Marketing Process

11 Key excerpts on "Marketing Process"

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  eBook - PDF

  Understanding Marketing

  • (Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Harvard Business Review Press

    (Publisher)

  3. Create a marketing plan. Decide how you’ll position, price, and promote a product, which distribution channels you’ll use, and so forth. 4. Put your marketing strategy and plan into action. Prepare for surprises and disappointments and incorporate feedback and controls into the implementation process. 5. Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and plan, and adjust them accordingly. Whatever your position is in your organization, your awareness of the Marketing Process and participation in it will help your company achieve its marketing and strategic objectives. In the sections that follow, we’ll explore these steps in greater detail. But let’s turn now to the first step in the Marketing Process: identifying the market opportunities that will best help your 14 Understanding Marketing company achieve its mission, given the products and services that the company has to offer. To determine these opportunities, you must answer two questions: • Who are your target customers? • Why should they buy your product and not your competitors’? Your firm probably has many different potential customers who may be interested in your company’s offerings. But they likely fall into one of two main categories: individual consumers or businesses and organizations. Whether your firm sells mainly to individual consumers or businesses depends on its mission. For example, if your company makes electronic gadgets for the home, you probably sell primarily to individual consumers. But if your firm makes high-speed pho-tocopy machines or offers management consulting or corporate financial services, you probably sell to businesses or organizations. On the other hand, your company’s primary market may shift over time if such a change would have strategic value. To illustrate, an automobile manufacturer that sells mainly to individuals might see some advantages in developing and marketing certain kinds of vehicles—such as limousines—for business customers.

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  Marketing Management

  Text and Cases

  • Robert E Stevens, David L Loudon, Bruce Wrenn(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1 The Marketing Management Process

  This chapter provides an overview of the marketing management process. It focuses on the tasks marketers must perform to manage the marketing activities of their organizations and the environment of marketing decisions. First, we will review the definition of marketing, the marketing concept, and the focus of effective marketing before turning our attention to these tasks.

  What is Marketing?

  The American Marketing Association defines marketing as follows: “the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.”1 Several key ideas are expressed in this definition. First, marketing is a managerial function involving both planning and execution. Thus marketing is not a group of unrelated activities but tasks that are planned and executed to attain identifiable objectives. Second, marketing involves the management of specific elements or functions: product, pricing, promotion, and distribution. These functions constitute the work or substance of what marketing is all about. To be involved in marketing means being involved in the planning, execution, and/or control of these activities. Third, marketing is goal oriented. Its aim is to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. Marketing’s concern is with customers and meeting a need in the marketplace. However, its concern is not just with any customers or all customers but those preselected by management as the market segment(s) on which the company will concentrate. Thus, specific customers with their specific needs become the focal point of an organization’s marketing activities.

  The Marketing Concept

  The marketing concept is a business orientation that focuses on satisfying customers’ needs at acceptable levels of revenues and costs. In for-profit organizations, acceptable levels of revenues and costs are defined in terms of a target return on investment; in not-for-profit organizations, the focus is on achieving a balance between revenues and costs.

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  Market-Driven Management

  Strategic and Operational Marketing

  • Jean-Jacques Lambin, Isabelle Schuiling(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  The output of these seven steps of the strategic Marketing Process constitutes the back-bone of the operational marketing plan. Once the answers to these questions are obtained, the task remains to define the positioning options to be taken, to define the means required The Marketing Concept 15 to achieve the stated objectives and, last but not least, to prepare a projected profit and loss statements for each activity and for the company as a whole. 1.3 MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MARKETING CONCEPT The term “marketing” itself generates ambiguity. In plain English it refers to the process of going to the market and the term implicitly places the emphasis on the “downstream” activities of the Marketing Process, that is, the marketing mix in action, and does not refer to the “upstream” activities that necessarily precede the market entry, that is, the confronta-tion of customers needs with the firm’s creative abilities and skills. Ambiguity of the term “marketing” Many authors and managers do not make a careful distinction among customer-oriented , marketing-oriented and market-driven . They lean towards the traditional marketing concept to describe the orientation of a firm that stay close to its customers. The linguistic definition of polysemy refers to “a word that has multiple but related meanings”. Unlike finance people, marketing people are still divided in their understand-ing about the meaning of the word “marketing”. The lack of consensus on language among managers – and in particular among chief executive officers (CEOs) – is evidenced by the answer received to the first interview question posed to a sample of CEOs: “How has mar-keting been changing in your company in the past three years?” The reply is along the lines of “that depends upon what you mean by marketing” (Webster, Malter and Ganesan, 2005, p. 36). This level of confusion remains high among marketing practitioners and scholars as well.

