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103 Digital Marketing Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Digital marketing is a constantly evolving field that requires creativity, strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior. With the rise of social media, online advertising, and search engine optimization, businesses are constantly looking for ways to stand out in the digital landscape.

If you're a student or professional looking for inspiration for your next digital marketing essay, look no further. Here are 103 digital marketing essay topic ideas and examples to help you get started:

• The impact of social media influencers on consumer behavior
• The role of storytelling in digital marketing campaigns
• The rise of video marketing in the digital age
• The importance of personalization in email marketing
• The future of artificial intelligence in digital marketing
• The effectiveness of influencer marketing compared to traditional advertising
• The impact of user-generated content on brand perception
• The role of data analytics in digital marketing strategies
• The benefits of content marketing for small businesses
• The ethics of targeted advertising on social media platforms
• The effectiveness of mobile marketing in reaching younger audiences
• The role of virtual reality in immersive marketing experiences
• The impact of voice search on SEO strategies
• The importance of social listening in digital marketing campaigns
• The benefits of using chatbots for customer service in digital marketing
• The role of gamification in engaging consumers in digital marketing campaigns
• The impact of influencer marketing on brand loyalty
• The effectiveness of email marketing in driving conversions
• The role of social media advertising in reaching new audiences
• The benefits of using data-driven insights to optimize digital marketing campaigns
• The impact of video content on social media engagement
• The effectiveness of using memes in digital marketing campaigns
• The role of virtual events in digital marketing strategies
• The benefits of using interactive content in email marketing campaigns
• The ethics of data collection in digital marketing campaigns
• The impact of social media algorithms on organic reach
• The role of artificial intelligence in personalized marketing experiences
• The effectiveness of using user-generated content in social media campaigns
• The benefits of using influencers for brand collaborations
• The impact of visual storytelling in digital marketing campaigns
• The role of customer reviews in building trust with consumers
• The effectiveness of using social proof in digital marketing strategies
• The benefits of using micro-influencers for niche marketing campaigns
• The impact of social media contests on brand awareness
• The role of brand partnerships in reaching new audiences
• The effectiveness of using retargeting ads in digital marketing campaigns
• The benefits of using interactive quizzes in email marketing
• The impact of personalized recommendations on e-commerce sales
• The role of user-generated content in building community around a brand
• The effectiveness of using augmented reality in digital marketing campaigns
• The benefits of using social media listening tools to track brand sentiment
• The impact of social media influencers on brand perception
• The role of storytelling in building emotional connections with consumers
• The effectiveness of using social media polls to engage audiences
• The benefits of using user-generated content in social media campaigns
• The impact of influencer marketing on brand authenticity
• The role of customer journey mapping in optimizing digital marketing strategies
• The effectiveness of using chatbots for customer service in e-commerce
• The benefits of using social media ads to drive traffic to a website
• The impact of using personalized landing pages in email marketing campaigns
• The role of social media influencers in promoting sustainability initiatives
• The effectiveness of using social media analytics to track campaign performance
• The benefits of using video testimonials in digital marketing campaigns
• The role of data visualization in presenting marketing insights
• The effectiveness of using social media contests to engage audiences
• The benefits of using storytelling to humanize a brand
• The impact of using emojis in social media marketing campaigns
• The role of influencer marketing in promoting diversity and inclusion
• The effectiveness of using social listening tools to track brand sentiment
• The benefits of using user-generated content to build brand advocacy
• The impact of social media influencers on consumer trust
• The role of customer reviews in building credibility for a brand
• The effectiveness of using personalized email campaigns to drive conversions
• The benefits of using interactive content to educate consumers about a product
• The impact of social media influencers on brand loyalty
• The role of data analytics in optimizing digital marketing campaigns
• The effectiveness of using social proof in e-commerce sales
• The benefits of using chatbots for lead generation
• The role of influencer marketing in promoting social causes

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What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

Published: December 27, 2023

For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you’ve suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you‘ve never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you’re looking for:

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

• State your business's mission.
• Determine the KPIs for this mission.
• Identify your buyer personas.
• Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
• Clearly define your plan's omissions.
• Define your marketing budget.
• Identify your competition.
• Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business‘s main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

Also, make sure to check whether your current reporting software facilitates the KPIs you need. Some reporting tools can only measure a set of pre-defined metrics, which can cause massive headaches in particular marketing campaigns.

However, other tools, like HubSpot’s analytics software , can offer full flexibility over the KPIs you wish to track. You can generate custom reports that reveal anything from average website engagement rates to page visits via organic, email, social media traffic, and more.   

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section , I like to stipulate:

• Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
• How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
• The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
• The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

Build out your marketing plan with this free template.

Fill out this form to access the template., 5. clearly define your plan's omissions..

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who’s doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

• Executive Summary
• Target Customers
• Unique Selling Proposition
• Pricing & Positioning Strategy
• Distribution Plan
• Your Offers
• Marketing Materials
• Promotions Strategy
• Online Marketing Strategy
• Conversion Strategy
• Joint Ventures & Partnerships
• Referral Strategy
• Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
• Retention Strategy
• Financial Projections

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall‘s content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how he:

• Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.
• Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.
• Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.
• Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
• Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.
• Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.
• Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we‘ve built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we’ve learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

• What exactly content marketing is.
• Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.
• Who should lead your content marketing efforts?
• How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.
• How to hire the right people for each role on your team.
• What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.
• What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.
• The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.
• And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size — whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you‘ll implement to promote a new product. And if you’re searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product :

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

• Validate a product
• Write strategic objectives
• Identify your market
• Compile a competitive landscape
• Create a value proposition for a new product
• Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour’s Growth Marketing Plan Template :

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

• Experiments

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

• Louisville Tourism
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Visit Oxnard
• Safe Haven Family Shelter
• Wright County Economic Development
• The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
• Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Visit Billings

1. Louisville Tourism

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

• The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry
• The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand
• Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

2. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors — thus entering the consideration stage — the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

• The plan incorporates competitive analysis, evaluation surveys, and other research to determine the makeup of its target audience
• The plan lists each marketing program (e.g., direct mail, social media, email etc.) and supplements it with examples on the next page
• Each marketing program has its own objectives, tactics, and KPIs for measuring success

3. Visit Oxnard

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

• States clear and actionable goals for the coming year
• Includes data and other research that shows how their team made their decisions
• Outlines how the team will measure the success of their plan

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

• Confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives
• Uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts of the plan
• Closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future

5. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development’s plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who’d like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who’d like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative — which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

• Begins with a quick paragraph stating why the recommended changes are important
• Uses clear graphics and bullet points to emphasize key points
• Includes specific budget data to support decision-making

6. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county’s cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That’s a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you’re addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

• Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text
• Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy
• Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals
• Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

7. Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau

Cabarrus County’s convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county’s target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau’s staff members, so that it’s easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

• Uses infographics to expand on specific concepts, like how visitors benefit a community
• Highlights the team members responsible for each initiative with a photo to emphasize accountability and community
• Closes with an event calendar for transparency into key dates for events

8. Visit Billings

Visit Billing’s comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County’s in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization’s prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets — a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

• Includes a section on the buyer journey, which offers clarity on the reasoning for marketing plan decisions
• Design includes call-outs for special topics that could impact the marketing audience, such as safety concerns or "staycations"
• Clear headings make it easy to scan this comprehensive report and make note of sections a reader may want to return to for more detail

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

• Target audience

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

• Target audience or buyer personas for the app
• Outline of how app features meet audience needs
• Competitive analysis
• Goals for conversion funnel and user acquisition
• Marketing strategies and tactics for user acquisition

Featured resource : Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

• Clear analysis of the target market
• A detailed description of the product or service
• Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)
• Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource : Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you‘re planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It’s literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

• Marketing goals
• Executive summary
• Target market analysis
• Marketing strategies

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you‘re stuck or want to make sure you’ve included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

• Who is my target audience?
• What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?
• How does our product or service solve their problems?
• How will I reach and engage them?
• Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?
• What are the unique selling points of my product or service?
• What marketing channels are best for the brand?
• What is our budget and timeline?
• How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource : Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

• Business summary
• Business initiatives
• Target market
• Market strategy
• Marketing channels
• Marketing technology

Let’s create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template .

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience’s valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform].

The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

• Profession:
• Background:
• Pain points:
• Social media platforms that they use:
• Streaming platforms that they prefer:

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool .

Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.

Then, determine any omissions.

This marketing plan won’t be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

5. Define your marketing budget.

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.

6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

• Which platforms do they use the most?
• How does their branding differentiate?
• How do they talk to their audiences?
• What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.

Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs.

• Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy.

• Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Customer Service will nurture clients’ relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Marketing Mix, Essay Example

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Marketing decisions made by a company when shaping a suitable proposition for the potential customer can be organized into four major groups. These are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The actual meaning of those four is creating the right product, selling it at the right price and in the right place, with the use of the most effective promotion possible. When being in the process of bringing some particular product to the market, the organization is supposed to make choices concerning the product that will eventually influence the effectiveness of a chosen strategy. The four P’s are a sort of parameters that are under marketer’s control. “The goal is to make decisions that center the four P’s on the customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response” (Net MBA Business Knowledge Center).

The term ‘Product’ refers to both tangible physical goods and services. The choices that are made concerning the product can be: brand name, design, functionality, protection, maintenance, packaging, guarantee, accessories and services. To define what the product is supposed to represent questions may be asked like: What does the consumer want from the product/service? What requirements does it satisfy? What characteristics is it supposed to have to meet customers’ requirements? How and where will the customer exercise it? What does it look like? How is it different from the one product of your competitors?

The term ‘Price’ refers to the choice of appropriate approaches to forming the actual price of the product. It is no secret that each person pays a lot of attention to the price of the product being bought. Each customer weights benefit the product is to bring versus its cost in order to make a wise decision. It is also important to mention that while all the other three aspects of marketing mix are costs, price is the only one which creates sales revenue. Investigating consumers’ attitude toward pricing is significant since it specifies how they value what they are looking for, as well as what they would like to pay for it. Naturally, company’s pricing policy depends a lot on the circumstances in which the organization is operating. The possible decisions marketer is making concerning the price are: pricing strategy (demand-, cost-, profit- or competition- based methods), suggested retail price, volume discounts and wholesale pricing, seasonal pricing, bundling, price flexibility and discrimination, etc. The questions that can be asked in order to understand the pricing element better are: What is the value of the product or service to the purchaser? Is the client price sensitive? What discounts should be proposed to customers, or to other particular segments of your market? How will your price contrast with that of your competitors?

