Marketing is very important to any business. For one to sell, people must have seen as the product and or service. For them to repeat the process, the previous purchase must have satisfied their need.
Marketing is a process that the management initiates. The main purpose is to identify, anticipate, and satisfy the customer at a profit. There has to be potential for the business to make a profit. Therefore, the main role of marketing is to ensure that the customer is happy and that the happiness transforms to the business success through profit and continued trade.
The organization needs to come up with a marketing team and formulate the market strategy and tactics. A good marketing plan puts into consideration the means and ways of how to tackle the industry and competitors. It also illustrates how to embrace the customer, partners, and the company.
The organization needs to carry out a marketing audit. It includes a complete analysis of the market, the external and industry analysis. It has carried out the competitor analysis and customer analysis. The internal Strengths and Weaknesses and the external Opportunities and Threats make up the SWOT analysis.
The internal strength is one of the qualities that enable a business to be better than others. The internal analysis would include the operating results, marketing capabilities, marketing intelligence, and the effectiveness of the marketing mix. It must also consider its weaknesses and find the best way to improve on them.
There are many opportunities outside the company that it has to tap into to gain, expand and maintain its market. A business can use opportunities to gain acceptance in the market. The threats in the industry like competition are important because they make the management work hard to turn them into opportunities. Threats are fundamentals in the industry that are a disadvantage for the business.
During the market auditing, the organization can make good use of the Product Life Cycle tools. It involves the life of a new product from the time of introduction through growth stages until it reaches its maturity and decline stage. Today the cycle is becoming shorter because of competition. Therefore, companies have to start differentiating and do market segmentation immediately.
The Portfolio analysis and Porter’s five forces are also market auditing tools. Michael Porter’s Five Forces helps the business to understand the bargaining power. It helps to determine the competitiveness and the potential for profit based on the interaction of the five forces.
The bargaining power of the organization as the seller to the market and as a buyer from its suppliers enables it to keep the market. The bargaining power also covers the buyers of the company’s products. Substitute products are products that the competitors sell that serve the same purpose as the organization’s products. Some organizations have already established themselves in the market and would do anything possible to prevent new entrants. The organization has to observe the threat of new entrants force and plan the mechanisms to employ. There could be the rivalry between the existing competitors. Some markets are less competitive than others. Markets with low demand are more competitive than markets with high demand.
The market auditing involves the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal Regulatory and Environmental (PESTLE) aspects. The legal requirements depend on the locality of the business and the place of marketing. Despite the fact that there is a general view of globalization, the regulatory requirements for individual countries remain different in various aspects.
There are countries that have developed technologically, and modern businesses find it easier to drive their marketing skills. The political aspect of this auditing would only be beneficial to an organization if there is political goodwill. Michael Porter’s Five Forces apply to the business environment. It is how the auditing and marketing processes correlate with each other.
The marketing plan can also include some assumptions that would guide the management. The marketing objectives need to be Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART). The organization needs to establish specific objectives for the purpose of attaining its vision. An example of a SMART objective would be to increase the market share in New York city from 10 percent to 20 percent in six months.
The organization also needs to develop market strategies. Ansoff’s Product/Market Grid is a tool that helps to determine business growth opportunities. The dimensions that include the products and the markets provide four growth strategies. The market penetration involves selling more of the same products and or services in the current markets. The company may give bonuses, discounts and builds strong customer relationships.
The Market Development grid involves the continued selling of the similar products and or services in new markets. The marketing principle is to entice clients from competitors. It can also be the introduction of the existing product in new markets. It is also introducing new brands in a market. Product Development is the marketing of new products or services in the already established markets. The business uses the existing communication channels to market.
Diversification enables a company to sell new products and services in new markets. It enables the organization to spread its risks. Other market strategy tools would be Segmentation Analysis, Market Positioning Analysis, Innovation New Product Development process, and Relationship Marketing.
The objective of the marketing strategies is for product growth, the sales increase, and market share expansion. Another important objective is to increase the profit margin of the products and services, and the sales as a whole. Lastly, the organization must seek to increase its cash flow by increasing its profitability. For-profit to increase, the company can work on two main areas internally. They include the increase in the unit sales volume and the increased productivity.
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing allows businesses to sell products or services to other companies or organizations. For such markets, the marketing objective would be to increase awareness and sales volumes. Media and official company websites would be essential in reaching the businesses. The marketing plan would use discounted prices because of the large volumes and after sales services to attract and retain customers.
The business-to-consumer (B2C) would employ the merchandising activities and special offers to attract the target market. The main focus for B2C is on transactions. Consumers would get discounts for both online and point of sale shopping. Both the non-profit and for-profit organizations would benefit because of the attractive prices and offers.
The global marketing techniques vary from business to business. The business needs to understand globally diverse cultures. For instance, a pork company may not find it reasonable to market its products in a purely Islamic market. As businesses try to become global entities, there is increased market competition due to similarities in products from local and other globally recognized firms. But for entirely new products in the market, the business would gain the market quickly. The product has to be acceptable in the market.