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  Marketing Strategy

  • O. C. Ferrell, Michael Hartline, O. C. Ferrell, Michael Hartline, Bryan Hochstein(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Marketing Strategy This section of the marketing plan outlines how the firm will achieve its marketing objectives. In Chapter 1, we said that marketing strategies involve selecting and ana- lyzing target markets and creating and maintaining an appropriate marketing program (product, distribution, promotion, and price) to satisfy the needs of those target markets. It is at this level where the firm will detail how it will gain a competitive advantage by doing something better than the competition: Its products must be of higher quality than competitive offerings, its prices must be consistent with the level of quality (value), its distribution methods must be as efficient as possible, and its promotions must be more effective in communicating with target customers. It is also important that the firm attempts to make these advantages sustainable. Thus, in its broad- est sense, marketing strategy refers to how the firm will manage its relationships with customers in a manner that gives it an advantage over the competition. Marketing Implementation The implementation section of the marketing plan describes how the marketing program will be executed. This section of the marketing plan answers several questions with respect to the marketing strategies outlined in the preceding section: 1. What specific marketing activities will be undertaken? 2. How will these activities be performed? 3. When will these activities be performed? 4. Who is responsible for the completion of these activities? 5. How will the completion of planned activities be monitored? 6. How much will these activities cost? Without a good plan for implementation, the success of the marketing strategy is seriously jeopardized. For this reason, the implementation phase of the marketing plan is just as important as the marketing strategy phase. You should remember, too, that implementation hinges on gain- ing the support of employees: Employees implement marketing strategies, not organizations.

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  Standing Room Only

  Marketing Insights for Engaging Performing Arts Audiences

  • J. Bernstein(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  13 Formulating Marketing Plans Marketing plans may take on different formats depending on managers’ needs, but each plan should focus on identifying key issues, mobilizing resources, and measuring results. The marketing plan will approach each aspect of the mar- keting mix (product, price, promotion, and place) in a way that will position the offering effectively for the target market. The fifth “P,” people —who will be targeted for the plan and who will be responsible for the work involved—is also crucial to address. 109 A p p l y i n g t h e S t r a t e g i c M a r k e t i n g P r o c e s s Robert Lauterborn suggests that marketers think in terms of the four Cs instead: customer value (not product), customer costs (not price alone), conve- nience (not place), and communication (not simply promotion). 14 In the same vein, Mohanibir Sawhney suggests that marketing should be organized around processes—processes for understanding, defining, realizing, delivering, com- municating, and sustaining value. 15 Philip Kotler says that once the marketer thinks through the four Cs for the target customer, it becomes much easier to set the four Ps. 16 To create a plan, the manager will (1) identify potential alternatives for achieving the organization’s goals, (2) determine the financial implications of these alternatives, (3) decide which alternatives to pursue, and (4) decide on the marketing mix and marketing expenditures for each objective and/or program. Marketing plans will have several sections, including an executive summary; current marketing situation; opportunity and issue analysis; objectives; market- ing strategy; action programs; projected budgets, including statements of rev- enues and expenditures; and controls. Executive summary. The planning document should open with a short sum- mary of the main goals and recommendations to be found in the body of the plan. This permits upper management and board members to grasp quickly the major thrust of the plan.

