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Marketing management is the strategic organizational discipline that focuses on the practical application of
marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...
orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and
organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...
s and on the
management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...
of marketing resources and activities. Compare marketology, which Aghazadeh defines in terms of "recognizing, generating and disseminating market insight to ensure better market-related decisions".


Structure

Marketing management employs tools from
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
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 A value chain is a progression of activities that a business or firm performs in order to deliver goods and services of Value (economics), value to an end customer. The concept comes from the field of business management and was first described ...
analysis and others. In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market, focusing 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 implies
market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...
and
marketing research Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative data, qualitative and quantitative data, quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how chan ...
to perform a primary analysis. For this, a variety of techniques are implemented. Some of the most common ones include: * Qualitative marketing research, such as focus groups and various types of interviews * Quantitative marketing research, such as
statistical survey Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods". As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey d ...
s * Experimental techniques such as
test market A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale rollout. The criteria used to judge the acceptability ...
s * Observational techniques such as ethnographic (on-site) observation Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning and competitive intelligence processes to identify trends and inform the company's marketing analysis.


Brand audit

A
brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...
audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...
is a thorough examination of a brand's current position in an industry compared to its competitors and the examination of its effectiveness. When it comes to brand auditing, six questions should be carefully examined and assessed: #How well the business's current brand strategy is working? #What are the company's established resource strengths and weaknesses? #What are its external opportunities and threats? #How competitive are the business' prices and costs? #How strong is the business's competitive position in comparison to its competitors? #What strategic issues are affecting the business? When a business conducts a brand audit, the goal is to identify its resource strengths, weaknesses, assess market opportunities and external threats, future profitability, and its competitive standing in comparison to existing competitors. A brand audit establishes the strategic elements needed to improve the brand's positioning and competitive capabilities within the industry. Once a brand is audited, any business that ends up with strong financial performance and market position is likely to have a properly conceived and effectively executed brand strategy. A brand audit examines whether a business' market share is increasing, decreasing, or stable. It determines whether the company's profit margin is improving or declining and how it compares to that of established competitors. Additionally, a brand audit examines trends in net profits, return on investments, and overall economic value. It determines whether the business' financial strength and credit rating are improving or deteriorating. This kind of audit also assesses a business' image and reputation with its customers. Beyond financial metrics, a brand audit also assesses the business's image and reputation among customers. It explores whether the business is perceived as an industry leader in areas such as technology, product or service innovation, and customer service. These factors significantly influence customer decisions and brand perception. A brand audit usually focuses on a business' strengths and resource capabilities because these are the elements that enhance its competitiveness. A business' competitive strengths can exist in several forms including skilled or pertinent expertise, valuable physical and human assets, organizational assets and intangible assets, competitive capabilities, achievements and alliances or cooperative ventures that position the business into a competitive advantage. The purpose of a brand audit is to determine whether a business’ resource strengths are competitive assets or potential liabilities. This type of audit seeks to ensure that a business maintains a distinctive competence that allows it to build and reinforce its competitive advantage. Furthermore, a well-executed brand audit seeks to establish what a business capitalizes on best, its level of expertise, resource strengths, and strongest competitive capabilities, while aiming to identify a business's current position and potential future performance.


Marketing strategy

Two customer segments are often selected as targets because they score highly on two dimensions: # The segment is attractive to serve because it is large, growing, makes frequent purchases, is not price sensitive (i.e. is willing to pay high prices), or other factors; and # The company has the resources and capabilities to compete for the segment's business, can meet their needs better than the competition, and can do so profitably. A commonly cited definition of marketing is simply "meeting needs profitably". The implication of selecting target segments is that the business will subsequently allocate more resources to acquire and retain customers in the target segments than it will for other, non-targeted customers. In some cases, the firm may go so far as to turn away customers who are not in its target segment. The doorman at a swanky nightclub, for example, may deny entry to unfashionably dressed individuals because the business has made a strategic decision to target the "high fashion" segment of nightclub patrons. In conjunction with targeting decisions, marketing managers will identify the desired positioning they want the company, product, or brand to occupy in the target customer's mind. This positioning is often an encapsulation of a key benefit the company's product or service offers that is differentiated and superior to the benefits offered by competitive products. For example,
Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...
has traditionally positioned its products in the
automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...
market in North America in order to be perceived as the leader in "safety", whereas
BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...
has traditionally positioned its brand to be perceived as the leader in "performance". Ideally, a firm's positioning can be maintained over a long period of time because the company possesses or can develop, some form of sustainable competitive advantage. The positioning should also be sufficiently relevant to the target segment such that it will drive the purchasing behavior of target customers. To sum up, the marketing branch of a company is to deal with the selling and popularity of its products among people and its customers, as the central and eventual goal of a company is customer satisfaction and the return of revenue.


