Know buying trends to stay ahead

MARKETING MANAGEMENT
(Part III)

MARKETING management is the process of defining, anticipating, creating and fulfilling customer needs and wants for products and services. Therefore serious attention is required to focus on the marketing functions, to identify and evaluate the marketing strengths and weaknesses of an organisation, for any appropriate response for change to address customer needs and wants.

It starts with the products and services planning, which includes test marketing, brand positioning, design and packaging, features and options, and quality and customer service.

Test marketing is practised more often by consumer-oriented organisations than by industrial-oriented organisations, and normally conducted in shopping malls, hyper/supermarkets and public areas with high pedestrian traffic. It is effective in forecasting sales potential as well as avoiding possible losses from new products and services.

Selling of products and services must ensure that varying marketing activities such as personal selling and sales force management; advertising, sales promotions and publicity; and dealer and customer relations are well synchronised.

The effectiveness of the said selling activities may vary for different consumer and industrial products and services.

The current practice of selling through the Internet has been eating into sales of the traditional retailing marketing organisations. This trend is dramatically changing how business is done to stay relevant.

Pricing is a vital function of marketing management. Although the pricing of products and services is initially internally generated, it is also externally strongly influenced by customers, competitors, suppliers, distributors, and even the government. The latter may impose constraints on price-fixing and price discrimination on select products and services.

Also, it is necessary for an organisation to view pricing from both a short-run and a long-term perspective to be able to adjust to the vagaries of economic, political, social, technological and natural environmental trends.

Most "manufacturing" organisations do not market their products and services directly to their customers.

Even though marketing directly can often yield greater returns, such organisations may not possess the relevant expertise nor the financial resources for any forward marketing strategies. This is because distribution would include inventory and warehousing, transportation to sales territories, and wholesaling and retailing. Hence, the need to engage distributors, such as wholesalers, retailers, brokers, agents and vendors, among others. Selection of type and number of distributors should be determined on costs, control, reliability and efficiency.

Market research is the systematic collation, recording and analysis of information on issues relating to the marketing of products and services. It is essential for all marketing activity as it can reveal the strengths and shortcomings of the products and services, and the total viability of the organisation's marketing process.

Analysis of the research findings, if professionally executed, can indicate the direction and changes to be made for better performance and profits.

Another significant aspect of market research is conducting customer surveys to develop customer demographic and psychographic profiles and determine the optimal market segmentation and positioning strategies.

It is important to understand customer needs, desires and wants, by constantly monitoring present and potential buying habits and patterns. Only through these efforts can an organisation try to stay ahead of the competition.

Finally, it is critical to analyse the total costs, benefits and risks associated with all the marketing managing decisions before implementing marketing programme(s).