What Is Marketing Management?
Being an effective marketing leader is more complicated than it seems. Any specialist in marketing management will tell you that strategy, planning, execution, and analysis all play equal roles in their work. It’s not difficult to comprehend why. Marketing professionals who have a written strategy are 313% more likely to be successful than their peers who do not.
What, then, is the role of marketing management in a larger corporate framework, and how does it help businesses plan for the future, understand their customers, enhance internal procedures, and provide appealing products and services? Our marketing management manual contains all of this information and more.
What is Marketing Management?
First, analyse marketing management from the viewpoint of renowned marketing author and consultant Philip Kotler. According to him, marketing management is the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of initiatives intended to result in desirable interactions with target markets to meet organisational goals.
To achieve corporate objectives, marketing management is organising and carrying out the formulation, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods and services. It simply involves putting marketing principles, strategies, and tactics into action.
Understanding the market or the target audience is frequently the first step in marketing management, followed by creating a product that will eventually satisfy their needs. This process includes sales, distribution, pricing, advertising, and promotion.
And it remains the most critical position in a business or corporate organisation today. Why? Let’s look into it!
What is the importance of marketing management?
Marketing management shouts growth and development from every pore. For your industry, each step in the process is favourable. Marketing management is essential in this cutthroat environment since it will help you get to the top. Here is how to accomplish it:
1. Introduces fresh products
The first step in marketing management is identifying and analysing your target market. A deeper understanding of your client’s needs will help you create or introduce new products with a successful marketing strategy.
You may also research client interactions and purchase behaviours to discover more about your ideal customer and how to pique their interest in your goods or services. As a result, it helps you spread the word about your business and increase brand recognition.
2. Boost Sales
Effective marketing management helps you match your resources and skills to the needs of your target audience. Before contacting clients, you may use this to develop and implement an effective marketing plan.
It will enable you to attract new clients and hold onto current ones. Your sales and revenue will increase as a result. Additionally, effective marketing management may help reduce costs and expenditures via strategic strategy and execution.
3. Builds Credibility
Without marketing management, your company would find it challenging to manage PR crises and keep up with the most recent developments, endangering its reputation.
The best chances to pursue and dangers to avoid may be identified with the help of effective marketing management. Based on prior advertising and consumer engagement experiences, it will help you reach out to new consumers. The reputation of the firm will increase as a result!
4. Support Decision Making in Business
With effective marketing management, you may hire a top-notch marketing team with knowledge of consumer behaviour, shopping patterns, and current marketing trends. This enables you to choose wisely both now and in the future.
Your marketing management strategy will always be there for you, whether you’re in a jam, looking for methods to improve your goods and services, or thinking about the next big move for your business.
5. Aids in Competition with Big Corporations
Competent marketing management is all you need to compete with larger businesses if you run a small business in a competitive industry.
This is because it researches consumer behaviour and industry trends and helps your business concentrate on areas underutilised by other businesses or take an innovative and creative approach. As a result, your business may stand out, become a formidable opponent in your industry, or even exceed them occasionally.
In addition to all of this (and more), effective marketing management may guarantee an increase in revenue and your company’s growth.
What are the various types of marketing management?
Various methods, strategies, and actions are included in marketing management, all of which must be skillfully combined to ensure success. Here are some of the examples of several types of marketing management that, when included in a marketing management strategy, boost brand awareness and provide ROI:
- Marketing strategy: The plan used by your business to attract prospects and turn them into clients.
- Corporate development: This term describes tactical actions, including market entry, corporate transformation, and mergers and acquisitions.
- Brand management: Methods for gradually raising a brand’s perceived value.
- Product Development: The process of getting a new product to market is referred to as product development.
- International marketing: One instance of international marketing is the administration of global distribution networks.
- Media Relations: Communicating with the media and influential people to promote your brand.
- Customer marketing: It controls the customer experience to boost satisfaction and lower churn.
- Marketing operations: These include the control of data, technology, and marketing procedures.
- Sales: These are responsible for creating leads, identifying prospects, and closing sales.
What are the different features of marketing management?