Implementation planning

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 Marketing strategy refers to efforts undertaken by an Organizational structure, organization to increase its sales and achieve competitive advantage. In other words, it is the method of advertising a company's products to the public through an est ...
designed to maximize the
revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...
s 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 Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a Market (economics), market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those ...
, 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":
product management Product management is the business process of planning, developing, launching, and managing a product or service. It includes the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to development to go to market. Product managers are responsible for ...
, 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. Taken together, the company's implementation choices across the 4 P's 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's objectives. The content of marketing plans varies for each 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 Ps)


Project, process, and vendor management

More broadly, marketing managers work to design and improve the effectiveness of core marketing processes, such as
new product development New product development (NPD) or product development in business and engineering covers the complete process of launching a new product to the market. Product development also includes the renewal of an existing product and introducing a product ...
,
brand management In marketing, brand management refers to the process of controlling how a brand is perceived in the market (economics), market. Tangible elements of brand management include the look, price, and packaging of the product itself; intangible element ...
,
marketing communications Marketing communications (MC, marcom(s), marcomm(s) or just simply communications) refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination.Tomse, & Snoj, 2014 Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate ...
, and pricing. Marketers may employ the tools of business process re-engineering to ensure these processes are properly designed, and use a variety of process management techniques to keep them operating smoothly. Effective execution may require management of both internal resources and a variety of external vendors and service providers, such as the firm's
advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...
. Marketers may therefore coordinate with the company's purchasing department on the procurement of these services. Under the area of marketing agency management (i.e. working with external marketing agencies and suppliers) are techniques such as agency performance evaluation, scope of work, incentive compensation, ERFx's and storage of agency information in a supplier
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...
.


Reporting, measurement, feedback and control systems

Marketing management employs a variety of metrics to measure progress against objectives. It is the responsibility of marketing managers to ensure that the execution of marketing programs achieves the desired objectives and does so in a cost-efficient manner. Marketing management therefore often makes use of various organizational control systems, such as sales forecasts, and sales force and reseller
incentive In general, incentives are anything that persuade a person or organization to alter their behavior to produce the desired outcome. The laws of economists and of behavior state that higher incentives amount to greater levels of effort and therefo ...
programs, sales force management systems, and customer relationship management tools (CRM). Some software vendors have begun using the term '' customer data platform'' or ''marketing resource management'' to describe systems that facilitate an integrated approach for controlling marketing resources. In some cases, these efforts may be linked to various
supply chain management In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement (purchasing raw materials/components), operations management, logistics and marketing channels, through which raw materials can be developed into finished produc ...
systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), material requirements planning (MRP), efficient consumer response (ECR), and inventory management systems.


International marketing management

Globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
has led some firms to market beyond the borders of their home countries, making international marketing a part of those firms' marketing strategy. Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand. In part, this is because the role of a marketing manager (or sometimes called managing marketer in small- and medium-sized enterprises) can vary significantly based on a business's size, corporate culture, and industry context. For example, in small and medium-sized enterprises, the managing marketer may contribute to both managerial and marketing operations roles for the company brands. In a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall
general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
of his or her assigned product.Kotler, P. and Keller, K.L. ''Marketing Management,'' 12th ed., Pearson, 2006, To create an effective, cost-efficient marketing management strategy, firms must possess a detailed, objective understanding of their own business and the market in which they operate. In analyzing these issues, the discipline of marketing management often overlaps with the related discipline of
strategic planning Strategic planning is the activity undertaken by an organization through which it seeks to define its future direction and makes decisions such as resource allocation aimed at achieving its intended goals. "Strategy" has many definitions, but it ...
.


See also

* Marketing effectiveness * Predictive analytics *
Strategic management In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of Resource management, resources ...
* Outline of marketing


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Marketing Management Marketing Strategic management