other words applying the best methods to the right type of management. Overall supervision of tasks, priorities, ethics, standards, and competitors of business. It entails all the managerial functions in the field of marketing with the main goal to achieve profitable outcomes. Furthermore, it also involves constantly evaluating and assessing the effectiveness of the marketing mix that will be discussed in detail later on. The most proficient tactics should be identified and implemented. Nowadays marketing is more than just advertising goods and services, it’s about relationship building, value creation, knowledge management, service marketing, and brand management just to name a few. Furthermore, it’s a process of making an informed decision based on marketing outcomes, budget, allocated resources, and time. In a nutshell, the word’ marketing management ‘, refers to the administration, supervision, and thorough evaluation of the marketing strategy, activities included resources, and campaigns of an organization.
Marketing Management checklist
All the elements that are required for success marketing management are as follows:
- SWOT analysis outlines the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A thorough SWOT analysis has to be conducted beforehand. To establish who the competitors are what they to and also identify the business competitive advantage. The statements made should be holistic and related to the specific industry.
- PESTLE analysis is similar to the SWOT analysis, but is broader and has more to do with economic conditions, politics, and so forth. PESTLE stands for Politics, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal and Environmental factors.
- The Marketing Mix – These have to be identified and controlled:
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
- The Marketing Strategy – Once all research has been completed such as the SWOT or PESTLE analysis and the marketing mix has been identified a well-crafted marketing strategy has to be compiled. This marketing strategy will direct marketing management activities into the right direction.
- Internal Marketing – Communication that takes place inside the business, generally communication occurring between business and employees amongst employees and staff. A Brand mantra has to be developed to educate workers on what the brand is about and what to expect also what is expected from the workers in terms of standards. The mission and vision of the brand should be reinforced amongst employees. Moreover, they should constantly be monitored, motivated, and rewarded for good work.
- External Marketing – Communication that takes place outside the business. The marketing message conveyed to the general public should have a purpose either to persuade, convince, inform, or educate about a brand or its product and services.
Marketing management models
Every industry has a different marketing management model. For example, an intangible or semi-tangible service provider’s marketing will differ immensely from a business marketing that specializes in manufacturing and selling of goods only. Also niches or small business’ management will differ from big company’s management in terms of size and budget control. The structure of the business and business model will determine what type of marketing management model a business in a particular industry should use, more often than not, a business use a combination of models to maximize outcomes. Several types of measurement matrices are used respectively to direct, establish and measure management efficacy. In the case of Business to Business marketing (B2B), Professional marketing done via channels such as the business orientated social media platform LinkedIn. Business to business marketing entails to manage marketing professionally and market specifically to businesses. Requires different business to be in a mutual agreement to make commercial transactions.
The sub-categories of marketing management
- Business Development – This entails precise constructing, updating, and changing of a business plan, according to the vision and mission of the business. If necessary, new principles have to be incorporated into the business plan and adopted by the company. This is a big part of marketing management. The business plan will be based on research, observation, and an investigation is done, obtained from marketing strategies. Adjustments to the business plan will be done according to the problem areas identified by management.
- Marketing Strategy – Considering the above mentioned, a marketing strategy has to augment the business plan and is a written document containing identified marketing objectives integrated with business goals and best-chosen tactics developed to fill gaps in the market and accomplish set goals. The document also contains established approaches and methods to implement these tactics to achieve specific, measurable, realistic, attainable, and time-bound goals. These Marketing Strategies have to be carefully crafted, compiled, and managed. Every business needs a marketing plan to ensure the right target audiences are acknowledged, also ensure the unique selling proposition is correctly identified and developed. Moreover, having a marketing plan will also reduce the risks of the bottleneck effect and empower decision making by refining goals. The prerequisite for marketing success starts with a good strategy. The main purpose of the plan is to track achievements using measurement goal-specific metrics. The benefits of a well-managed marketing strategy are innumerable.
- Product Development – A essential part of the marketing mix. Product development not only involves creating a product from scratch or adjust product features and attributes but also the distribution of the product through different channels. Especially when launching a brand new product, the process has to be meticulously planned and more importantly, executed professionally. It all comes down to proficient marketing management yet again. It is an endeavoring task that comprises ample market research, creation of buyer personas, formulation of customer solutions, determination of business position, and a credible completed competitor’s analysis. The product strategy should provide definite solutions to customer needs or desires.