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  Handbook of Marketing

  • Barton A Weitz, Robin Wensley, Barton A Weitz, Robin Wensley(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  The role of marketing and the firm has been evolving for almost a century, ever since marketing was first recognized as a distinct activity. Putting marketing within the context of the firm is a fairly recent development from an historical perspective. Prior to that, it was regarded as a socioeconomic process taking place within markets, not firms. It was identified as a distinct management function in the 1920s, and since then has experienced continued elaboration as both management practice and acade-mic discipline. Most recently, the idea of marketing as a separate management function is being chal-lenged and modified dramatically by a new concep-tualization of marketing as a set of organizational processes that pervades the whole firm, and is not the sole responsibility of marketing managers. Our field is very much a field in intellectual and practical tran-sition, as evidenced by the changing role of market-ing in the firm (Day & Montgomery, 1999). Marketing was recognized as a set of human activi-ties long before it was identified with the firm. Obviously, people had been doing many of the things we call ‘marketing’ long before it was given a name. Even before the earliest commercial traders, who might be considered to be the first marketing firms (most of the great voyages of dis-covery were launched in search for goods to be traded), people were undoubtedly exchanging things such as one type of food, tool, or clothing for another. For most of history, marketing was thought of as a societal, economic process through which goods and services were exchanged between buyers and sellers, activities that even preceded the existence of money and a market economy. C OMPETING V IEWS OF THE R OLE OF M ARKETING There have been many conceptualizations of market-ing. These different viewpoints prove to be useful in understanding the evolution of marketing as a management and business activity within the firm and as a relationship between buying and selling firms.

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  Handbook of Marketing Research Methodologies for Hospitality and Tourism

  • Ronald A. Nykiel(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Changes in preferences and needs of a particular market segment 5. Pricing 6. Adverse trends or yields in marketing expenditures The Strategic Marketing Planning Process 287 Opportunities and Alternatives 1. What are the major weaknesses of your competitors that you would exploit more fully? 2. What unsatisfied needs have been identified in your present market segments? Is it possi- ble to provide a service or product that will satisfy these needs? 3. What market segments peripheral to your current marketing thrust offer opportunities for you to broaden your market? THE STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN The following list provides an overview of the total marketing plan: • Analysis of research and information • Objectives • Marketing program • Marketing appropriations (the marketing budget) • Sales goals • Action programs • Communication of assigned responsibilities • Monitoring of action program Now that you have examined the first part of the total marketing plan structure (your business review), asked the right questions, and obtained factual answers, you can start the actual strate- gic marketing plan. In the strategic marketing plan, you analyze what you have learned about your business and translate it into action programs. By combining all of your research into one document, you force yourself to see • how (and whether) everything you are doing actually fits together; • whether it is logical and sound; • whether, in total, it is possible to accomplish with the manpower and money available. You also clearly establish guidelines for handling day-to-day matters in a manner consistent with your longer-range objectives. Objectives What are the overall objectives of your marketing program? These objectives should be deter- mined on the basis of your research and information analysis.

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  The Small Business Planner

  The Complete Entrepreneurial Guide to Starting and Operating a Successful Small Business

  • Larry Wilson(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Morgan James Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Section 2:

  marketing

  Generating revenue and gaining customers for life .

  2.1 Key Marketing Terms

  Marketing is the actual managing of markets to bring about exchanges that satisfy needs and provide value

  . There are some terms in this definition that play a key role in understanding this process and require further explanation.

  Market is a set of actual or potential buyers of a product or service. These buyers share a particular need that can be satisfied through exchange.

  Needs represent a desire to fill a void – to obtain something that is lacking. Needs are satisfied with Benefits and people do not generally buy anything unless there is a need. Our job as marketers, is to determine who our customers are and what their

  core needs

  really are. Determining needs is detailed later in the Marketing Planning Process section. This is a good time to introduce a concept that will be repeated several times: “Your customer does not need what you are selling!” Yes, you heard right. But, your product or service must provide Benefits that satisfy the customer’s need. It may sound a little confusing now but it should come together for you later in this section.

  Value can be defined as the usefulness or importance of a product or service to the possessor. Value is always determined by the customer as a balance between price and quality. All marketers strive to provide value. Low price does not necessarily equate to value if the product is worthless to the customer or does not satisfy their needs.

  Benefits are attributes of a product or service that satisfy core customer needs. They answer the question, “What’s in it for the customer? ” Benefits will sell products and services.

  Features are often confused with benefits. Unlike benefits, features do not satisfy needs and do not sell a product or service. They simply differentiate a product or service from that of the competition and answer the question, “Why should I buy from you?

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  What Is Marketing?