‘Place’ element of the marketing mix is the one being concerned with a range of methods of transferring and storing goods, and then making them accessible to the consumers. Significantly, approximately a fifth of the product’s cost goes on its distribution. What value do product’s exceptional features have if it is stored badly, or if the potential customers have no way to get it? Delivering the right product to the proper place at the right time requires creation of a distribution system. Once again, the choice of convenient distribution methods depends greatly on present circumstances.  When referring to ‘place’ marketer has to make decision on distribution channels and centers, transportation, warehousing, order processing, etc. Understanding of this particular element of the marketing mix can be obtained if giving answers to such questions as:  Where do buyers search for your product or service? In what kind of stored do they look for the product? How can you contact the appropriate distribution channels? What do you competitors do, and how can you benefit from that?

‘Promotion’ refers to the actual process of communicating with consumers. It is concerned with presenting customers with information needed to make a decision. The fact is that, even though being sometimes extremely costly, promotion can increase the sales significantly, so that advertising and other costs are spread over a larger output. If being properly organized and successfully implemented, promotion can be extremely cost-effective. Promotion is aimed at generating the positive customers’ response and deals with decisions on promotional strategy, advertising, public relations and publicity, sales promotions, marketing communication budgeting, etc. These are the questions that can be helpful when defining this particular element of marketing mix: Where and when can one get across your marketing messages to the target market? How will you reach your audience in the most effective way possible? When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? How do your competitors promote their product and how can it influence your promotional strategies?

Such a great profit-oriented company as Nike, which is the global sports shoe company and is the largest seller of athletic footwear in the world, does surely pay a lot of attention to the development of its marketing mix. If referring to the ‘product’ element of Nike’s company, we can talk about how Nike proposes broad choice of shoe, apparel and equipment products. The company also market head gear under the brand name Sports Specialties. Nike’s pricing is considered to be competitive to the other sport shoe sellers. The pricing is established on the basis of premium segment as target customers. Nike shoes are available all over the world in the multi-brand and the exclusive Nike stores. “Nike sells its product to about 20,000 retail accounts in the U.S. and in almost 200 countries around the world. In the international markets, Nike sells its products through independent distributors, licensees and subsidiaries” (Cuizon, 2009). Nike’s promotion is greatly concerned with finding reachable store locations. It also involves targeted advertising in the newspaper and generating strategic associations. For example, Nike cooperates with a number of famous athletes that serve as brand representatives. Nike’s brand image, name and the trademark swoosh, position the company as one of the most identifiable brands in the world.

Adidas, Nike’s biggest competitor, is also one of the most recognizable brands of nowadays. As well as the Nike Company is, Adidas is oriented to obtaining high profits. Nowadays Adidas has a reputation of a strong brand for sports apparels. The company supports its brand by continually advancing and improving products’ original features and quality to please and satisfy its customers. If referring to Adidas pricing policy, it uses the market skimming method, positioning itself as a shopping product with prices lower than that of its major competitors. Adidas sportswear can be found in specialized brand stores, sporting outlets and in the internet. Company’s major promotion objective is to become world number one sportswear company. Promotion is implemented mostly through advertising in the mass-medias and internet, and through supporting various sport events.

Cuizon, G. (2009, February 13). Audit on Nike’s Marketing Strategies: The 4Ps – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://corporate-marketing-branding.suite101.com/article.cfm/audit_on_nikes_marketing_strategies

Net MBA Business Knowledge Center. (2007). The Marketing Mix (The 4 P’s of Marketing) . Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://www.netmba.com/marketing/mix/

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Essay on Marketing

List of essays on Marketing. Marketing is a comprehensive term and it includes all resources and a set of activities necessary to direct and facilitate the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer. Businessman regards marketing as a management function to plan, promote and deliver products to the clients or customers. Human efforts, finance and management constitute the primary resources in marketing.

Audience : This essay is written in easy and simple words for school, college and university students.

List of Essays on Marketing for School, College and University Students

Essay on marketing   – (1500 words).

Marketing is a comprehensive term and it includes all resources and a set of activities necessary to direct and facilitate the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer. Businessman regards marketing as a management function to plan, promote and deliver products to the clients or customers. Human efforts, finance and management constitute the primary resources in marketing.

Marketing starts with identification of customer’s wants and then satisfying those wants through products and services. The modern concept of marketing is customer-oriented and focuses on earning profit through customer satisfaction.

Prof. Drucker states that the first function of marketing is to create a customer or market. Customer is the most important person in the whole marketing process. He is the cause and purpose of all marketing activities.

According to Philip Kotler, “Marketing is a human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange process.” All marketing activities are basically for meeting the needs of customers and also raising social welfare. We have twin activities which are most significant in marketing- (a) Matching the product with demand, i.e., customer needs and desires or target market, (b) The transfer of ownership and possession at every stage in the flow of goods from the primary producer to the ultimate consumer.

According to William Stanton, “Marketing is a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products to target markets to achieve organisational objectives.”

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives.

Paul Mazur defined marketing as the creation and delivery of a standard of living to society. This definition catches the real spirit of the marketing process. It has consumer- orientation. It duly honours the marketing concept which indicates a shift from product to customer-orientation, i.e., fulfillment of customer needs and desires. It emphasises the major function of marketing, viz., satisfaction of customer and social demand for material goods and services.

Example- In the case of oral care products, currently only 47 per cent of the rural population use toothpaste, 23 per cent use tooth powder and the rest neither. Targeting non-users in rural areas and developing awareness about oral hygiene and converting them to tooth powder/toothpaste users.

Features of Marketing :

1. Marketing activities are aimed at satisfying the needs and desires of consumers and therefore, finding out consumer needs and wants is the starting point for all marketing activities. It starts with consumers and ends with consumers by satisfying their needs.

2. Marketing is a continuous activity and the goods are manufactured and distributed to the consumers as per demand.

3. Marketing deals with exchange of goods and services with money as the medium of exchange.

4. Marketing concept has undergone changes over a period of time i.e., the recent one is the societal marketing concept which focuses on three factors- customer demand satisfaction, public interest and profitability.

5. Marketing creates time, place and possession utilities. The consumer is able to obtain the right product at the right time at the right place as and when he requires.

6. Production and marketing are related and production takes place based on the needs and expectations of the consumer.

7. Marketing facilities large-scale production, employment opportunities and social welfare.

8. Marketing is an integral part of business. The survival and growth of business depend upon the effectiveness of marketing operations in an organisation.

9. Marketing is an integrated process and is based on strategies and plans.

10. The long-term objective of marketing is profit maximization through customer satisfaction.

Modern marketing begins with the customer, not with production, sales, technological landmarks and it ends with the customer satisfaction and social well-being. Under market- driven economy, buyer or customer is the king. The marketer should find out what the consumers wish to purchase and how much they are willing to pay. The company should then decide whether the desired product can be produced and sold at the price consumers will pay and at a profit to the company.

Marketing covers the following:

1. Seeking- The purpose of seeking is to discover the customer and customer needs. The marketing opportunity is revealed through an analysis of the environment.

2. Matching- Marketing is a matching process. Customer demand has to be matched with organisational resources and environmental limitations, such as competition, government regulations, general economic conditions, and so on.

3. Programming- The marketing programme, called the marketing mix, covering Product, Price, Promotion and Place (distribution) strategies (4 P’s) will be formulated and implemented to accomplish the twin objectives of customer satisfaction and profitability.

Marketing is an ongoing process of- (1) Discovering and translating consumer needs and desires into products and services (through planning and producing the planned products), (2) Creating demand for these products and services (through promotion and pricing), (3) Serving the consumer demand (through planned physical distribution) with the help of marketing channels, and then, in turn, (4) Expanding the market even in the face of keen competition.

The modern marketer is called upon to set the marketing objectives, develop the marketing plan, organise the marketing function, implement the marketing plan or programme (marketing mix) and control the marketing programme to assure the accomplishment of the set of marketing objectives. The marketing programme covers product planning or merchandising, price, promotion and physical distribution.

Four basic approaches are commonly used to describe the marketing system:

1. Commodity Approach :

Under the commodity approach, we study the flow of certain commodity and its journey from the original producer right up to the final customer. In such a study, we can locate the centre of production, people engaged in buying and selling of the product, mode of transportation, problem of selling and advertising the product, problems of financing it, problems arising out of its storage and so on.

Through such an approach, we can find out the differences in marketing products, services and problems. Thus, we can have a fuller picture of the field of marketing. Marketing of agricultural products such as cotton, wheat, jute represent the commodity approach.

2. Functional Approach :

Under the functional approach, we concentrate our attention on the specialised service or functions or activities performed by marketers. The study of marketing functions (like, buying, selling, storage, risk-bearing, transport, financing, and providing information) represents the functional approach to the marketing system.

3. Institutional Approach :

Under the institutional approach, our main interest centres round the marketing institutions or agencies such as wholesalers, retailers, transport undertakings, banks and insurance companies etc., who participate in discharging their marketing responsibilities during the movement of distribution of goods. We try to find out how these various business institutions and agencies work together to form a total marketing system.

4. The Systems Approach :

A system is a set of interacting or interdependent components or groups co-ordinated to form a unified whole and organised marketing activities to accomplish a set of objectives.

In the model of systems approach we have:

1. Objective,

3. Processor,

4. Outputs, and

5. Feedback.

The system is designed to achieve objectives or goals according to a plan, which provides for the processing of inputs and the discharge of appropriate outputs. The objectives direct the process control monitors the process. Information feedback gives information from internal and external sources and it is the basis for future change in the system.

An open system has its own environment giving the inputs and accepting the outputs. Inputs are processed, producing outputs to meet the objective. The twin objectives of marketing system are customer satisfaction and profitability.

The systems approach provides the best model for marketing activity. It places emphasis on the inputs to the system and the outputs produced. It helps in the determination of marketing and corporate goals, and the development of marketing programmes and the total marketing mix.

Adoption of a systems approach provides a good basis for the logical and orderly analysis of marketing activities. It stresses marketing linkages inside and outside the firm. It emphasises changing environment. It provides a framework for control. It depends on using the right information. Markets can be understood only through study of information.

The output establishes the purpose or objective of a system. The objective is profits through serving the demand of consumers and community. The output of marketing system is sales of goods. Correct inputs must be available to the processor i.e., marketing administration in order to produce desirable outputs.

These inputs in the marketing system are the elements of marketing-mix and the target market determined through marketing research. The marketing system must operate as per plans and policies and within control which may be internal or external. Of course, feedback must be available for introducing corrections in the future plans and marketing operations.

The flow of information required to check performance is called feedback. Feedback ensures the accomplishment of objectives through continuous marketing managerial process of planning-action-control. Marketing environment can be broken down into a number of layers. The inner layers become the subsystems of the outer layer. Output from one layer becomes the input for the next.