- Brand Management – In short, brand management comprise of various components of branding, brand building, brand development and brand sustainability. For every type of brand there are a different approach to brand management. The types of brands range from generic brands, manufacturing brands, distributor brands and online brands which are amongst the most popular commercialized brands. Every business has a brand identity which can be seen as a strategic asset. The brand identity will define the orientation of the business weather customer-orientated creating excellent service culture, or profit-orientated with the main focus on mass production. A systematic process has to be followed to maintain and achieve effectual brand management. This processes entails defining brand vision, purpose, positioning, personality, values as well as internal marketing management such as mantras or taglines and brand language and other visual communication. This all depends on the type of brand in terms of professionalism when using formal or slang register. Brand management is the process of maintaining a brand.
- Service Marketing – A business in the service sector requires more attend regarding marketing management than any other industry. The service industry has to constantly deliver to promises that are made. The behaviour, dress code, attitude and standards of employees has to be managed. Additionally, physical evidence such as websites, in store look and feel and ambience has to be planned. A quality service blueprint has to be developed for the business which will graphically depict and illustrate the activities involved in the service delivery process. The complexity of the service blueprint is dependent on the nature of the service. The nature of the service can be as follows: High-contact where the presence of the participants is required throughout the entire service deliver process. Medium contact only requires the customer to be present for part of the services and low level contact requires no face to face contact and can be done on a self-serving basis. The service blueprint will help the service provider determine customer touch points and encounters with brand. It will also ensure that everything runs smoothly. Services are crucial to manage correctly since customers use six different dimensions to assess service quality. Firstly, is assurance which is based on the skill set of the employees in a certain service field. Empathy is another quality indicator, the degree in which customer will receive personalized services moreover, the extent in which the business can prove they care for their customers and fellow employees. The service also has to be reliable, delivering to that standard that was pledged by the business. Includes being dependable and accurate in terms of service description. A high quality service is also available and willing to provide and really listen to customers, this is known as a responsive service. Lastly the tangible aspect of the service such as the equipment, gear and facilities should be maintained.
- Relationship Marketing – Relationship marketing is all about the customers and how the business can create the best value for them. Customer relationship marketing is very beneficial when manage correctly since, the process can turn perspectives into potential life-long loyal customers. The main goal and key role of relationship marketing as the name suggest, is to foster relationships with customers. This is done through an ongoing process of listening and communicating with current and potential customer’s. The customer respect has to be earned in order for them to trust a business and become a frequent customer or to make informed purchasing decisions. The importance is to promote good customer reviews, referrals and recommendations. Good customer reviews are acquired through persistence in services quality. Persistence will indicate to the customer if a business is credible and trustworthy. Once that is proven the customer will be more motivated to endorse the business through word-of-mouth. Trust is established with time, patience and care. In business terms trust can be establish by promptly responding to customer queries, complaints and comments on social media using a friendly and professional tone. From relationship marketing pressure groups and advocates can be inaugurated. These people can either represent the brand or the customers of the brand and play a vital role, when it comes to customer service and marketing management. Additional, brand ambassadors or fan clubs are a direct result of splendid relationship marketing done.
- Knowledge Management and Internal Marketing – Knowledge management encompasses a number of processes used in an organization to identify, create, reflect, distribute and facilitate the management of insights and experiences gained from people. Information embodied either in organizations and people (tacit knowledge) or embedded in organizational systems and practices (explicit knowledge) are these perceptions and observations. For example, when applying knowledge management data and information about business protocol should be stored for later use or reuse. Data should also be transferred and converted into useful information. Information is processed and depends on data, the combination of data and human interpretation equals valuable information.
- Marketing Operations and Sales – Marketing operations and marketing management are not the same thing. Marketing management is needed to do marketing operations. Sales and marketing operations goes hand in hand. Sales should be monitored and the best efforts should be identified to increase revenue.
