The Importance of Marketing
Financial success often depends on marketing ability. Finance, operations, accounting, and other business functions will not really matter if there is not sufficient demand for products and services so the company can make a profit. There must be atop line for there to be a bottom line. Many companies have now created a Chief Marketing Officer, or CMO, position to put marketing on a more equal footing with other C-Level executives such as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Press releases from organizations of all kinds-c-from consumer goods makers to health care insurers and from non-profit organizations to industrial product manufacturers-trumpet their latest marketing achievements and can be found on their Web sites. In the business press, countless articles are devoted to marketing strategies and tactics
The importance of marketing plans outweighs any other decision that can be taken in the realm of marketing strategies. Yes, marketing plan is essential to grab the market segment before any other player captures the market. What are the target groups? Which segment of the market presents higher revenue generating opportunities? These are some of the questions that marketing teams ponder over, in the pursuit of achieving a good plan. This is where the importance of marketing research comes into picture. The market research team analyzes and understands the requirements of the consumers.
A whole set of forces that appeared in the last decade call for new marketing and business practices. Companies have new capabilities that can transform the way they have been doing marketing (see “Marketing Insight: The Internet Advantage”). Companies need fresh thinking about how to operate and compete in a new marketing environment. Marketers in the twenty-first century are increasingly recognizing the need to have a more complete, cohesive approach that goes beyond traditional applications of the marketing concept. Look at Puma.
German athletic footwear company Puma has used holistic marketing to bring its product back from being a sentimental mainstay of the 1970s to one of the trendiest athletic shoes around Puma uses multiple marketing approaches that work synergistically to set Puma apart as an edgy trend-setting brand. Puma designs products with distinct customer groups in mind-such as snowboarder’s car racing fans and yoga enthusiasts-using market research generated by its retailer partners. Puma also targets the armchair athlete-its two most popular models are the Mostro, a walking shoe with a nubbed wraparound sole, and the Speed Cat, a flat $ 65 sneaker modeled on shoes worn by Formula one race car drivers. It generates word of mouth or “viral marketing” by clever promotions-from partnering with BMW/Min Terence Conran Design Shop, and the Jamaican Olympic team-or holding promotional events at sushi restaurants during the 2002 World Cup to outfitting Serena Williams and showcasing products in well-chosen TV shows and movies. The approach is working: Puma’s sales have increased for 10 straight years from 1994 to 2004, tripling in total.
concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of marketing programs, processes, and activities that recognizes their breadth and interdependencies.
Holistic marketing recognizes that “everything matters” with marketing and that a broad, integrated perspective is often necessary. Four components of holistic marketing are relationship marketing, integrated marketing, internal marketing, and social responsibility marketing.
Holistic marketing is thus an approach to marketing that attempts to recognize and reconcile the scope and complexities of marketing activities.
Increasingly, a key goal of marketing is to develop deep, enduring relationships with all people or organizations that could directly or indirectly affect the success of the firm’s marketing activities. Relationship marketing has the aim of building mutually satisfying long-term relationships with key parties-customers. Suppliers, distributors, and other marketing partners-in order to earn and retain their business. Relationship marketing builds strong economic, technical, and social ties among the parties.
Relationship marketing involves cultivating the right kind of relationships with the right constituent groups. Marketing must not only do customer relationship management (CRM), but also partner relationship management (PRM) as well. Four key constituents for marketing are customers, employees, marketing partners (channels, suppliers, distributors, dealers, agencies), and members of the financial community (shareholders, investors, analysts).
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