Marketing plan is a system and its parts or components are subsystems. There are four components or subsystems of marketing plan or marketing-mix- (1) The product management system to manage products from introduction to market withdrawal, (2) Channel and physical distribution system to manage distribution channels and the flow of goods to the market, (3) Promotion system to coordinate all means of promotion to stimulate demand, and (4) Price system designing prices for a line of products sold to customers under different selling conditions.

Marketing management revolves around these four areas of marketing- mix or plan. Marketing information system provides data for decision-making in all marketing areas or problems. It is also a part of marketing system.

The systems model (plan-inputs-processing-outputs-feedback-environment) placed emphasis on the inputs of resources as per plan, discharge of outputs and marketing information flow. It enables the determination of goals as well as development of strategies and programmes to achieve those goals through feedback control mechanism.

Essay on Marketing – 2 (1000 Words)

Traditionally, marketing has been defined as follows – “Marketing includes all activities that direct the flow of goods and services from the producers to the consumers or users.” This definition is product oriented as it does not consider the needs of the customers. It emphasises sale of goods produced by the producer and thus considers marketing in a narrow sense of ‘telling and selling’.

Modern definitions of marketing are based on the philosophy that “Satisfaction of customers is the basic purpose of business”. According to Philip Kotler, “Marketing is a social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others”.

This implies matching of products with what is demanded in the market. This requires determining the requirements of potential customers and then developing and supplying those products which meet their requirements. If a business produces the products to satisfy the requirements of customers, it is more likely to be successful in achieving its objectives.

Definitions of Marketing :

Traditional Definition:

Marketing is a social process by which products are matched with markets and through which the consumer is able to use or enjoy the product. It makes goods and services more useful to the society by creating place, time and possession utilities. —Cundiff and Still

Modern Definition:

Marketing is a social process by which individual and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others. —Philip Kotler

The present day marketing is consumer oriented rather than product oriented. Product planning, pricing, promotion and distribution are so organised that the needs of the customers are satisfied fully. In the words of Stanton, “Marketing is a total system of interacting business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute wants satisfying products and services to present and potential customers”. Consumer oriented marketing ensures that all business activities revolve around the customer.

The essential elements of marketing are as follows:

(i) Two Parties:

There are at least two parties – buyer or customer on the one hand, and seller or marketer on the other.

(ii) Exchange of Value:

Exchange of goods and services between the seller and the buyer takes place for a valuable consideration. In other words, the parties have something viewed valuable by each other. That means the buyer can offer value and the seller can offer goods which are perceived to be of value by the buyer.

(iii) Freedom:

The parties are free to interact and accept or reject the offer of each other.

(iv) Satisfaction:

Marketing satisfies the needs of both the parties. The consumers gets want satisfying goods and services and the seller gets value in terms of money for his offering.

Marketing as a Process of Managing Profitable Customer Relationships :

According to Philip Kotler, “Marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.”

Globalisation and rise of information technology (IT) have increased the expectations of customers. They don’t buy products or brands, but ‘a set of benefits or values’. They expect marketers to be concerned with their total satisfaction. The marketers association with the customer continues even after the sale of the product and this is what is called relationship marketing.

Thus, marketing is a process consisting of the following interrelated elements:

(i) Understand the market and customer needs and wants.

(ii) Design the product to satisfy customer needs and wants.

(iii) Develop an integrated marketing program that delivers superior value to the customer.

(iv) Build profitable relationships with, customers and offer ‘customer delight’.

(v) Capture value from customers to create profits and customer equity.

Marketing enables people to satisfy their needs and wants through exchange relationships. Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired product (or benefit) from a company by offering money value in return. Marketing also involves actions taken by the marketer to build and maintain desirable exchange relationships with target customers.

Marketers try to build strong relationships by consistently delivering superior customer value. Besides attracting new customers, they also try to retain the existing customers. These are the two basic goals of modern marketing.

The key to building lasting customer relationships is to create (i) superior customer value, and (ii) satisfaction. A customer buys from the firm that offers the highest customer perceived value, i.e., the customer’s evaluation of the difference between all the benefits and all the costs of a market offering (i.e., product) relative to those of other firms. Many people prefer to buy sweets from Haldiram’s store as compared to other sweet shops because of higher perceived value.

Market and Related Concepts :

Traditionally, the term ‘market’ refers to the place where buyers and sellers meet for exchange of goods and services. It is in this sense that we refer to Chandni Chowk Market, Kamla Nagar Market, Janpath Market and other markets in Delhi. The buyers go to the market to purchase the goods of their choice.

These days the term ‘market’ has acquired a broader meaning. If refers to actual and potential buyers of a product or service, whom the sellers can approach through various means of communication and transport.

For example, a marketer can approach prospective buyers through web advertising and a customer can purchase goods from his residence or office by placing order on telephone or cell phone or using internet and e-mail. Physical meeting between the parties to buy and sell is not necessary.

Customer Needs, Wants and Demands :

Marketing begins with human needs and wants. Needs are feelings of deprivation of some satisfaction. People need food, air, water, clothing and shelter to survive. These needs exist in the very nature of human biology and marketers do not create them. Wants are desires for satisfaction of needs. Human needs are few but wants are many. Human wants are continually shaped and reshaped by families, social institutions and cultural factors.

Demands are wants for specific products and services. They are backed by the ability and willingness to buy. Wants which are supported by purchasing power become demands. Marketers influence wants and demands by making products attractive, affordable and easily available to the target group of consumers. For example, a marketer might promote the idea that a certain brand of pen (e.g., Parker) would satisfy the need for social status.

Essay on Marketing –  3 (700 Words)

Marketing starts with identifying customer needs and wants and ends with satisfying them through a coordinated set of activities that also allows a firm to achieve its own goals. Awareness of this fact gave rise to the marketing concept. The marketing concept embraces all the activities of a firm. It aims at matching the company’s offering with customer needs, to achieve the desired level of customer satisfaction and generate profits for the company.

The marketing concept is based on the beliefs that are as follows:

(a) The company’s planning and operations are customer-oriented,

(b) The goals of the company should be profitable sales volume and not just volume, and

(c) All marketing activities should be coordinated effectively.

Cundiff and Still, “marketing is the business process by which products are matched with market and through which transfer of ownership affected”.

Tousley, Clark and Clark “marketing consist of those efforts which affect transfer of ownership of goods and services and provide for the physical distribution”.

H.L. Hansen Marketing is the process of discovering and translating consumer needs and wants into products and service specification, creating demand for these products and services and then turns expanding this demand.

According to American Marketing Association, ‘marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.

Marketing is defined as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”.

The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering views marketing as “a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches.”

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.

Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. It is an integrated process through which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.

Managerial Definition :

As a managerial definition, marketing is described as “the art of selling products”. But Peter Drucker, a leading management theorist, says that “the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy”.

Traditional and Modern Concepts of Marketing :

Old or traditional concept of marketing was limited up to profit generation by high volume of sales and production of products at a large scale, how to distribute products from producers to customers in an efficient manner. Marketing activities were concentrated toward selling; later on with rise of competition marketers gave more emphasis to promotion activities to increase their market share and profitability. Salesmanship and product promotion were the main part of marketing policy of a business firm.

Modern concept has shifted from selling to customer satisfaction, modern marketing concept aim at how to understand a customer in a better way it is possible by exploring customer’s want and expectations and marketing behaviour. Products manufactured by firms should match with the demand and expectation of customers.

Under marketing concept a customer should be ready to buy the products on his own initiative, how to create demand in market by customer satisfaction is the main essence of modern concept. Now customer is well aware about his rights, quality and customer services, therefore marketing should be customer oriented, a strong communication network is needed to build high brand equity and goodwill in market.

Marketing is an important functional area of business which generates revenues through the sale of satisfying goods and services to the customers. It involves taking decisions in the areas of product, price, place and promotion keeping in view the requirements of the customers business. In this article, the nature of marketing management, implications of modern marketing concept, objectives of marketing, distinction between marketing and selling and also the tools of marketing mix.

Short Essay on Marketing – 4 (400 Words)

Marketing is the process by which companies determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development.

It is an integrated process through which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.

Marketing is used to identify the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. The evolution of marketing was caused due to mature markets and overcapacities in the last 2-3 centuries. Companies then shifted the focus from production to the customer in order to stay profitable.

The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association AMA as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as “the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” A different concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value.

In this context, marketing is defined as “the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage.”

Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes.

The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre and post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.

Essay on Marketing – 5 (1000 Words)

Marketing as a term is widely used in the management of a business and in our day- to-day life. In the era of customer and competition driven business world, marketing is not just the domain for the marketing department in a company. It’s a philosophy; it’s a business orientation now. It is imbibed in the corporate vision and mission of the successful companies.

All the successful companies in India like Tata, Reliance, Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Maruti, Birla, Bajaj, Dabur, Patanjali etc., are thriving by understanding and delivering value to the Indian consumers to serve them in a better way than their competitors.

“Marketing is a process of exchange through which needs and wants are satisfied”, so can be the definition of markets given by Philip Kotler is paraphrased.

A better explanation can be given-

“Market is not merely spatial in nature; the buyers and sellers constitute the market, even though not face-to-face. Marketing involves not merely selling but reaching out customers to sell things they want. Thus product- mix, price-mix, distribution-mix and promotion-mix are the four corner stones of marketing. Even consumption patterns and the dictates of consumers are a part of the marketing strategy and then we have to include the policies relating to taxes and subsidies and/or regulations as they affect the product, price, distribution and promotion mixes.”

Another famous name in marketing Peter Drucker emphasized that marketing issues permeate all areas of the enterprise.

There are four most important aspects of marketing and they are:

1. Choosing the product mix;

2. Choosing the price mix;

3. Planning the distributional network; and

4. Market promotion.

These are also known as four Ps [product, price, place (distribution) and promotion], “Consumer is the king” (meaning consumer dictates and is always right) has given way to “consumer is the queen”, (meaning thereby that decision are taken by the lady of the house), are the sayings that give guidepost for developing marketing. There are firms, institutions, persons and governments involved in marketing. There are historical stages of marketing.

Rudimentary barter system is exchange of “commodities with commodities” (we should not call “goods” with “goods” from the “secondary/manufacturing” sector.) By the time there is trading in “goods”, barter system gets superseded. Rural marketing in India still has a good-sized component of the barter economy. Vegetables, edible oil, pulses, milk-products and food grains are taken and given in barter in rural areas.