The relevant to all businesses in terms of marketing management
- Ethics and Social Concerns – When any business does marketing it has to be ethical. Sometimes businesses want to address a specific social concern by partaking in a certain movement of campaign, in which the business have to be very careful when making a statement about a sensitive topic such as racism. The consequences of a failed campaign are devastating. And can result in loss of a once established customer based, client trust and the unfortunate procurement of a bad brand reputation. Marketing should also be ethical at all times and not only promote goods and services to make profit but also to serve customer and create customer value. Ethic is defined as the morally right thing to do in any given situation. Examples of unethical advertising includes, materialism, deceptive or untruthful advertising, stereotyping, offensive advertising and using children in advertisement or advertise to children. Whether or not an advertisement can be classified as ethical or unethical are constantly debated and depend on the different opinions of different people and their values or morals. However, there are certain rules and regulations marketers has to abide to. Management of a business has to decide if they are willing to take the risk associated with the advertisement they want to create. The biggest risk will be to lose customers due to offending them with an advertisement.
- An Extension of the Original Marketing Mix in the Service Sector – Since most services are consumed and produced at the same time, additional aspects should be added to the marketing mix and managed.
- Process – The process refers to the continuous flow of activities and procedures that needs to take place during service delivery. From point of creation to distribution and final consumption all forms part of the process.
- People – The people aspect refers to all the people involved in the process such as employees, staff, customers and how these people are managed. For example, employee training, recruitment, motivation and rewards.
- Physical Environment – Also known as evidence, the physical environment is the tangible elements of the service.
- Corporate Social Responsibility – Every business is entitled to do marketing on their own terms but they have the responsibility to do it sustainably. Corporate social responsibility(CSR) is a form of self-regulation of a business with the goal of being socially responsible. Many corporate CSR programs seek to respond directly to the needs of the market, the community, or the environment. A good way t manage CRS is for a business to adopt green principles.
The best Practices for marketing management
- Investing in Digital Marketing or Online Media Channels – Digital marketing will reach more people, are available to customers 24/7 and 365 days a year. Digital channels can be utilized to communicate marketing messages more effectively than traditional means of marketing. Digital tools can also be used in a business workplace, for example, making effective use of free online project management tools. Digital marketing can also increase reach, improve lead generation, vastly lower marketing costs, and improve overall conversion rates.
- Content Marketing – Creating and updating content for a business is the most effective way to communicate with the target audience and manage marketing. If the content is managed correctly the right marketing messages will be targeted at the right people at the right time. Content has a way of persuading, inspiring and enticing people. Good content will capture that audience’s attention. Content marketing constitutes mostly around copywriting and if done well, there will be better returns on investments.
- Strong Workforce – Entails to train and educate employees to develop their skills and increase customer value. This also involves recruiting a strong workforce. If the business has a good reputation more people would want to be employed by that business which can also contribute to an effective way of marketing management. The business has to be conveyed in a good light whilst highlighting brand strengths.
- Utilize Resources and Assets at Disposal – This is pretty self-explanatory, if a business has access to the internet there are endless opportunities available. For instance, creating social media pages that are totally free of charge. Another example of assets that can be utilized is the skilled employees that can share their knowledge with fellow employees and so knowledge management is accomplished.
- Strategic Planning and Budgeting – Strategic planning can make or break a business. Strategic planning is planning done to optimize outcomes with minimized input. In other words, planning to direct a project in the most efficient way to get the best results possible. A fixed budget should for marketing be set to avoid overspending or even underspending.
- “Real-Time” Management – Real-time management can be explained as a process to keep track of real-time data, trends, events, and available resources. This also includes resolving employee disputes or customer complaints as soon as possible. Furthermore, using all the resources available at a given moment and keeping up with global trends.
What exactly does marketing managers do?
A typical marketing manager is usually responsible for managing marketing or advertising activities and all other communication that occurs external or internal to an organisation. These managers are also responsible to create marketing campaigns to attract more customers. This job also entails to compile, evaluate and analyze marketing plans and strategies, basically ensuring all goals are reached. Marketing managers has to be very diverse and well-rounded individuals that are able to analyze data and identify problem areas.
Every business should have effective marketing management strategies implemented since it can be very fruitful for any business. It is evidently vital for a business to do marketing management with the fact that it ensures everything goes to plan and all goals no matter how big or small are reached. The business will not only be reputable but highly profitable as well. Marketing management is not a onetime-thing and should rather be done continuously on a daily basis. Marketing managers has to be skilled in every respect since it takes a particular skill set where logical and creative thinking is needed. They should also be equipped with the necessary knowledge to do the job correctly.
also read: 7 Pѕ оf Marketing аnd thе Sіmрlеѕt Mаrkеtіng Mіx Dеfіnіtіоn
