A Guide to Marketing Management and What It Means for Your Business
When it comes to a company’s market, it has a simple definition: A company’s market includes the buyers and sellers in a region, which can be a city, a state, or an entire country. Markets, which sell goods and services, require a supply and demand to thrive. However, because so many companies sell the same types of products and services, it is important to know more about the type of market you plan to buy and sell in as well as how marketing management can affect your bottom line. Read on for this guide to marketing management and how a marketing professional can benefit your business.
Defining the Market
Before you can determine what marketing management is, you need to understand the characteristics and elements of a market itself. A market’s characteristics go beyond a place for swapping goods and services. It is also a place where people can negotiate commodities, meet customer requirements, innovate and create, and share in consumption as a part of supply and demand. In terms of the elements of a market, there are several keys
- Buyer – The buyer is the customer who needs a good or service and is willing to trade money or other commodities for it.
- Demand – A strong market requires supply and demand. Demand is how much a product or service is needed in a region.
- Government Regulation – In most areas, the government regulates how goods and services are bought and sold to ensure illegal products aren’t on the market and that taxes are paid.
- Place – This is the area in which a company and its consumers swap or buy and sell goods and services.
- Product Specification – Your company is responsible for product specification, which means listing ingredients and providing information about how much of a product a buyer gets for the price.
- Seller – The seller is you, the company that offers a good or service.
The History of Marketing Management
Marketing management may seem like a new term ushered in with the digital age, but the practice has a history dating back hundreds of years to the first trading system humanity adopted. After all, how could people trade their goods and services if they didn’t market them well enough to make others want them?
When the industrial era came to be and factories were established, a need-based market became the most popular “marketing” method. These days, things are much different. Marketing management is now responsible for helping consumers all over the world differentiate between companies selling the same products and services, so they can best decide which ones fit their needs.
The Necessity of Marketing Management and Its Role in Society Today
Today, marketing management is necessary to get customers to purchase products, which in turn creates profitable companies. Marketing accomplishes this via several roles in today’s society:
- Building of a Brand – Building a brand is an absolute necessity for any company, especially in a day and age where people always want to be entertained (including from their advertisements). The process may feel tedious and almost never has instant results, but the strength of marketing a well-known brand will be well worth it in the long run.
- Communications and Promotions – Marketing communications and promotions are essential for fast-moving consumer goods. Also known as the FMCG sector, these low-cost goods rely on strong advertising to keep them in the game. The sector includes some of the top brands in the world, such as Coca-Cola and Samsung. This section includes building strong customer relations, which creates new customers and brings in repeat business.
- Creation of Value – Devised in 1985, the value chain concept is an important component of marketing management that helps companies determine the best places to add value to their products or services. Creating value involves analyzing the chain of processes from conception of a product to the time it’s sold, tweaking the process where necessary to make it even more desirable to customers.
- Development of Plans and Strategies – A strong product or service requires a well-developed strategy for creation, marketing, and distribution. Marketing is a part of each strategic move, from the demand and sales forecast to the promotion options and so on.
- Sustainability Factor – A sustainable competitive advantage is essential for a company. This means that your company will beat out its competitors in the value chain over time. Sustainability means strong marketing skills that ensure your company comes across as innovative and becomes a household name.
- Understanding of the Market – Marketing management is nothing without an expansive amount of market research that helps a company understand its customers and what they want. Understanding the market helps a company to determine which product or service its customers need next and how best to get that product or service into their hands.
The Objectives of the Marketing Manager
A marketing manager is responsible for ensuring a product meets customers’ needs and keeps them interested from conception to the time it makes it to a customer’s home. Marketing managers have several objectives during the process of planning and implementing new products or services. The organizational discipline required focuses on techniques and methodologies that include objectives such as satisfying client requirements, growing the business, developing a repeat customer base, creating the right marketing mix, building a good image for the company, and maintaining the momentum of the marketing techniques. This includes three major concepts.
The Three Largest Concepts in Marketing Management
Marketing management, and therefore, the job of marketing managers, is built on three main concepts: production, sales, and, of course, marketing. To further understand these concepts, you must break them down:
- Production – The concept of production means a company should focus on the items it can create and sell with the most efficiency while creating them at a low cost. A marketing manager who takes on this concept must ask whether a company can produce the item and, if so, whether it can produce enough of it in a given time frame. The production concept was very popular until the late 1920s when production was focused mostly on fulfilling true needs; however, it is not as popular for today’s marketers.