Transitional stage and concurrent stage between barter and monetised exchange exists (as in India even in the 21st Century). As specialisation and industrial activities develop, barter gives way to exchange with money. However, rural areas continue to have barter transactions. (Some kabaadies in India who recycle the wastes of the households as non-functional fans, old newspapers to n number of things sometimes offer double trade e.g., give anything @ Rs. 15/- and make the payment adjusted against the junk that will be taken by them.

All types of modern markets with their spatial ramifications develop in the developing economy as in India.

Fully modern marketing system will have to satisfy two conditions:

1. There is no barter there, and

2. Even plastic money (credit/debit cards) is used.

Micro-management of marketing is not concerned with increasing the purchasing power.

Macro-management of marketing should aim at various things like:

1. Laying down rules and regulations for all types of marketing;

2. Selling “social marketing” of such ideas as of family planning and/or or advising persons how to save themselves from aids; or

3. Improving purchasing power or entitlements of all groups.

Marketing of primary, secondary and tertiary sector (services) follow one basic principle—how to optimise profits, if not maximise.

What is Marketing? – Definitions of Marketing:

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as ‘The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably’

Oxford Dictionaries define Marketing ‘as the process of performing market research, selling products and /or services to customers and promoting them via advertising to further enhance sales.’

Kotler Philip, Gary Armstrong, Veronica Wong, and John Saunders are of the view that ‘Marketing as an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.’ It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments.

Paliwoda, Stanley J and John K. Ryans believe in a different concept called the value-based marketing, which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value.

American Marketing Association’s (AMA) has defined as following:

‘Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.’

Above definition was applicable till Sept., 2007. Now with the ever changing business environment, the definition of Marketing also underwent a lot of change from Oct., 2007.

Now, AMA defines Marketing as:

‘Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.’

Marketing is not just an organizational function, but it is an activity and a set of institutions are involved. Now the customers, organisation and its stakeholders have also been rephrased as Customers, Clients, Partners and Society at large. Now Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is as important as Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Societal welfare is as important as the company’s welfare.

Panasonic’s ‘Eco Ideas’, Nokia’s ‘Take Back Campaign’, HP’s ‘Power to Change’ and Toyota’s initiative for Hybrid Green Vehicles are few examples of corporate initiative for the society at large.

Philip Kotler, a well-known authority on marketing has termed marketing as a ‘societal process by which individual and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others.’ Marketing can also be said as the process of ‘satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process’.

In a simpler way, Kotler has defined Marketing in terms of CCDVTP, which means creating, communicating and delivering value to the target market at a profit.

Thus, Marketing is all about identifying and meeting human and social needs and that too in a profitable way. Ultimately, the objective of any business activity is to make profits.

On the whole, we can say that CCCCC STP PPPP encompasses all the aspects in marketing. Sounds confusing, let me clarify, Marketing is all about 5Cs, STP and 4Ps. 5Cs stands for Customers, Company, Competitors, Collaborators and Context. While STP stands for Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning; whereas 4Ps represent the Marketing Mix i.e. Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Essay on Business Marketing – 6 (2500 Words)

Marketing plays a critical role in modern business practice, where maximizing shareholder value is an increasingly important goal. The essence of business marketing focuses on how firms attract, retain, grow customers — critical firm assets — by enhancing relationships with them.

Success in delivering cus­tomer value leads directly to improving shareholder value and long-run firm prosperity. In Essentials of Managing Marketing, we explore both the strategic aspects of marketing and the tactical implementation decisions marketers make every day. But first, we investigate two quite different but related meanings of marketing.

Marketing as a Philosophy embraces the view that marketing is the guiding force/orientation for the entire corporation. Firms with a marketing philosophy operate with an external orientation. Such firms focus attention, resources outside the corporation — to acquire, retain, grow customers — but take careful account of a range of external environmental forces.

By contrast, internally oriented firms focus on internal issues — products, services, processes. Essentials of Business Marketing embraces the marketing-as-philosophy perspective. The author believes, and has seen in his own career, how powerful and effective a business can be when the entire organization is attuned to the external world. Such agile firms not only sense critical environmental factors, but also adapt to address them.

Marketers must possess the tools/decision-making skills to get the marketing job done. Effective marketers focus on six marketing imperatives. Marketing Imperatives describe the specifics of the marketing job. For executives with marketing/ product-management titles, these imperatives are the must-dos of marketing.

We identify two groups:

1. Strategic Marketing:

Imperative 1-Determine, recommend which markets to address.

Imperative 2- Identify, target market segments.

Imperative 3- Set strategic direction, positioning.

2. Implementing Market Strategy:

Imperative 1- Design the market offer.

Imperative 2- Secure support from other functions.

Imperative 3- Monitor and control execution/ performance.

To broaden this framework, four marketing princi­ples form the basis for marketing decision-making.

These principles act as guidelines for executing the six imperatives:

Principle 1- Selectivity, Concentration

Principle 2- Customer Value

Principle 3- Differential Advantage

Principle 4- Integration

What is Marketing?

Marketing is often confused with advertising and sales. Even many executives are unclear. It seems so intuitive; can’t anybody be a marketer? Marketing is the firm’s fundamental activity. When marketing delivers value to satisfy customer needs, the firm attracts, retains, grows customers, in the face of competitors trying to do the same thing. If costs are in line, profits follow. Profits help the firm survive as an independent entity, secure resources to grow, enhance shareholder value.

Business Marketing’s role includes identifying opportunities; figuring out customer needs; understanding com­petition; developing appealing products/services; communicating/distributing value to potential customers. When the firm does a good job of completing these tasks, shareholder value increases. Example- Flipkart — successful e-commerce firm — co-founder Sachin Bansal emphasizes that focus on customer satisfaction and owning the entire customer experience has benefited his firm.

The critical weapon in the battle for customers is straightforward in concept, but may be complex/ difficult in execution. The firm must deliver customers greater value than competitors deliver. Customers reward such firms by purchasing their products/services, today and tomorrow. This exchange is the basis of all markets.

The late Peter Drucker, preeminent management theorist, is generally credited with developing the customer orientation and modern marketing per­spective. Drucker stated, “If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. There is only one valid definition of any business purpose — to create a customer. It is the customer who determines what a business is.

For it is the customer, and he alone, who through being willing to pay for a good or service, converts economic resources into wealth, things into goods…. Because it is [the purpose of a business] to create a customer, [the] business enterprise has two — and only these two — basic functions- marketing and innovation.”‘

Business Marketing and Shareholder Value :

The central focus on shareholder value is deeply rooted in many capitalist countries. The shareholder- value perspective defines managements job as maximizing returns for firm owners — shareholders.

In addition to shareholders, the firm has many other stakeholders — management, labor, public at large. In some capitalist countries, these stakeholders are more favored than shareholders. Indeed, in these countries regulations generally favor managers, and protect them from unwelcome mergers/acquisi­tions. Regardless, in recent years, developing global capital markets have favored the shareholder-value perspective.

Customers are the sole source of firm revenues; all firm activities are costs of attracting, retaining, growing customers. Unfortunately, managers sometimes forget this fundamental truth. Customers provide revenues/cash flow when they believe firm products/services offer better value than competitive alternatives.

Marketing as a Philosophy- External, Internal Orientations :

The firm enhances shareholder value by attracting, retaining, growing customers. At a philosophical level, each employee has some responsibility; marketing is everybody’s business.

To quote Drucker again, “Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function within the business … it is, first, a central dimension of the entire business. It is the whole business … seen from the customers point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must, therefore, permeate all areas of the enterprise.”

David Haines, former brand czar at Vodafone, echoed Drucker- “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketers. It’s the obligation of every single individual in the company, whether you’re a phone operator, the CEO, or anyone else in the company.” To put it more crassly- If marketing is unsuccessful, nobody gets a paycheck!

Marketing as a philosophy concerns the firms entire orientation; such firms operate with an external orientation. The externally oriented firm looks outward to the environment; it knows that customers are central to its future. Other firms focusing on internal business drivers have one of several internal orientations-, delivering customer value takes a back seat.

i. External Orientation:

The externally oriented firm knows its current products/services/processes are the reasons for past/ present success. This firm also knows that, as the external environment evolves, its products/services/ processes must also change. The externally oriented does not fear change. This firm goes beyond a customer focus; it works hard to understand competitors markets, other environmental forces. This firm invests in new capabilities/competencies to exploit opportunities for attracting, retaining, growing customers. P&G spends over $400 million annually seeking customer/market insight.

In difficult economic times, when profits are under pressure, many firms cut spending/investment; but the externally oriented firm increases investments — human capital, marketing budgets, mergers, acquisi­tions. Example- In recent recessions, Amazon, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Intel, Tata Consultancy Services invested heavily; they swept past more internally oriented competitors.

ii. Internal Orientations :

Internally oriented firms place internal business considerations ahead of customer focus.

The orientations are:

1. Operations Orientation:

It overemphasizes improving efficiency, reducing costs. There is nothing inherently wrong with such actions; by contrast, cost reduction should not be a priority when the firm offers new products/services, enters new markets, or otherwise should invest to attract, retain, grow customers.

2. Sales Orientation:

It focuses on short-term sales revenues. The firm is less concerned with profits. Characteristic actions to secure sales- Prices set too low, unsustainable discounts, loose credit terms, excessive product variations. The firm spends little effort on marketing research, planning; targets customers indiscriminately.

3. Finance Orientation:

It focuses too heavily on short-term profits. When a firm manages by the numbers, it tends to avoid expenditures for long- term payoff. The finance-oriented firm mortgages its future by indiscriminately cutting back — adver­tising, capital investment, R&D, talent.

4. Technology Orientation:

It focuses on R&D, but pays insufficient attention to customer value. First- class products are critical for attracting, retaining, growing customers, but for this firm technology is more important than customers.

The Six Marketing Imperatives :

The job of putting the firms marketing philosophy into practice normally falls to marketing profes­sionals. These people engage in many activities; they must make decisions on how to allocate their time/other resources.

The critical question- Are we doing the right things to attract, retain, grow customers? Put another way- Are we implementing the six marketing imperatives — the firm’s must-dos. Imperatives 1, 2, 3 focus on strategic marketing; imperatives 4, 5, 6 zero in on implementing market strategy.

Imperative 1- Determine, Recommend Which Markets to Address :

The firm must answer critical questions about its business, market portfolios:

i. In which new businesses/markets shall we invest — people, time, dollars?

ii. From which businesses/markets shall we withdraw?

iii. In which current businesses/markets shall we continue to invest?

iv. How much investment shall we make in these various businesses/markets?

Marketing plays two key advisory roles. First, identify opportunities. Marketing is the only function with explicit responsibility to focus attention externally on the market, customers, competitors — outside the firm. Marketing personnel should research the environment to identify potential opportunities, then bring these to top management for go/no-go decisions.

