Marketing has long become an inherent business process in every for-profit organization. Moreover, it is believed that the performance of modern companies is largely dependent on the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. This paper will be aimed at showing why this activity is important for modern businesses.
In particular, it is necessary to define this concept and provide examples that demonstrate its significance. On the whole, one can say that marketing can impact almost every aspect of a company’s performance and shape its long-term policies.
First, it should be noted that there are various definitions of marketing. This variety can be explained by the fact that scholars can look at this concept from different perspectives. For instance, Stephen Shaw (2007) discusses the term mostly from the standpoint of customers and their needs or values.
He argues that marketing is a process of anticipating, identifying and meeting the needs of clients (Shaw, 2007, p. 1). In turn, other authors pay more attention to the activities involved in the process of marketing. For instance, Amy Hurd, Robert Barcelona and John Medrum (2008) define marketing as “purposeful planning and execution of the pricing, place, and promotion of ideas, goods, and services” (p. 167).
Thus, one can see that the definitions of marketing can differ significantly and none of them can be rejected. Overall, I believe that marketing is every activity of organization that is aimed at creating and delivering value to customers, business partners, and community in general.
In this case, the term marketing includes such elements as product development, research, promotion, pricing, after-sale services, and so forth. Although these definitions differ from one another, they indicate that marketing is essential for successful performance of an organization.
At this point, it is necessary to explain why marketing is of great importance for businesses. First, one should mention that a company can achieve good results only if the management understands the needs of customers and succeeds in gaining the loyalty of these people. In his definition, Stephen Shaw (2007) also focuses on the importance of identifying the expectations of clients (p. 1).
This is why many companies are engaged in marketing research. In particular, they conduct surveys in order to determine what their customers expect from a product or service and what kind of things they may like or dislike. For example, one can mention that hotels use such technique focus groups, in-room questionnaires, and online surveys in order to understand the needs of their guests (Pride & Ferrell, 2011, p. 187).
Without achieving this goal, these organizations will lose their competitive advantage and their profitability may decline. Thus, one can argue that marketing is essential for maintaining good relationship with clients. This is one of the reasons why business administrators pay so much attention to marketing activities.
Additionally, this example suggests that marketing can significantly affect. The thing is that successful companies usually take into account the opinions of their clients and they may change a variety of things on the basis of such surveys, for instance, quality control policies, HR management, or production process.
Secondly, marketing is essential for differentiating the products or services of a company. As it has been noted before, organizations have to create value for customers. In other words, they have to bring certain benefits to a customer and prove that no other company can offer similar products or services.
The firms can focus on various aspects of their products, for instance, price-quality ratio, design, user-friendliness, or reliability. Marketing activities help a company to differentiate its products from the products of its competitors. For example, one can mention such a company as Apple that usually emphasizes the design of their technologies and their user-friendliness (Nieto-Rodriguez, 2012, p. 107).
Good product differentiation is one of the reasons why this corporation occupies leading positions in the industry (Nieto-Rodriguez, 2012, p. 107). So, the task of marketing managers is to choose a particular advantage of a company’s product or service. They should also find out what kind of things their customers value.
Provided that a company does not cope with this task, it may lose its competitive advantage over other firms, because customers may not pay attention to the offerings of this organization. Thus, marketing ensures that the products of a company remain visible to the potential clients.
Finally, one should mention that marketing is instrumental for increasing people’s awareness and about the company, its products, services and the benefits that it can bring to the clients. Managers, who are responsible for developing the marketing strategies, should be able to determine how promotional messages of a company can be best communicated to potential customers (Mullin, 2010, p. 35). Firms have to determine the channels through which they can interact with their clients (Mullin, 2010, p. 35).
For instance, they can choose television, Internet, radio, or printed media such as newspapers or magazines (Mullin, 2010, p. 35). Managers have to choose the most optimal combination of media channels to make sure that customers know about the products of the organization. In this regard, one can mention that companies have to take into account that their customers may have various lifestyles, and managers should determine how they actually learn about the company or its products.
For instance, some people can prefer printed media, while others pay more attention Internet and television. Thus, one can see that the task of managers is very complex, but it man be essential for the profitability of a business. In this regard, one can mention that companies have to spend millions on commercials in order to attract customers. However, very often their attempts do not achieve success because the marketing messages of a company do not reach the target customers.
On the whole, these cases demonstrate that marketing can profoundly effect the company’s relations with client, its competitive position, and product development. Successful marketing strategies are essential for the performance of every organization. Companies have to accept the idea that in the competitive environment, the best strategy is to create and bring value for customers whose opinions can affect business outcomes. This is the critical point that managers should remember.
Reference List
Hurd, A., Barcelona, R. & Meldrum, J. (2008). Leisure Services Management. New York: Human Kinetics.
Mullin, R. (2010). Sales Promotion: How to Create, Implement and Integrate Campaigns that Really Work. Berkeley: Kogan Page Publishers.
Nieto-Rodriguez, A. (2012). The Focused Organization: How Concentrating on a Few Key Initiatives Can Dramatically Improve Strategy Execution. New York: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
Pride, W. & Ferrell, O. (2011). Marketing. New York: Cengage Learning.
Shaw, S. (2007). Airline Marketing and Management. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.