- Sales – The sales concept means companies produce the items but also work to convince customers to purchase them. This means advertising or personal selling, which means the marketing manager must ask whether the company can sell an item and, if so, whether it can produce as many as it sells. This concept didn’t focus on needs but on wants and had an entire goal of simply beating out the competition without worrying about customer satisfaction. Of course, that was a problem, which is why hard selling is not as popular as marketing, and although the two words are used interchangeably, they mean two very different things.
- Marketing – Finally, today’s most common concept is the marketing concept. This relies on marketing studies (often referred to as market research) to define the market’s size and its requirements. The marketing team then creates controllable parameters. This concept, which was introduced after World War II, focuses on key questions, including whether the customer wants the product or service, how it can be improved, and whether it will keep customers satisfied in the long term. This means creating marketing rules such as customer focus, aligned operations, and need satisfaction.
How To Hire the Right Person To Head Your Marketing Department
Now that you understand more about what marketing management is and why it is so important for a successful business, it is time to learn how to find the best marketing manager to join your team. Consider the following factors as you begin your search:
- Marketing Type – The type of marketer you need depends on whether your company does business-to-business sales or business-to-consumer sales. The strategies for these two sales types are drastically different, which means you need a marketer who has the right type of experience.
- Research the Options – A quick search shows there are hundreds of thousands of “marketing managers” but that most of them have their own take on what that job entails. By searching both employees and other companies looking for marketing managers, you’ll get a good idea of what you need out of your own manager. This makes it easier for you to create a strong employment ad that fully outlines what you’re looking for and brings in the best candidates.
- Interview Process – Once you know what you’ll post in your job ad, consider your interview process. The best way to determine if a candidate is truly good for the job is to create a position-based assessment. The assessment should include a presentation of strategy as well as a reverse job shadow. It is not only beneficial for helping you to find the right candidate but for giving the candidate a realistic idea of what it will be like to work with your company. However, remember to comply with the local interview and employment laws should you decide to assess your candidates “on the job” so to speak.
- Transparency – Full transparency is the key to hiring the best marketing manager, so be sure you know what your candidates see about your company. Search your business on Glassdoor to find out what current and former employees are saying, so you know how people perceive your company and whether you can do something to improve your image before you begin the hiring process. Be realistic about what you expect from your marketing manager as well as what you can offer him or her.
- Listen Thoroughly – When conducting an interview, it can be tempting to focus on resumes and accolades over the words the interviewee is saying. However, it is important to actually listen to your candidates to make sure they do more than sound good on paper. This ensures you find good employees who not only know how to do their job but understand what is expected of them at your company. Listen to your hiring team as well, as they will have excellent insight into candidates.
- Offer the Job – Once you decide on a candidate, extend him or her the job offer promptly. Following up within a day or two shows that you care about the time and energy your candidate invested in your interview process. However, be sure to follow up even if you aren’t extending the offer. This is just polite and shows good interview etiquette, plus you never know if someone will be a great fit for another role in the future.
- Integration of the New Manager – Finally, you’ll need to integrate your new marketing manager into the rest of your team. Onboarding includes helping the new hire bond with the rest of the team, ensuring he or she has all the pertinent information about your company and the provided compensation package, and helping him or her be successful right out of the gate.
Key Areas of Modern Marketing
The final step of creating a strong marketing management plan with the right manager is to understand the most common areas where modern marketing is used. For example, content marketing is popular because it helps businesses build audiences and provides information, but email marketing is also common and can bring in a large return on investment when done properly. Social media marketing, online videos, search engine optimization, and even pay-per-click advertising campaigns are all quite popular as well.
When it comes to your marketing management plan, you need a strong manager who understands how to meet your company’s needs. If you are planning a large launch of a new project, you may even find that bringing an expert onto an already existing marketing team is beneficial. A marketing manager provides a wide variety of consultation services to help businesses of all types research their customer bases, create new products, and build better business brands. Learn more about his services and find out if he is the right addition to your team by contacting him today.