Second, advise on proposed strategic actions. Many parts of the firm develop strategic initiatives. Marketing has the responsibility to insert itself into key decisions — collecting, analyzing relevant data — bearing on market entry/exit. Marketing should fully explore the ramifications of potential firm actions, or disaster may ensue.

Imperative 2- Identify, Target Market Segments :

Marketing must identify market segments — groups of customers with similar needs that value similar benefits with similar priority orders. Once the firm has identified market segments, it must decide which to target for effort. Effective segmentation and targeting are critical for delivering customer value and driving sales, profits.

Imperative 3- Set Strategic Direction, Positioning :

The firm decides how to compete in those market segments it has targeted. For each target segment, marketing must formulate performance objectives, then decide on firm positioning in each segment — target customers, target competitors, value propo­sition, reasons to believe. Together with Marketing Imperative 2, positioning completes the STP trium­virate — segmentation, targeting, positioning.

Typically, individual market segments are at different developmental stages; hence they require different approaches. Finally, decisions about strategic direc­tion must include questions about branding. The firm must continually assess strategic direction and make necessary course corrections.

Imperative 4- Design the Market Offer :

The market offer is the total benefit package the firm provides customers. Tools for designing offers are the most well-known part of marketing.

The marketing-mix elements — aka 4Ps — comprise the basic building blocks:

i. Product:

Generally, the product embodies major benefits the firm offers to satisfy customer needs — these benefits provide customer value. Product comprises both physical products and intangible services.

ii. Promotion:

Embraces various ways the firm communicates with customers — informing, per­suading customers to purchase (or recommend) its products. Core promotional elements include mass communications — advertising, publicity & public relations; digital marketing; personal communica­tions — sales force.

iii. Distribution:

Focuses on how, where customers secure the product (aka place).

The firm establishes its feasible price by the equivalent amount of value it offers customers via product, promotion, distribution.

Imperative 5- Secure Support from Other Functions :

Functional areas must work together to ensure the firm designs and executes the right market offer.

Business marketing requires two very different types of support:

i. Support for design — relates to technical, opera­tional, economic feasibility. This support requires keeping the firm focused on satisfying customer needs and pushing specific functions to encourage evolving their capabilities.

ii. Support for implementation — assumes the firm has agreed upon/fixed the design. Marketers must possess the leadership/interpersonal skills to secure cooperation across multiple functions — internal marketing, getting buy-in.

Imperative 6- Monitor and Control Execution/Performance :

Is the firm achieving desired results? If results are not on track, what changes should the firm make?

Marketing is a key stakeholder in securing answers to three questions; it should act appropriately based on the answers:

i. Are various functions/departments implementing the market offer?

ii. Is market/financial performance reaching planned objectives?

iii. Based on current environmental realities, are objectives, strategies, implementation plans on track? Should the firm make changes?

Four marketing principles serve as guidelines for exe­cuting the six imperatives:

Principle 1- Selectivity, Concentration :

Providing advice on market selection — Imperative 1 — and deciding which market segments to target — Imperative 2 — are among marketing’s primary responsibilities.

Underlying these imperatives is the-

i. Selectivity- Carefully choose targets for firm efforts.

ii. Concentration- Concentrate resources against those targets.

This principle is about choosing the firm’s battles. It is dangerous to dissipate limited resources over too many alternatives by trying to do too much. No orga­nization, no matter how large or how successful, has infinite resources.

Some experts re-label this principle Concentration and Concession. Not only must the firm concentrate resources, it should affirmatively decide where it does not want to compete.

Principle 2- Customer Value :

Market success depends on providing value to cus­tomers. This principle is central to the marketing job. Customer insight should drive design, implemen­tation of market offers, product/investment deci­sions, and performance evaluations. The firm develops, produces, delivers products/services, but customers perceive value only in the benefits these products/ services provide.

Customer value is a moving target. As the environ­ment evolves, customers accumulate experience; the needs and benefits they seek evolve also. World-class companies continuously invest in marketing research to probe deeply into customer needs, priorities, expectations, and experiences. They feed these results into the product development process to generate greater value for customers.

Firms that take their eye off the customer ball can get into serious trouble. Shoppers Stop, Aditya Birla Retail, Reliance Retail have closed many unprofitable stores in recent years.

Principle 3- Differential Advantage :

Closely related to the Principle of Customer Value; differential advantage lies at the heart of every successful market strategy —the firm should offer customers something they value, but cannot get elsewhere. Differential advantage is similar to competitive advantage, unique selling proposition, having an edge.

To implement this principle, the firm must develop well-designed market offers, based on the marketing-mix elements, and secure buy-in from other functions.

i. Competition:

Offering customer value is not enough. To avoid competitive parity, the firm must offer greater value than competitors. The firm must create/recreate differential advantage to beat com­petitors.

ii. Superiority:

Some differential advantages are better than others. Differential advantage based on propri­etary intellectual property, unique product design, product availability may be more sustainable than differential advantage based on communications.

A differential advantage based on an organizational process like parts delivery, qualified technicians may be even more sustainable.

iii. Erosion:

Competition will eventually erode even the apparently most sustainable differential advantage. Maintaining differential advantage is marketing’s most fundamental challenge; the search for differential advantage must be continuous.

iv. Cannibalization:

To stay ahead of competition, the firm must be willing to cannibalize its own offers. Many firms will not do so — in part because of strong political constituencies for the status quo; in part because profit margins may be lower. Such unwillingness to act runs the risk of missing oppor­tunities, passing market initiative to a competitor.

v. Differential Advantage and Difference:

A differ­ential advantage is not the same as a difference. Developing a different market offer may not be difficult. Differential advantage must create benefits/values customers recognize, and are willing to pay for.

Principle 4- Integration :

This principle has two dimensions:

i. Customer:

The firm must carefully integrate and coordinate all design and execution elements it offers customers. Poor advertising can ruin an excellent product; delayed promotional materials can doom product launch; improper pricing can cause havoc with sales forecasts.

The firm must carefully integrate/coordinate all internal activities. Different functions/depart­ments must work together; they must avoid squab­bles over priorities, turf wars, ambiguous messages by senior managers. Firms with an external orientation are more likely to achieve integration; employees, departments, businesses share a common purpose — serving cus­tomers. Sharing responsibility for designing, imple­menting market offers drives agreement on priorities and close/cooperative working relationships.

Essay on Marketing Topics – 7 (1900 Words)

Marketing refers to a social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and exchanging products and services of value freely with others. It is the sum-total of all the activities that facilitate flow of goods and services from producers to the ultimate consumers.

In simple words, marketing involves study and management of exchange relationships. It is used as a tool by business to create the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the customer.

Marketing is concerned with all the activities of a company which are associated with buying and selling of a good or a service. It involves activities that aim at making people aware of the company’s goods or services and making sure that these are available to be bought and availed respectively.

Marketers are involved in marketing various types of entities like goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organisations, information and ideas. Marketing is an ongoing communication exchange with customers in a way that educates, informs and builds a relationship over time.

It is the process by which a firm profitably translates customers’ needs into revenue. It also involves building a brand and convincing people that a particular brand is the best.

It aims at satisfying the needs and wants of the customers and thereby retaining them for the longest possible period of time. Marketing attracts consumers’ scarce resources, attention and disposable income to derive profitable revenues.

It is the process of getting a product or service from a company to its end-customers from product development through to the final sale and post purchase support.

Essay Topic # 1. Definition of Marketing:

Some Important Definitions of Marketing:

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. —American Marketing Association (AMA)

Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. If defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best, and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services. —Philip Kotler

Marketing is a management activity that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements efficiently and profitably. —Mark Gwilliam

Marketing is the management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. —Chartered Institute of Marketing

Marketing is the business process by which products are matched with the markets and through which transfers of ownership are affected. —F.E.Clark

Marketing is that phase of business activity through which the human wants are satisfied by the exchange of goods and services. — J.F.Pyle

Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others. — Philip Kotler

Essay Topic # 2. Nature of Marketing:

(i) Customer Focused – All marketing activities should be customer oriented. They should start with identifying the customer’s needs, followed by developing products, pricing it, promoting it and distributing it as per the customer’s requirements.

(ii) Integrated Process – Being an integrated process, marketing involves coordination of many activities with other business functions like production, personnel, financing, research and development.

(iii) Multi-Disciplinary – Marketing is multi-disciplinary as it has evolved out of commerce and has got its strength from law, psychology, sociology, mathematics and statistics. It is an art as well as a science.

(iv) Interaction with External Environment – It operates within the framework of external environment which comprises of economic, natural, social, legal, political environment etc.

(v) Mutually Beneficial Exchange – It means buyers get want-satisfying goods and sellers get value in exchange of their goods leading to mutual benefit to both the parties.

(vi) Based on System Approach – It is based on system approach as it requires intelligent coordination of four ‘P’s of marketing mix. These are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Essay Topic # 3. Importance of Marketing:

(i) It is the beating heart of a business organization – Being the revenue producing department, it is a very important function of management.

(ii) It facilitates creation of place, time and possession utility – As creating these utilities help a marketer to achieve success in the business.

(iii) It helps in improving the standard of living of the people – This is done by offering wide variety of goods and services to the people.

(iv) It generates employment – A large number of people are employed by marketers to carry out various functions of marketing.

(v) It leads to economic development of the nation – It mobilises untapped resources and facilitates full utilisation of production capacity and other assets and hence leads to economic development of the nation.

Essay Topic # 4. Modern Marketing:

The Present Day Marketing is Customer Driven:

Business must find out what the consumers want and then produce goods according to the needs of the consumers. What is offered for sale should be determined by the buyer rather than by the seller. Instead of trying to market (sell) what is easiest for us to make, we must find out much more about what the consumer is willing to buy.

Under consumer-oriented marketing it is highly essential to know what the consumers really want. This is possible only when information is collected from the consumers.

Marketing research and Marketing Information Systems are now-a-days full-fledged functions of marketing. All organisations accept that the marketing activities must start far ahead of production. The company must appreciate and understand the consumers’ strategic position as a determinant of the firm’s survival and growth.

This philosophy of marketing means that the entire marketing is designed to serve consumer needs. The marketing man is introduced at the beginning rather than at the end of the production cycle and marketing is integrated at each phase of the business.

Thus, Marketing, through its studies and research will determine for the engineer, designer and the manufacturing manager, what the consumer wants in a given product, what price he is willing to pay and where and when it will be wanted. The launch of the ‘Nano’, a small car for the common man of India at an affordable price is a glaring example of this statement, i.e., the present day marketing is customer driven.

