Marketing: Marketing Management Is The Organizational Discipline Which Focuses On The Practical
Marketing: Marketing Management Is The Organizational Discipline Which Focuses On The Practical
Marketing: Marketing Management Is The Organizational Discipline Which Focuses On The Practical
application of marketing orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and organization
and on the management of a firm's marketing resources and activities.
Globalization has led firms to market beyond the borders of their home countries,
making international marketing highly significant and an integral part of a firm's marketing
strategy.[1] Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and
composition of customer demand accepted definition of the term. In part, this is because the role
of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business's size, corporate culture,
and industry context. For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing
manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product.[2] To create an
effective, cost-efficient marketing management strategy, firms must possess a
detailed, objective understanding of their own business and themarket in which they operate.[3] In
analyzing these issues, the discipline of marketing management often overlaps with the related
discipline of strategic planning.
Marketing management employs various tools from economics and competitive strategy to
analyze the industry context in which the firm operates. These include Porter's five forces,
analysis of strategic groups of competitors, value chain analysis and others.[4] Depending on the
industry, the regulatory context may also be important to examine in detail.
In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market,
focusing especially on their relative competitive strengths and weaknesses using SWOT analysis.
Marketing managers will examine each competitor's cost structure, sources of profits, resources
and competencies, competitive positioning and product differentiation, degree of vertical
integration, historical responses to industry developments, and other factors.
Marketing management often finds it necessary to invest in research to collect the data required
to perform accurate marketing analysis. As such, they often conduct market
research (alternately marketing research) to obtain this information. Marketers employ a variety
of techniques to conduct market research, but some of the more common include:
Qualitative marketing research, such as focus groups and various types of interviews
The Marketing Metrics Continuum provides a framework for how to categorize metrics from the
tactical to strategic.
If the company has obtained an adequate understanding of the customer base and its own
competitive position in the industry, marketing managers are able to make their own key
strategic decisions and develop a marketing strategy designed to maximize
the revenues and profits of the firm. The selected strategy may aim for any of a variety of
specific objectives, including optimizing short-term unit margins, revenue growth, market share,
long-term profitability, or other goals.
After the firm's strategic objectives have been identified, the target market selected, and the
desired positioning for the company, product or brand has been determined, marketing managers
focus on how to best implement the chosen strategy. Traditionally, this has involved
implementation planning across the "4 Ps" of : product management, pricing (at what price slot
does a producer position a product, e.g. low, medium or high price), place (the place or area
where the products are going to be sold, which could be local, regional, countrywide or
international) (i.e. sales and distribution channels), and Promotion. Now[when?] a new P has been
added making it a total of five P's. The fifth P is politics, which affects marketing in a significant
way.
Taken together, the company's implementation choices across the 4(5) Ps are often described as
the marketing mix, meaning the mix of elements the business will employ to "go to market" and
execute the marketing strategy. The overall goal for the marketing mix is to consistently deliver a
compelling value proposition that reinforces the firm's chosen positioning, builds customer
loyalty and brand equity among target customers, and achieves the firm's marketing and financial
objectives.
In many cases, marketing management will develop a marketing plan to specify how the
company will execute the chosen strategy and achieve the business' objectives. The content of
marketing plans varies from firm to firm, but commonly includes:
An executive summary
Situation analysis to summarize facts and insights gained from market research and
marketing analysis
The company's mission statement or long-term strategic vision
A statement of the company's key objectives, often subdivided into marketing objectives
and financial objectives
The marketing strategy the business has chosen, specifying the target segments to be
pursued and the competitive positioning to be achieved
Implementation choices for each element of the marketing mix (the 4(5)Ps)