What is Marketing Management?
Within business, marketing is a set of activities that a company uses to bring its products or services to market. The term “marketing” often refers to the process of promoting and selling products, but it can also encompass non-sales efforts as well as adjusting product mix and service offerings.
Marketing management is responsible for all aspects of creating a successful marketing plan. In addition to planning effective strategies and tactics, the manager must monitor their execution on an ongoing basis, make changes where necessary, and be prepared to judge whether a campaign has been successful or not.
The first step in setting up a marketing department involves hiring several different people with different skillsets. A manager might need to hire a specialist in market research, for example, as well as recruit people who are good at graphic design or writing.
Marketing management can be difficult because it is not always easy to tell if the campaign has been successful or not. For this reason, many companies make extensive use of statistics to determine what works and what does not work. This may involve gathering data about the costs associated with different strategies and studying consumer behavior. Managing marketing activities involves much trial and error, which means that even relatively simple campaigns can take several weeks before they bring measurable results.
The job of modern marketers involves far more than just creating an advertising message. They also need to understand what consumers want, how they are willing to pay for it, and how they will receive and process information.
There’s a great deal to think about at every stage of the process, but it’s infinitely easier to manage when you have the right tools in your belt.
2.0 DEVELOPING A STRATEGY
One way approach to thinking about marketing management is that it involves developing a strategy for achieving specific business objectives. So how do you go about doing this? Here are the stages:
- Define & analyze your audience & competition
- Set goals & devise a plan for attaining them
- Develop content that delights people & uses effective channels to share it with them
- Test new ideas against existing efforts
- Analyze results and improve upon what works best 3.0 EVALUATING PERFORMANCE
When you’re running a campaign, several questions need to be answered throughout its development for it to be successful. These include: Who is my audience and what do they want? How will I reach them and which channels can I use to communicate with them? What content should I create and share with people to solve their problems and delight them? What action should we ask of viewers or readers? And how will we measure success? Without answering all of these you cannot know whether your marketing efforts were effective, so this needs to be done rigorously at every step.
4.0 STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Marketing management has strengths and weaknesses just like any other management approach. Among its main strengths are that it’s very flexible and adaptable to different situations, it includes all elements of the marketing process within its remit and that it allows you to easily measure results.
Among its weaknesses are that it can be time-consuming for busy managers who don’t have enough hours in the day, ineffective if not done rigorously or with a complete understanding of what needs to be measured, inflexible if your business situation changes after you’ve started the process, and reliant on good communication between team members.
5.0 HOW TO GET THE BEST FROM A GIVEN MARKETING MANAGER
If you’re running a business that has recently hired a newly-graduated marketing manager who is eager to show what they can do, you might have some concerns about whether or not your new employee will be able to measure up to expectations. You needn’t worry because there are several ways in which you can help them succeed.
- Provide full access & authority – Marketing management covers all areas of the marketing process so it requires every element of that process to be managed by somebody different. This means that if your new marketer needs something done on their behalf then provide it without question and always allow them access to anyone they require support from; If you feel like they could benefit from guidance then offer this advice but never impose any restrictions upon them or try to control what they do yourself;
- Allow them to make mistakes – Mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning process for new marketers, so don’t punish your new employee if they make any or try to limit what they can do because their inexperience means that they could slip up. Provide full support instead and help them learn from their mistakes after they happen – this will be much more useful than telling them not to make them in the first place;
- Give time & trust -provide patience and respect for your marketer’s efforts. Remember that marketing is a continuous process during which you might have ideas that you want to implement quickly but which might take many months before they bear fruit. Trust your marketer’s judgment until you see definitive proof that they’re not working and don’t be afraid to say yes if their ideas seem like they could work.
Advantages of marketing management in business
There are many reasons a business should conduct marketing management, including the potential to save money and increase sales. The primary reason most businesses engage in marketing is to save money on expenses they would have otherwise incurred. Marketing allows businesses to better understand their customers so they can provide the products those customers want at a price that is good for both parties.
A business can spend as little as possible on marketing by understanding its target market well enough to know what its core demographic wants, then producing products accordingly. Another way a business could save money on marketing is by running advertising campaigns during times of the year when people are less likely to buy certain products, such as summer months or specific holidays. Of course, it’s difficult for a business to predict exactly when people will want to buy, but it can at least increase its chances of having a successful campaign by not advertising during the moments when the most consumers are likely to shop.
Marketing helps businesses increase sales is by increasing brand recognition. When people are more familiar with a business’ logo, slogan, or products, they are more inclined to purchase them if they have an opportunity. By engaging in effective marketing campaigns for their core demographic, businesses can help spread awareness about their products and what makes them so unique in their area.
Even companies that do not have high-tech solutions or cutting-edge products can still succeed in this aspect of marketing management because there are many ways for them to attract attention without breaking the bank. A company could, for example, sponsor a local Little League team or give their business name to the charity that helps feed the homeless. By gaining positive attention from these activities, a company can increase brand recognition in its area and gain customer loyalty and community support.
One additional way marketing management can be beneficial is by helping businesses better understand their target market through surveys and focus groups. Gathering the opinions of people who represent your core demographic will help you to produce products they want and need. You may not always get useful information from surveys and focus groups, but when you do you’re likely to learn things about specific demographics that would be hard-pressed to discover otherwise.
For example, let’s say you wanted to start selling luxury goods. You could ask all your customers, but the people buying luxury goods are more likely to be older than those who buy cheaper products. If you asked younger people who seemed interested in your products what sorts of luxuries they would like to see, however, you may learn something interesting about their desires and wants.
Marketing management helps businesses rise above their competition is by helping them understand exactly who that competition is. This way a business can find out why customers choose one product or service over another so it can focus its efforts on the things consumers really care about when deciding between similarly-priced products.
For example, if consumers prefer one brand’s hamburger because it tastes better than another company’s burger, then a business can spend time and resources to ensure its burgers have the same taste. Alternatively, if customers buy one company’s medication because it is more effective than that of another company, then a business knows that they should focus their marketing efforts on highlighting product features that provide different benefits to consumers beyond just price.
A final way marketing management can help businesses increase sales is by making use of current trends in research methods. As technology advances, so does marketing methodology. Newer techniques allow marketers to learn what people are thinking through social media posts or online surveys, rather than traditional paper-and-pencil surveys and interviews at brick-and-mortar locations such as malls and grocery stores.
The internet has opened up an entirely new world of marketing possibilities by giving businesses access to individuals who are not currently in their core demographic. While the information these online surveys provide may be limited, they still give marketers more insight into what consumers want than having no data at all. This is why many leading brands have active social media accounts where they interact with customers and share content that community members are likely to enjoy.