Marketing Begins before Production and Continues after Sale:

Marketing is an organizational function which includes a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stake­holders.

By stating definition of marketing itself, it becomes clear that marketing also deals with the creation of a product. It is done by means of proactive marketing, i.e., focussing on customers’ latent needs. For this the process of Marketing Research is applied. These days the companies’ strategies have shifted from “make-and-sell” philosophy to “sense-and-respond” philosophy.

In order to identify the needs of customers various surveys are conducted, pilot studies are done. The respondents are not just prospective customers but also front line executives, since they know a lot about the needs of customers.

At each stage of new product development, marketing has a key role to play.

Marketing after sales – Making a new customer is costlier than retaining an old one. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the customers not only satisfied, but rather delighted. This can be done through customer relationship management, where marketers can offer to provide after sales-services, warranties, guarantees, product resale offers, discounts on next purchase etc.

Marketing Creates Value for Customers and Builds Profitable Customer Relationships and Captures Value from Customers in Return:

“Marketing creates value for customers and builds profitable customer relationships and captures value from customers in return.” This statement very aptly describes the essence of marketing in modern scenario. It is a two way process of creating value for customers by offering high quality products in exchange of a price which acts as value from the customers.

It is a mutual beneficial activity where focus is on building and maintaining long-term profitable customer relationships. Today’s successful companies are strongly customer focussed and heavily committed to marketing. They share passion for understanding and satisfying customers’ wants and make a sincere effort to provide solutions by coming out with innovative products.

For example – Procter & Gamble, one of the world’s largest and most respected marketing company creates value for customers by offering innovative products like Tide, Pantene, Gillette, etc. which are widely accepted by customers and in return Procter & Gamble gets rewarded with brand loyal customers.

Similarly, Philips is another company which is always striving to come out with novel solutions for existing problems and produces high quality innovative products like ‘Air Fryer’, ‘Electric Shaver’, etc. They too are rewarded by customers in return with strong loyalty and quick purchases of their products.

Modern Marketing is an Integrated Process of Identification, Assessment and Satisfaction of Human Wants:

The modern marketing concept enunciates that business is essentially a ‘need-satisfying process’ and that any business must be managed keeping the consumer and his needs as the main focus.

All goals of business including profit must be realised through consumer orientation, integrated management action and generation of consumer satisfaction. Matching products with the market implies determining the requirements of potential customers and designing products that satisfy these requirements.

Thus, modern marketing is the integrated process of identification, assessment and satisfaction of human wants. The focus is on the customer and his wants. It is the process of discovering and translating consumer wants into products and services and then in turn making it possible for more and more people to enjoy more and more of these products and services.

Concern for customers’ needs and wants increases the acceptability of the product. When a firm produces the product which meets the requirements of the customers, the need for promotion is reduced. It ensures continuous patronage of customers.

Unification of business activities leads to economy and efficiency in marketing operations. The systems approach to marketing facilitates a rational analysis of all marketing problems along with their effective solutions.

It helps the management to direct organisational effort towards the long-term and wider goals like stability and growth of the firm. Sustained interaction with customers becomes possible.

It is the management orientation that holds that the key task of the organisation is to determine the needs, wants and values of a target market and to adapt the organisation to deliver the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than its competitors.

Thus, modern marketing is an integrated process of identification, assessment and satisfaction of human wants.

Modern Marketing Concept is Applicable to All Business Organisations Irrespective of their Size, Nature or Functionality:

The adoption and use of modern marketing concepts have various benefits for any company irrespective of their size, nature or functionality.

Some of the benefits are listed below:

(i) Concern for customers’ needs and wants rather than itself product increases the acceptability of the product.

(ii) Marketing concept requires an integrated and coordinated approach to marketing. Hence all the business activities are focussed towards a single organisational goal.

(iii) Marketing concept is a system approach to marketing. It facilitates a rational analysis of all marketing problems along with their effective solution.

(iv) A business firm pursuing Marketing concept can respond effectively to the changes occurring in the marketing environment.

(v) Marketing concept has a strategic and philosophical value. It helps the management to direct organisational efforts towards long term and wider goals.

Related Articles:

• Essay on International Marketing
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Essay on Marketing: Top 9 Essays on Marketing

Essay on‘Marketing’. Find paragraphs, long and short term papers on ‘Marketing’ especially written for school and college students.

Essay on Marketing

Term Paper Contents:

• Essay on the Challenges and Opportunities of Marketing

Essay # 1. Introduction to Marketing:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Marketing is everywhere. Everything from presenting yourself for a job interview to selling your products includes marketing. Main objective of any company is to gain profits which can be achieved only through marketing of the products. Marketing enables the companies to create demand and earn profits. If these two aspects are not taken care of, then the company will not survive in the market.

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers, and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” – (American Marketing Association)

“Marketing is a social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” – (Philip Kotler)

Thus it can be safely said that a company reaches its customer through marketing and communicates to them about the products and services offered by the company.

ADVERTISEMENTS: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Essay # 2. Evolution of Marketing :

In earlier days, an organization was mainly concerned with production of goods. It used to believe on mass production and paid less or negligible attention on quality of the product and the customer’s demand.

After some time, the focus of organization shifted from production of the product to the sale of the product. The concept of marketing emerged gradually in 1970’s after the production and sales era. It took many years for organizations to realize that a customer is the key for making profits in the long run. The marketing concept is evolved through various stages.

These stages are explained below:

1. Production Era :

The production era began with the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century and continued till 1920s. Say’s law – Supply creates its own demand – was applicable in this era. The demand for products was more than the supply in the market; thus, it was a seller’s market. In the production era, the main aim of an organization was to manufacture products faster and at low prices. In this era, customers were concerned only about the availability of products and no importance was given to features and quality of products.

2. Sales Era :

The sales era came into existence in 1920s and continued till the mid of 1950s. This era was marked by the great depression of 1923. The depression proved that manufacturing products was not everything because the sale of the products was also important for organizations to earn profit.

Thus, the need for developing promotion and distribution strategies emerged to sell products. The organizations started advertising their products to increase their sales. Many organizations created specialized market research departments to collect and analyze the prevailing market data.

3. Marketing Era :

The sales era merely focused on selling the goods and ignored the consumers’ needs and demands. The year 1970 marked the advent of marketing era. In the marketing era, organizations realized the importance of customers and started designing the products as per customers’ needs.

Therefore, the marketing era led to the development of customer-centered activities over the production and selling activities. Organizations came up with different techniques, such as customer survey, to collect and analyze data for understanding the customer’s expectations, needs, and wants.

ADVERTISEMENTS: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Essay # 3. Approaches to the Study of Marketing:

The meaning of marketing is different to different people. In common parlance, marketing is the process of selling something at a market place. To a salesman it means selling whereas to an advertising manager it means advertising. To some it means the study of individual commodities and their movement in the market place, to some others marketing means the study of institutions and persons who move their products or study of the economic contributions.

Thus, there are different approaches to the study of marketing:

1. Commodity Approach:

The commodity approach focuses a specific commodity and includes the sources and conditions of supply, nature and extent of demand, the distribution channels used and the functions, such as buying, selling, financing, advertising storage etc. various agencies perform. Prof. Paul Mazur defined as “the delivery of a standard of living to society. Prof. Malcolm McNair expanded the definition to “the creation and delivery of a standard of living”.

2. Institutional Approach:

The institutional approach focuses on the study of various middlemen and facilitating agencies.

3. Functional Approach:

The functional approach considers different kinds of functions recognized for their repetitive occurrences and necessarily performed to consummate market transactions. Converse, Huegy and Mitchell define marketing as the “business of buying and selling and as including those business activities involved in the flow of goods and services between producers and consumers.” American Marketing Association, perhaps, gives more factual or descriptive definition. It defined marketing as the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user.

4. Managerial Approach:

The managerial approach concentrates on the decision making process involved in the performance of marketing functions at the level of a firm. Howard, Phelps and Westing and Lazo and Corbin are the pioneers of the managerial approach.

5. Societal Approach:

The societal approach consider the interactions between the various environmental factors (socio-logical, cultural, political, legal) and marketing decisions and their impact on the well- being of society. Kotler, Feldman and Gist, were the main proponents of the societal approach.

6. Systems Approach:

The systems’ approach is based on Von Bartalanffy’s general systems theory. He defined system as a “set of objects together with the relationships among them and their attributes”. This approach recognizes the inter-relations and inter-connections among the components of a marketing system in which products, services, money, and equipment and information flow from marketers to consumers that largely determine the survival and growth capacities of a firm.

7. Modern Concept:

The new managerial awareness and desire reflected in the consumer orientation for all all-out commitment to the market consideration and to connect all marketing operations to the consumer needs has given birth to a new operational concept. Felton views the marketing concept as “a corporate state of mind that insists on the integration and coordination of all marketing functions that, in turn, are welded with all other corporate functions, for the basic objective of producing maximum long-range corporate profits.

According to Kotler, the marketing concept is a customer orientation backed by integrated marketing aimed at generating customer satisfaction as the key to satisfying organizational goals. According to McNamara,” marketing concept is … a philosophy of business management, based upon a company- wide acceptance of the need for customer orientation, profit orientation, and recognition of the important role of marketing in communicating the needs of the market to all major corporate departments”.

Lazo and Cobin describe marketing concept as ” the recognition on the part of management that all business decisions of a firm must be made in the light of customer needs and wants; hence, that all marketing activities must be under one supervision and that all activities of a firm must be coordinated at the top, in the light of market requirements”. King has given one of the most comprehensive descriptions of the marketing concept. He defined it as, “a managerial philosophy concerned with the mobilization, utilization and control of total corporate effort for the purpose of helping consumers solve selected problems in ways compatible with planned enhancement of the profit position of the firm”.

These definitions suggest that marketing is only concerned with the movement of goods and services from the plant to the consumer. This is thus a production-oriented definition more appropriate for a sellers’ market and dangers in case of buyers’ market. In fact, marketing is related with the sophisticated strategy of attempting to offer what the consumer may want and at a profit.

ADVERTISEMENTS: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Essay  # 4. Objectives of Marketing:

According to Peter F. Drucker, “Marketing means such a perfect understanding of the customer that the product fits him totally and sells itself. Marketing would result in a customer who is ready to buy all that, what should be needed then is to make the product available.”

Organization’s marketing strategies are designed in tune with various marketing objectives.

The objectives of marketing aim at:

1. Creating demand for the products by identifying the needs and wants of customers. The consumers get familiar with the usage of products through different promotional programs, such as advertising and personal selling. This helps in creating demand for the products by the customers.

2. Increasing the market share of the organization. The marketing efforts, such as promotion, create the product awareness in the market. The product awareness helps in capturing the reasonable share in the market by organization.

