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Posts Tagged ‘marketing environment’

Marketing Environment – Macro

Thursday, December 9th, 2010

What is the macro marketing environment?

The macro marketing environment takes into account all factors that can influence an organisation, but are outside of their control. There are six major macro marketing environment forces to deal with (PESTLE): political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, legal and environmental.

• The political environment includes all laws, government agencies and lobbying groups that influence or restrict individuals or organisations.

• The economic environment consists of all factors-such as salary levels, credit trends and pricing patterns that affect consumer spending habits and purchasing power.

• The socio-cultural environment includes institutions and other forces that affect the basic values, behaviours, and preferences of the society-all of which have an effect on consumer marketing decisions.

• The technological environment consists of those forces that affect the technology with which can create new products, new markets and new marketing opportunities.

• The legal environment also affects an organisation – even though a company cannot directly influence any laws – lobbying or becoming part of a trade organisation is widely accepted in helping to ‘shape’ particular legal decisions.

Marketing environments are continuously changing and businesses operating in such turbulent environments need to be flexible. Globalisation and lower barriers to entry now mean that there is an even greater threat of substitute products and new entrants to market.

Even though the marketer has no direct control over the macro external environment, a greater understanding and awareness of these changing market conditions can be achieved through external analysis. External analysis will help identify future events, uncover possible threats and realise potential opportunities.

Key steps in environmental analysis of the macro marketing environment;

1) Audit of environmental influences
2) Assessment of the nature of the environment
3) Identification of the key environmental forces
4) Identification of the competitive position
5) Identification of the principal opportunities and threats (SWOT)
6) Strategic position as a result

Tags: macro marketing, macro marketing environment, marketing environment, marketing environments, new marketing opportunities
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Marketing Environment – Micro

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Marketing Environment – Micro

The micro marketing environment consists of certain forces that are part of an organisations marketing process, but remain external to the organisation. This micro marketing environment that surrounds organisations can be complex by nature, however the company has an element of control over how it operates within this environment. Marketing helps you to manage and make sense of this complexity. The illustration above summarises the order of the immediate external marketing environment that businesses operate in.

Current and Potential Customers
Your customers are vital to the growth and sustainability of your company. In order to grow you must locate customers, understand their needs and then satisfy those needs both efficiently and profitably.

Competitors
Your competitors however have the same remit as you when it comes to sourcing and satisfying the needs of the customer. They will make it difficult to liaise with customer groups, as by definition they are largely pursuing the same sets of customers as you. As a marketer, you must therefore not only monitor what competitors are doing in the external marketing environment today, but to also anticipate their likely response to your campaigns and to predict what they will do tomorrow.

Intermediaries (Distributors/Wholesalers/Retailers)
Your business may require a network of wholesalers, distributors and/or retailer. These ‘intermediaries’ provide an invaluable service in getting your products to the customer. You must therefore think carefully about how best to distribute your goods and build relationships. This area can be fierce in competition as not everyone can get access to the channels of distribution that they want.

Suppliers
One other important area to consider in the external marketing environment is your suppliers. A key supplier can be an important part of your business and may even attribute to your competitive advantage. Losing important suppliers can interrupt production flow or your competitive edge and prevent you from getting your product to your customers. Choice of suppliers, negotiation of terms and relationship building all become important tasks of the marketer.

The wider marketing environment, discussed in a separate knowledge sheet, covers all other influences that might provide opportunities or threats to the organisation. These include technological development, legal constraints, the economic environment and sociocultural changes.

This brief overview of the world in which companies operate in demonstrates that there are many relationships that matter. These need to be managed if the company is to conduct its business successfully. The main responsibility for managing these relationships lies within the marketing department.

Tags: competitive advantage, external environment, external marketing, marketing environment, micro marketing
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