Among the crucial facets of marketing management are the following:
1. Customer-centred
Without a doubt, the customer is king, and they are the centre of attention in any firm. Similarly, their marketing initiatives. The most crucial step is to produce what the customers want. The ultimate goal of businesses is to turn prospective consumers into loyal ones.
However, it may be accomplished by appealing to consumers’ aspirations and objectives. Additionally, it can be achieved by offering good products and services.
2. Research Assessment
Marketing’s primary goal is to determine what customers need and desire. Data gathering, analysis, and reporting on marketing efforts must be done quickly and systematically.
Additionally, this helps management comprehend customer expectations, needs, interests, and behaviour in line with the marketing mix techniques employed by the organisation. Additionally, it aids in anticipating and organising upcoming events.
3. The Management Procedures
All facets of the process are included in marketing management. It consists of all of the following: organising, directing, forecasting, coordinating, and managing.
Additionally, specific standards are necessary for every aspect of marketing. It involves a lot of planning, decision-making, coordination, and control, as well as client demands and preferences, development, pricing, promotion, and distribution.
4. Developing a Marketing Foundation
Marketing includes all essential elements that help build a robust business framework. Industry analysis, development, production, innovation, advertising, promotion pricing, product and service distribution, customer relationship management, and a variety of other responsibilities are covered.
Additionally, each functional marketing area has to be carefully created, planned, and structured. It will also aid you in getting the most outstanding results. A company’s size, number of product lines, regional reach, product kind, and customer size all impact the marketing structure.
5. Organising and carrying out
A marketing strategy is used to create and offer products and services. To meet shifting customer demand, interest, and preferences, businesses also work to develop, produce and invent new products and services.
6. The organisation’s objectives and goals
The organisation’s main goals serve as the basis for all marketing initiatives. Additionally, marketers fill the gap between customers’ desire to satisfy their needs and larger organisations’ profit and sales maximisation aims.
7. Process of Endorsement and Interaction
The highest goal of every business is to maximise overall sales and revenue. This can be helped by promoting and communicating goods and services. Additionally, this marketing management position lets the company notify clients about its products.
8. Operational Management
All marketing initiatives are supervised by marketing management. Additionally, it evaluates the efficiency of marketing employees and programmes and the success of marketing initiatives.
The actual results and the standard must be compared to identify abnormalities and take remedial action.
What are the processes involved in marketing management?
There isn’t a set protocol that a company or individual may adhere to when it comes to marketing management. But the majority of marketing management plans also incorporate the subsequent procedures:
1. Do market research and analysis
Understanding your customers and competitors via market research and analysis is the first step in marketing management. This may be achieved by conducting surveys, collecting information, analysing market trends, and paying attention to previous campaigns. SWOT analysis may be carried out to comprehend the company/business better. Based on all this, you could understand the client’s needs and problems to offer a resolution in the form of a good or service.
2. Establish objectives and a mission statement.
Even though techniques are more crucial than results, it is imperative to comprehend the targeted consequences initially. Setting objectives and goals is essential since they provide the foundation and determine the best course for your marketing journey. Your target market’s influencing factors, including demand, pricing trends, social and environmental factors, etc., may be used to determine your marketing objectives.
Include sales goals, spending limits, and branding restrictions because doing so will make tracking and evaluating the results more accessible.
3. Develop marketing strategies.
Creating a solid marketing plan after performing research and setting targets is essential.
Standard marketing techniques include:
- Segmentation: Here, you are segmenting the market to identify potential customers who are most likely to buy your goods or services.
- Targeting: You will further separate the sections and concentrate on a specific goal.
- Positioning: This is mainly used for brand positioning, which involves establishing your business’s image in terms of price and quality.
- Marketing approach: Concentrate on the four Ps (Product, Pricing, Location, and Promotion) to achieve broad commercial goals.
- Budgeting/Financials: This part will focus on your product or service’s overall budget allocation and financial administration.
4. Make an effective marketing plan.
The step after building a marketing strategy is creating an actionable marketing plan. You’ll design a marketing calendar and focus on the time frame here. Everyone on the team will use this as their default approach to evaluate and gauge progress.
