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What is it? The Chartered Institute of Marketing definition: “The management process which identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably” – Chartered Institute of Marketing (2008).

What this is saying is that Marketing is a management process that should be considered at board level and the marketing strategy should be integral to the firm’s business plan. A company will also use market research and environmental scanning to identify and anticipate customer needs, and then build a marketing plan, in the form of a marketing mix.

The marketing plan and marketing mix offered by the company must then go on to exceed the customers expectations at all times, but it must do so efficiently and profitably. It does this by selecting certain products/services and segments that will allow this to happen. So, 'marketing' happens when a company’s focus is on the customer, everything is geared towards what the customer wants. It takes into account things that the competition is doing. It looks at the cooperation between the different functions within an organisation, and responds to changes both in the environment and the customers needs, rather than trying to push the company’s own objectives into the market all of the time.

Focus is also on profit rather than on number of sales or turnover.

Role of a Marketer: Marketers effectively manage the marketing mix whilst acting as across function champions within a company. They project manage, co-ordinate, advise and inspire creativity whilst always looking after the overall company brand image.

Marketers also act as the following;

• Guide 
• Deliverer
• Communicator
• Co-ordinator
• Negotiator
• Customer Voice
• Strategic partner 

When to engage Marketing? Marketing should be used now and every day. It should be embedded within your company. It’s a management process, and as described clearly in the CIM definition, is integral to the business plan. Even seasonal businesses must continually reach out to customers or risk having to rebuild their sales every year.

Marketing should be used for;

• Establishing environmental scanning for opportunities and threats 
• Understanding an organisation’s strengths and weaknesses 
• Creating a sustainable competitive advantage 
• Understanding where a brand needs to be in the future 
• Creating and delivering marketing plans to get there 
• Establishing management information systems to identify progress 

What does it achieve? Marketing activities ultimately result in a marketing oriented company.

The characteristics of which are;

• You are driven by customers needs
• Your customers can be grouped together according to their different needs so that products can be tailored to suit
• Customers always have access to information and advice they need on how to use a product or it’s availability
• Employees are involved with the final quality of products and services and don’t just rely on their production departments
• Enables delivery of customer value

A common regret of most failed companies is that they didn’t initialise any marketing programs prior to failure. Bringing in new customers without prospect databases, not having marketing tools or materials and often little or no name recognition in the marketplace is tough. However the role of a marketer in managing the marketing mix, acting as across function champion, project managing, co-ordinating, advising and inspiring to ensure corporate identity is protected, means that you do not have to go it alone.

Key steps:

• Conduct a Marketing audit and analysis of your current state
• Identify your objectives – link in with business plan
• Identify your strategy – long term plans
• Create you short term tactical marketing communications; marketing mix
• Evaluate the process • Re-audit and adjust tactical plans as necessary

Top Tips: Invest in professional marketing advice or support. This can mean as little as bouncing ideas off a marketer, outsourcing the role or employing someone full time, it depends on individual circumstances. And secondly, develop a plan, use it but remember the fluidity of its nature; evaluation and control should be a critical part in your ongoing development. Always remember that the definition of marketing is about satisfying customer’s needs profitable, and to do so it needs an appropriate marketing orientation.

Tags: marketing definition, marketing mix, marketing plan, marketing strategy

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Strategic Marketing, knowledge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.