An analysis of many companies’ financial results will often indicate that business people attribute their current financial success or failure to the state of the economy. For example, in 2002 the house builder Taylor Woodrow reported increased profits, which it attributed to a buoyant housing market, based on a high level of consumer confidence within the economy. Ten years earlier, a weak economy and falling house prices had led to big losses for many house builders, and some went out of business. Economic growth and the distribution of income Few business people can afford to ignore the state of the economy, because it affects the willingness and ability of customers to buy their products. Marketers therefore keep their eyes on numerous aggregate indicators of the economy, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), inflation rates, and savings ratios. However, while aggregate changes in spending power may indicate a likely increase for Continue reading
Marketing Management
Marketing management combines the fields of marketing and management. Marketing consists of discovering consumer needs and wants, creating the goods and services that meet those needs and wants; and pricing, promoting, and delivering those goods and services. Doing so requires attention to six major areas – markets, products, prices, places, promotion, and people. Management is getting things done through other people. Managers engage in five key activities – planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Marketing management implies the integration of these concepts.
Monitoring Marketing Environment
The marketing environment is dynamic it is always changing. Whether the forces of the marketing environment fluctuate slowly or rapidly, they create uncertainty, obstacles, and opportunities. Marketers must constantly monitor the marketing environment to be prepared to capitalize on opportunities and minimize adverse conditions. To monitor changes in the marketing environment effectively, marketing managers must engage in environmental scanning and analysis. Environmental Analysis Environmental analysis is the process of assessing and interpreting the information gathered through environmental scanning. A manager reviews the information for accuracy, ties to reconcile inconsistencies in the data, and interprets the findings. Analysis allows a marketing manager to discern changes in the environment and, if possible, or predict future changes. By evaluating these changes, a marketing manager should be able to determine possible threats and opportunities associated with environmental fluctuations. Knowledge of current and predicted environmental changes aids a marketing manager in assessing the performance of Continue reading
Barriers to integrated Marketing Communications
1. Functional Silos Resources, support and guidance of upper management are needed to build a successful integrated marketing communications campaign. The job of upper management is to make sure that all the resources are thoroughly no matter is for budgets, sharing data or people across teams. However, the problem now is integrated marketing communication don’t control by one manager only. All the managers involve in the information transmitting process have to work together in controlling the process. It mean that all the manager of advertising team, public relation team and also the marketing team have to coordinate in the process of delivering information about the product and service of the company to the target customer. When the control is shared among all the team manager, which can prove to be a difficult concept for some member of upper management, creating a barrier to integrated marketing communication. 2. Restricts Creativity Integrated Continue reading
Marketing Channel Conflicts Management
On the basis of the discussion in the previous article Marketing Channel Conflicts, it can be easily understood that conflict is an inherent behavioral dimension in the marketing channel and various levels of conflicts may have both negative and positive effect on channel efficiency or possible no effect. A marketing channel conflict could affect the channel efficiency positively in the sense that when the members involved in the conflicts realize and identify the possible reasons for conflict and work towards removing these areas of disagreement. The conflicts might actually become functional. The need is therefore to sit back and understand the cause of conflict and to devise ways to overcome by working out a better solution. A central task in channel management is to seek ways to manage conflicts. In other words ways must be found to keep conflict from becoming dysfunctional and to harness the energy in conflict situation Continue reading
Advantages and Disadvantages of Sales Force Automation (SFA)
Sales person use sale forces as a step to enhance their marketing strategy. The improvements of technology helped sales person able to structure their customers’ data managements well. Sales force automation is a system that being develop to helps companies to organize their customer relationship management with confidentiality. Besides automatically computerized customers data into computer, it helps enable sales person to plan and structures their selling in the most effective way as well. It makes work easier and organized as well as more reliable for sales person. In short, sales force automation system is a good “assistant” for sales person. However, sales force automation system also brings some disadvantages where sales force automation system is complicated system involving digitalized figure yet new for older sales people. Anyhow, it is still easier for younger sales people to learn and function with it. In order to manage relationship between customers professionally, sales Continue reading
The Global Advertising Plan
The strategic advertising plan usually is prepared in conjunction with the advertising budget. Basically, the plan outlines the marketing strategy, whereas the budget allocates the funds. Two major approaches to advertising in foreign cultures differ in their orientation: one is market oriented and the other is culture oriented. The Market Analysis Model This model is based on data and observation from several countries. It recognizes the existence of local, regional, and international brands in almost every product category. The two major variables are the share of market of brands within a category and the size of the category. A marketing manager must look not only as share but also at market size, growth rates, and growth opportunities. For instance, cola-flavored soft drinks are not nearly as dominant in Germany as they are in the United States. To generate sales in Germany, then, a soft-drink company would have to develop orange Continue reading