5. Execute a marketing plan
Implementation is one of the most crucial marketing management processes. You are putting your marketing plan into practice and executing it to achieve business goals. Most of the time, increasing customer awareness of your product or service through sales, public relations, social media, or advertising is the first step in the implementation process. The strategy can allocate resources and funds. The approach must be used to get the intended effects.
6. Monitor, Assess, Modify, and Change
Monitoring, analysing, and recording progress are tasks for the last stage. Here, you’ll look at many metrics based on the marketing plan and set goals, including sales, revenue, customer feedback, brand positioning, number of website visitors, social media engagement rate, and other characteristics.
It’s crucial to monitor our performance as well as that of our competitors so that we can determine whether or not they are succeeding. This helps with the positioning and price of your item or service. You may also use CRM and analytics tools to streamline and adequately track this process.
What is the role of marketing management?
Large teams may be involved in demanding marketing management positions at larger firms. Additionally, each specialised marketing management position, such as product marketing manager and manager of digital marketing, has its own set of duties.
1. Product marketing managers
They develop and put into practice market strategies. Additionally, the person gives clients in-depth explanations of the features and advantages of new products.
To ensure that products are produced to fulfil consumer wants, they conduct product trend research and serve as the company’s consumer ambassadors.
2. Content marketing manager
He is in charge of giving potential customers consistent, pertinent, and helpful information that advertises a company’s goods or services.
3. Digital Marketing Manager
He creates, carries out, and assesses online marketing initiatives. Additionally, it helps a corporation sell its goods and services while enhancing its reputation.
4. Brand marketing manager
He starts brand awareness campaigns and ensures the company’s brand language and images are regularly used across the board.
5. Social media marketing manager
The social media marketing manager’s job is strengthening the company’s social media contacts and communication. Additionally, there are social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
How to create a marketing strategy?
A marketing management plan complements a company’s overall marketing strategy. Strategic marketing management involves creating a marketing plan to achieve those goals and using a range of tools to ensure success, as opposed to marketing strategy, which focuses on the organisation’s overall goals for reaching customers and markets.
Brand audits are a common starting point for strategic marketing management since they give organisations the chance to ponder and respond to several questions that will help determine future marketing management strategies. Attempting to understand the following elements of their current condition, a firm should:
- How successful is its current brand positioning?
- What are its strengths and shortcomings in terms of resources and knowledge?
- What are the dangers and opportunities?
- How do its expenses and prices compare to those of rivals?
- What potential strategic issues may the company encounter?
An audit of the company’s brand will give a thorough picture of its competitive advantage in the market and any problems that must be fixed in the future to maximise profitability. Following responses from the right team members, strategic marketing management choices may be made to establish goals and advance the business’s marketing vision.
The marketing management strategy is a set of actions required to carry out the organisation’s marketing strategy objectives. It includes pricing levels, product details, market positioning, and promotion. To create the marketing management strategy, marketers will need a solid understanding of the data on market share, consumer profiles, and any past campaigns and marketing activity.
The fundamental marketing management concepts, including their philosophy and distinctive features, must be considered in a marketing management strategy.
How to implement a marketing strategy?
The marketing management plan is implemented through various tactics, methods, and tools.
1. Activities connected to marketing management
A marketing management plan should include a range of marketing channel management operations relating to pricing, product, location, and promotion. It assists in achieving these objectives. Additionally, this is referred to as a “marketing mix.”
2. Expansion of the marketing mix
The focus of the expanded marketing mix is on service-based businesses. Marketing professionals may adjust these seven levers to improve campaign performance. In addition to price, product, location, and promotion, the expanded marketing mix includes the following components: people, process, and physical proof.
Final words
Every great company has a beautiful marketing management team that follows the proper marketing management methodology. Because you can execute and accomplish your goals effectively and efficiently with the appropriate technique.
Therefore, marketing management is the lifeblood of your business. It will always be a dynamic, ongoing, and changing component. What would we do in the absence of it? We can only shudder at the thought.
So, let’s applaud business management in marketing! Cheers!
