Marketing Management
As stated in your text, marketing management uses the four functions of management to strategically implement the four “P’s” of marketing (Mullins & Walker, 2010). In other words, organizations attempt to gain a competitive advantage by using planning, organizing, leading, and controlling efforts to develop products, promotion, pricing, and distribution (place) strategies. These strategies become “a set of integrated decisions and actions by which a business expects to achieve its marketing objectives and meet the value requirements of its customers” (Slater & Olson, 2001, p. 1056).
It is important to remember that the “product” can be many things. Kotler (2000) suggested ten different items that can be marketed: “goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas” (p. 3). In addition, also remember that the end-users (or customers) of these products may have varying demand levels. Marketing managers need to develop strategies to address how the company will handle the challenges of marketing products with “negative demand, no demand, latent demand, declining demand, irregular demand, full demand, overfull demand, and unwholesome demand” (p. 6). Think about this for a minute – what products or services come to mind that fit each of these demand levels?
In today’s dynamic business environment, marketing managers must consider the changes resulting from globalization, technological advances, and governmental regulations as they develop integrated marketing and business strategies. Processes must be flexible and efficient. Successful companies are those that can analyze and predict changes and then, proactively meet customer needs better than the competition.
In the coming weeks, there will be an exploration consumer markets and buyer behavior and analyze how this information is used in forecasting and measuring market demand. We will look at identifying market segments and selecting target markets, as well as positioning the market offering through the product life cycle. We will delve deeper into each of the four P’s of the marketing mix. In addition, there will be an evaluation of the opportunities in the changing markets and the role of strategic planning. Finally, all of this information together to analyze how to measure performance. This is a lot of complex information to digest, but I think you will find our learning journey interesting and relevant.
References
Kotler, P. (2000). Marketing management (Millennium ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Mullins, J. W., Walker, Jr., O. C. (2010). Marketing management: A strategic decision-making approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Perreault, Jr., W. D., & McCarthy, E. J. (1999). Basic marketing: A global-managerial approach (13th ed.). New York, NY: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
Slater, S. F., & Olson, E. M. (2001, November). Marketing’s contribution to the implementation of business strategy: An empirical analysis. Strategic Management Journal, 22(11), 1055-1067. DOI: 10.1002/smj.198