  • Harvard Business Review, Alvin J. Silk(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Harvard Business Review Press

    (Publisher)

  See also Dolan, “Inte-grated Marketing Communications.” 4. Ibid. 148 Developing Marketing Strategies 7. Optimal Pricing A S DESCRIBED IN THE CHAPTER “MARKETING STRAT-egy,” a firm’s marketing efforts are directed toward creating value for its chosen customers. 1 Understanding customers’ wants and needs is the foundation for building this value. In turn, capturing that value falls to the marketing mix, commonly re-ferred to as “the four P s”: • Developing a product that satisfies those wants and needs • Designing a promotion program that conveys the value of that product to customers • Choosing a distribution program (i.e., place ) that makes that product readily available 149 This chapter was written by Robert J. Dolan and John T. Gourville and originally published as “Principles of Pricing,” Class Note 9-506-021 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2005). Professor Dolan pre-pared an earlier version of that note, “Pricing: A Value-Based Approach,” Class Note 9-596-092 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 1999). It was lightly edited for consistency. • Designing a pricing strategy that simultaneously creates a consumer’s incentive to buy that product and the firm’s incentive to sell that product The first three of these marketing mix variables represent costs to the firm. Pricing’s role in the marketing mix is to tap into the value created and generate revenues (1) to fund the firm’s current value-creation activities, (2) to support research that will lead to future value creation, and (3) to generate a profit from the firm’s activities. A complete pricing program has many components. Consider the pricing decisions surrounding the launch of a new MP3 player.

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  Marketing Strategy

  • O. C. Ferrell, Michael Hartline, (Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  50 Chapter 2 • Strategic Marketing Planning Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. LESSONS FROM CHAPTER 2 Strategic marketing planning: • begins with broad decisions, then flows into more specific decisions as the pro- cess proceeds through subsequent planning stages. • involves establishing an organizational mission, corporate or business-unit strat- egy, marketing goals and objectives, marketing strategy, and ultimately a mar- keting plan. • must be consistent with the organization’s mission and the corporate or business-unit strategy. • must be coordinated with all functional business areas to ensure that the organi- zation’s goals and objectives will be considered in the development of each func- tional plan, one of which is the marketing plan. • establishes marketing-level goals and objectives that support the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. • develops a marketing strategy, which includes selecting and analyzing target markets and creating and maintaining an appropriate marketing program to sat- isfy the needs of customers in those target markets. • ultimately results in a strategic market plan that outlines the activities and resources required to fulfill the organization’s mission and achieve its goals and objectives. The organizational mission: • answers the broad question “What business are we in?” • identifies what the firm stands for and its basic operating philosophy by answer- ing five basic questions: 1. Who are we? 2. Who are our customers? 3. What is our operating philosophy (basic beliefs, values, ethics, etc.)? 4.

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  Marketing Management

  A Value-Creation Process

  • Alain Jolibert, Hans Mühlbacher, Laurent Flores, Pierre-Louis Dubois(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  13 Many value-creation and value-generation processes are so com-plex that they can only be conducted in close cooperation with and among stakeholders. This is particularly the case for the parts of value-creation and value-generation processes that are conducted inside busi-ness organizations. They need multifunctional cooperation. For such cooperation to be effective, all members of an organiza-tion must be aware that they share responsibility for relations with exchange partners, and that they all influence stakeholder relationships during at least part of their working time. The responsibility for customer relationships, for example, includes all other functions in an organization. People from logistics, procurement, production, finance, software-engineering, instal-lation and maintenance of a supplier of paint systems such as German company Dürr will need to closely cooperate in gener-ating unique value. They are all part-time marketers. 14 Full-time and part-time marketers together constitute the marketing team of an organization. By acknowledging the participation of a great number of people from various functional areas of an organization in the core Marketing Processes, functional departments lose their importance. Value process management means breaking down STRATEGIC POSITIONING STEP 4 151 functional boundaries as they currently exist in most organiza-tions. Business functions become integrated, or at least closely coupled, when organizations shift from hierarchy to managing core processes. Process coordination Because all functions of an organization and a substantial number of members of an organization participate in the implementation of the intended market position, coordination of all activities is a major challenge. Full-time marketers specializing in fields such as marketing intelligence, market communication, product, brand and distribution management, as well as sales, may slip into the roles of process champions.

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