3. Building the goodwill of the organization in the market. Every organization tries to earn reputation in the market by providing quality goods to the customers. It builds its goodwill by popularizing products supported by advertising, reasonable prices, and high quality.

4. Increasing profits and achieving long-term goals through customer satisfaction. All the marketing activities revolve around the customer. These activities fulfill the organization’s long-term goal of profitability, growth, and stability by satisfying the customer’s demands. All the departments, such as production, finance, human resource, and marketing, coordinate with each other to fulfill the customer’s expectations keeping the maximization of profit as the focus.

Essay # 5. Marketing Process:

Marketing Process —– The marketing process is one that invol­ves the following chain of business activities:

1. Identification and study of the desires, needs, and requirements of the^ consumers;

2. Testing the validity of the consumers’ reaction in respect of product features, price, distribution outlets, new product concepts, and new product introduction;

3. Matching the consumers’ needs with the firm’s offerings and capa­bilities;

4. Creating effective marketing communications and programmes with emphasis on lower price, mass distribution channels and mass advertising to reach numerous market segments so that the consumers know about the product’s availability; and

5. Establishment of resource allocation procedures among the various marketing components like sales promotion, advertisement, distribution, product design, etc. 

Outline of functions in the Marketing Process : In order to place the goods in the hands of the consumers, an integrated group of activities is involved in marketing. Marketing functions cover all those activi­ties which are required for the journey of goods from the producer to the consumer. Goods require some preparations, undergo many operations and pass several hands before they reach the final consumer.

In consideration of the above factors, Clark has divided the modem marketing process into three broad categories as under:

(i) Concentration

(ii) Dispersion

(iii) Equalisation.

These are explained below.

1. Concentration – In a marketing process, concentration is that business activity in which the goods flow from many manufacturers/producers toward a central point or market. If we think of international trade, we find that the customers of a particular corporation or firm world reputation are scattered in different countries and even located thousands of miles, away, and the products are transhipped to points accessible to than. Similar scene is found even in the case of national trade. With the development of trade and commerce, the efforts in the direction of concentration acti­vity have to place more stress on the functions like collection, storage, transportation and inventory of goods in the central markets, and processing of customer’s orders. In addition, the aspects of financing and risk-bearing are also to be taken into consideration.

In India, the concentration activity is undertaken by the Governments at the Central and State levels. Food example, The Food Corporation of India undertakes this activity in case of grains, rice, sugar, etc.

2. Dispersion – In a marketing process, dispersion is that busi­ness activity in which the goods flow from the central locations to the final consumers. The wholesalers and retailers play a great role in this activity. This activity involves many other supporting activities like classification, gradation, storage and transportation of goods. The func­tional aspects of finance and risk-bearing need important considerations.

In India, the agencies like The State Trading Corporation of India, The Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation of India, and The Food Corpora­tion of India undertake this dispersion or distribution activity in respect of certain specified goods. Sane large scale manufacturing companies have, of late, undertaken this activity as a part of their marketing activities.

3. Equalisation – In a marketing process, equalisation refers to the adjustment of supply to demand on the basis of tint, quality, and quantity. This process helps to maintain the state of equilibrium between the forces of demand and supply. The primary responsibility of a business unit towards the consumers and customers is to make available the right products of right qualities at the right tine, in right quantity, at the right place and at the right price. The equalisation activity can serve these objectives.

Essay # 6. Integrated Marketing Communication Process:

Marketers operate is a very dynamic environment characterised by changing customer needs and wants, severe competition, changing process technology, advancements in information technology, government regulations, etc. That is why, they are adopting Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC).

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) involves integration of company’s various communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message about the company and its products and brands. Most of the companies communicate with target customers by using promotion tools like advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing. Through each of these tools, some message is transmitted to the target customers. IMC calls for careful blending of these promotional tools to ensure effective communication.

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) requires developing a total marketing communication strategy that recognises that all of a firm’s marketing activities (not just promotion) communicate with its customers. Everything a marketer does sends a message to the target market.

The EMC approach is an improvement over the traditional approach of treating various promotional activities as totally separate. It helps to develop the most suitable and effective method to contact customers and other stakeholders.

Often different tools play different roles in attracting, informing and persuading target customers. These tools are carefully coordinated under IMC so that they provide the same clear and consistent information about the company and its products/brands.

IMC leads to a total marketing communication strategy aimed at building strong customer relationships by showing how the company and its products can help customers solve their problems. It ties together all of the company’s messages and images.

The company’s television and print advertisements have the same message, look, and feel as its e-mail and personal selling communications. And its public relations materials project the same image as its Website or social network presence.

Communication Process:

Definition of Communication:

The term ‘communication’ is derived from the Latin word ‘communis’ which means common. That means if a person communicates with another, he establishes a common group of understanding. According to Newman, Summer and Warren, “Communication is an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons”.

Communication does not mean merely sending or receiving message. It involves understanding also. It is, in fact, a bridge of meaning and understanding between two or more people. Thus, communication is a two- way process.

The salient features of communication are as follows:

(i) Communication involves at least two persons—one who sends the message and the second who receives the message.

(ii) Communication is a two-way traffic. The process of communication is not completed until the message has been understood by the receiver. Understanding is an essential part of communication, but it does not imply agreement.

(iii) The basic purpose of communication is to create an understanding in the mind of the receiver of information.

(iv) Communication may take several forms, e.g., order, instruction, report, suggestion grievance, observation, etc. The message may be conveyed through words spoken or written, or gestures.

Elements of Communication:

Communication is a process involving exchange of facts, viewpoints and ideas between persons placed in different positions in the organisation to achieve mutual understanding as shown in Fig. 11.5. The communication process starts when the sender or communicator has a message communicate to some other person known as receiver. It will be completed when the receiver gets the information and sends feedback to the communicator.  

The essential elements of communication are described below:

(i) Sender or Communicator:

The person who conveys the message is known as communicator or sender. By initiating the message, the communicator attempts to achieve understanding and change in the behaviour of the receiver. In case of marketing it is the marketer (sender) who starts the communication process.

(ii) Message:

It is the subject-matter of any communication. It may involve any fact, opinion or information. It must exist in the mind of the communicator if communication process is to be initiated. In marketing, the marketer’s message relates to product, price and place.

(iii) Encoding:

The sender of information organises his idea into a series of symbols (words, signs, etc.) which, he feels, will communicate to the intended receiver or receivers. This is called encoding of message. Communication may take place through physical gestures also.

(iv) Media or Communication Channel:

The communicator has to choose the channel for sending the information. Communication channels are the media through which the message passes. It may be either formal or informal. In marketing, media may be salespersons, advertisement and publicity.

(v) Receiver:

The person who receives the message is called receiver. The communication process is incomplete without the existence of receiver of the message. It is the receiver who receives and tries to understand the message. The receiver in case of marketing is the prospective or present customer.

(vi) Decoding:

After the appropriate channel or channels are selected, the message enters the decoding stage of the communication process. Decoding is done by the receiver. Once the message is received and examined, the stimulus is sent to the brain for interpreting, in order to assign some type of meaning to it. It is this processing stage that constitutes decoding. The receiver begins to interpret the symbols sent by the sender, translating the message to his own set of experiences in order to make the symbols meaningful.

(vii) Response:

Response refers to the set of reactions that the receiver has after being exposed to the message. In case of advertising, a response may mean developing a favourable attitude towards the product as a result of an advertising campaign. However, in many cases, measuring such responses is not easy.

(viii) Feedback:

Communication is completed when the communicator receives feedback information from the receiver. The feedback may reveal that the receiver has understood the message. It may also contain information about the action taken by the receiver on the basis of message sent by the communicator. Thus, feedback is the backbone of effective communication.

(ix) Noise:

Noise is a very common thing we observe in our day-to-day interaction with others. At times it affects adversely the effectiveness of communication. For example, if a person is talking over the phone to another and there is a noise around him, he will feel great difficulty in listening to the person at the other end of the phone. Even the noise can affect the voice of the sender of the message.

Hurdles or Difficulties in Marketing Communication:

There are four factors which might create hurdles or problems in communication between the marketer and the target customer.

These hurdles include noise, selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention as discussed below:

Noise is a sort of interfering sound in the communication process anywhere along the way from the sender to the receiver and vice versa. It can be sound of running bus, two persons talking close at hand or someone shouting around. Noise of any kind has the potential of creating disruption or barrier to effective communication. The sources of noise can be both internal and external. Noise within the office can be controlled, but it is very difficult to control the external noise.

Noise is one of the biggest obstacles in marketing communication. For example, a driver’s need to provide safety to the traffic sidetracks the role of billboards, banners, etc. during disturbed weather conditions —wind, dust storm, rain, etc. Similarly, too much advertisement exposure during the day of purchase of tyre for a car, would disturb the planned purchasing.

These constitute noise in the communication process. The level of noise may not allow a customer to receive the message as intended. The effectiveness of communication depends upon the level of congruity and compatibility between different elements of the communication.

(ii) Selective Attention:

A person may be exposed to hundreds or thousands of ads or brand communications in a day. Because a person cannot possibly attend to all of these, most stimuli will be screened out. This process is called selective attention. Because of this, the marketers have to work hard to attract consumer’s notice. Generally, people are more likely to notice stimuli that relate to a current need.

Thus, a person who is motivated to buy a car is most likely to notice car ads. The process of selective attention explains why advertisers make extra efforts to grab the audience’s attention through fear, music, or bold headlines.

(iii) Selective Distortion:

Selective distortion is the tendency to interpret information in a way that fit one’s perception. Consumers often distort information to be consistent with prior brand and product beliefs. Thus, the target audience will hear what fits into their belief systems.

As a result, receivers often add things to the message that are not there and do not notice other things that are there. The advertiser’s task is to strive for simplicity, clarity, interest and repetition to get the main points across.

(iv) Selective Retention:

People retain in their long-term memory only a small fraction of the messages that reach them. If the receiver’s initial attitude towards the brand is positive and he rehearses support arguments (that is, tells himself things such as the product is in fashion or that it is reasonably priced or that it delivers good value, etc.), the message is likely to be accepted and have high recall.

If the initial attitude towards the brand is negative and the person rehearses counter arguments (that is, tells himself that the product is highly overpriced or that the competing products offer more value to customers or that the brand is not doing well in the market, etc.) the message is likely to be rejected but to stay in long-term memory.

Thus, the advertiser’s task is two-fold here. He not only has to create an initial favourable attitude towards the brands but also through his ads communicate to the audience strong points about the brands so that the customers can rehearse the same and the brand is positively placed in the long-term memory of the customers.

Essay # 7. Role of Marketing in Economic Development :

In today’s era of globalization role of marketing is increasing to fulfill different needs and requirements of people. Due to increase in scale of production and expansions of markets, producers need support of marketing tools to distribute their goods and services to the real customer.

High competition in market and product diversification has increased the marketing activities like advertising, storage, sales promotion, salesmanship etc. Now high profits can be attained by high sales volume and good quality of products and services. Marketing has acquired an important place for the economic development of the whole country. It has also become a necessity for attaining the objective of social welfare and high quality of life.

The importance of marketing can be explained as under:

(a) Importance of Marketing to a Firm:

Marketing is considered to be the prime activity among all the business activities. Success of any business depends on success of marketing. Peter F. Drucker has rightly said that, “Marketing is the business.” Objective and goals of any organization can be achieved through efficient and effective marketing polices. The success of an enterprise depends to a large extent upon the success of its marketing activities.

The importance of marketing to the firm can be explained as under:

1. Marketing in Business Planning and Decision Making:

Marketing research is helpful in searching opportunities and potential in market. It is necessary for an organization to decide what can be sold before deciding that what can be produced. Unless and until these key decisions are taken, it is not practical to take the decisions regarding production, quality of product, type of product and quantity of production etc.

Marketing is very helpful in taking all such decisions therefore its plays an important role in business planning. Marketing provides valuable information regarding production policies, pricing policies, advertisement and sales promotion policies of competitors, so that a suitable policy may be formulated by the top management.

2. Increase in the Profits:

The main objective of every firm is to increase the profitability by successful operations of its activities. Maximization of profits can be possible only through the successful operations of its activities. Marketing department need the help of other departments as well for discharging its duties successfully, marketing department coordinate with other departments like finance, production, to fulfill the needs of customers and regular supply according to market demand.

3. Flow of Marketing Communication:

Integrated marketing communication makes it possible to flow marketing information to intermediaries, publics and customers. Marketing acts as a medium of communication between the society and the firm. Various information regarding trends, needs, attitudes, fashions, taste preferences etc., are collected by marketing department.

(b) Importance of Marketing to the Society:

1. To Uplift Standard of Living:

Ultimate objective of marketing is to produce goods and services for the society according to their needs and tastes at reasonable prices. Marketing discovers the needs and wants of the society, produces the goods and services according to their needs, creates demand for these goods and services encourages consumers to consume them and thus improves the standard of living of the society. By advertising utility and importance of products and services are communicated to the people.

2. To Decreases the Total Marketing Cost:

Next important responsibility of marketing is to control the cost of marketing. Distribution cost and production cost can be decreased by creation of high demand in market. Decrease in cost of production will have two impacts, firstly the high profitability of organization and secondly to increase in the market share of the firm.

3. Increase in the Employment Opportunities:

Marketing provides direct and indirect employment in society. Employment opportunities are directly related with the development of marketing. Successful operation of marketing activities requires the services of different enterprises and organizations such logistics, warehousing, transportation, retailing finance, etc.

4. In controlling Business Fluctuations:

Business fluctuations like recession and depression causes unemployment, and deflation. Marketing helps in protecting society against all these problems. Marketing helps in innovation and discovery of new markets for the goods, modifications and alterations in the quality of the product and development of alternative uses of the product. It reduces the cost of production and protects the business enterprise against the problem of recession.

5. Increase Per Capita Income:

Marketing operations create, maintain and increase the demand for goods and service. Marketing activities flow money from one part of economic system to other. By generation of new employment opportunities it helps to increases income of people.

(c) Importance of Marketing in Economic Development:

Marketing plays an important role in the development of a country. Most of developed countries like USA, Japan, and Germany are having strong marketing system, they are moving towards global marketing. Industrial growth and development need support of marketing, large scale of production requires new markets. In these countries, the production exceeds the demand it need marketing system to be much more effective so that the produced goods and services can be sold.

Marketing has a vital role to play in the development of an underdeveloped and developing economy. In developing economies the industrialization and urbanization is increasing at a faster rate and so the importance of marketing is also increasing as it is required for selling the produced goods and services. A rapid development of underdeveloped economy is possible only if the modern techniques of marketing are used in these countries marketing activities are increasing at a fast rate in developing countries.

Essay # 8. Importance of Marketing :

Role of Marketing in a Firm :

Efficient marketing management is a pre-requisite for the successful operation of any business enterprise. A business organisation is differentiated from other organisations by the fact that it produces and sells products.

The importance of marketing in modern business is discussed below:

Marketing is the beating heart of the business organisation. The chief executive of a business cannot plan, the production manager cannot produce, the purchase manager cannot purchase, and the financial controller cannot budget until the basic marketing decisions have been taken. Many departments in a business enterprise are essential for its growth, but marketing is still the sole revenue producing activity. Marketing function is rightly considered the most important function of management.

Marketing gives top priority to the needs of customers. Quality of goods, storage, display, advertisement, packaging, etc. are all directed towards the satisfaction of customer.

Marketing helps in the creation of place, time and possession utilities. Place utility is created by transporting the goods from the place of production to consumption centres. Time utility is created by storing the goods in warehouses until they are demanded by customers. Possession or ownership utility is created through sale of goods. The significance of marketing lies in the creation of these utilities to satisfy the needs of the customers and thereby earn profit. It a firm is able to satisfy its customers, it will have better chances of survival and growth even in the fast changing environment.

Marketing generates revenue for the business firm. Marketing is an important activity these days, particularly in the competitive economies. Marketing generates revenue for the business enterprises. No firm can survive in the long-run unless it is able to market its products. In fact, marketing has become the nerve-centre of all human activities.

Role of Marketing in the Economy :

Marketing plays a significant role in the growth and development of an economy. It acts as a catalyst in the economic development of a country by ensuring better utilisation of the scarce resources of the nation. Since a business firm generates revenues and earns profits by its marketing efforts, it will engage in better utilisation of resources of the nation to earn higher profits.

Marketing determines the needs of the customers and sets out the pattern of production of goods and services necessary to satisfy their needs. Marketing also helps to explore the export markets.

Marketing helps in improving the standards of living of people. It does so by offering a wide variety of goods and services with freedom of choice. Marketing treats the customer as the king around whom all business activities revolve. Besides product development, pricing, promotion, and physical distribution of products are carried out to satisfy the customer.

Marketing generates employment for people. A large number of people are employed by modern business houses to carry out the functions of marketing. Marketing also gives an impetus to further employment facilities. In order to ensure that the finished product reaches the customer, it passes through wholesalers and retailers and in order to perform numerous jobs, many people are employed.

On the whole, marketing leads to economic development of a nation. It increases the national income by bringing about rise in consumption, production and investment. It mobilises unknown and untapped resources and also facilitates full utilisation of production capacity and other assets. It helps in the integration of industry, agriculture and other sectors of the economy. It also contributes to the development of entrepreneurial and managerial talent in the country.

Essay # 9. Challenges and Opportunities of Marketing:

A large number of changes have taken place in the recent years which have influenced the field of marketing as discussed below:

1. Globalisation :

The term ‘globalisation’ means the process of integration of the world economy into one huge market through the removal of all trade barriers or restrictions among countries. In India, restrictions on imports and exports and inflow and outflow of capital and technology have been lifted by the Central Government so that Indian business may become globally competitive.

The broad features of globalisation are as follows:

(i) Free flow of goods and services across national frontiers through removal or reduction of trade barriers.

(ii) Free flow of capital across nations.

(iii) Free flow of technology across nations.

(iv) Free movement of human resources across nations.

(v) Global mechanism for the settlement of economic disputes.

The aim of globalisation is to look upon the world as a ‘global village’ which would allow free flow of goods, capital, technology and labour between different countries. Because of globalisation, there has been a tremendous impact on marketing strategies of business firms, particularly engaged in international marketing. They have to design product, price, promotion, place or distribution strategies to meet the challenges of global marketing.

2. Information Technology (IT) :

Information technology has enabled real-time access and sharing of digital information through digital networks, information database, and computer graphics. It has brought about many changes in the business landscape.

Electronic technology has facilitated purchase and sale of goods and services electronically. E-Commerce can be used not only to market product, but also to build better customer relationships. Thus, marketers are facing new challenges as regards booking of e-orders, e-deliveries of intangible products, receiving e-payments and Customer Relation Management (CRM).

3. Increased Leisure Time :

As a result of shorter working week, vacations, and labour-saving devices available for domestic use, most wage-earners now enjoy more leisure time. So there has grown a market for articles used for recreational purposes to enjoy the leisure time. In the developing countries also, cinema shows, holiday trips, sports and games have come into importance.

4. Changing Role of Women :

Throughout the world more and more women are taking up jobs and have gained economic independence to a large extent. They accept even challenging jobs. They also exert greater influence on buying decisions of their families. It may happen that husband buys a commodity according to the decision of the wife. This has necessitated special study of the buying motives of the working women.

5. Demand for Services :

Over the years, consumers’ demand for services is on the rise as in case of tour and travel, educational, medical, repair and maintenance services, etc. Due to growing complexity, business firms also need expert services like accounting, taxation, advertising, customer care, etc.

6. Increased Competition :

Business has become more competitive these days and this has brought about many changes in the field of marketing, e.g., product differentiation, competitive pricing, competitive advertising, customer support services, etc.

7. Social Emphasis :

Marketing is now concerned with the long-term health and happiness of consumers and well-being of society. Marketers in are getting involved in improving the quality of life of consumers and preventing or minimising the evil effects of environmental pollution on the society by practising green marketing.

Emerging Concepts in Marketing :

1. Social Marketing:

It refers to the design, implementation, and control of programs seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause, or practice among a target group. For instance, a recent publicity campaign for prohibition of smoking in Delhi explained the place where one can and can’t smoke in Delhi.

2. Relationship Marketing:

It is the process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing strong value-laden relationships with customers and other stakeholders. For example, British Airways offers special lounges with showers at many airports for frequent flyers. Thus, providing special benefits to valuable the customers to strengthen bonds will go a long way in building relationships.

To achieve relationship marketing, a marketer has to keep in touch with the regular customers, identify most loyal customers to provide additional services to them, design special recognition and reward schemes, and use them for building long-term relationships.

3. Direct Marketing:

It means marketing through various advertising media that interact directly with consumers, generally calling for the consumer to make a direct response. Direct marketing includes Catalogue Selling, Mail Order, Tele computing, Electronic Marketing, Selling, and TV Shopping.

4. Service Marketing:

It is applying the concepts, tools, and techniques, of marketing to services. Service is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Services may be financial, insurance, transportation, banking, savings, retailing, educational or utilities.

5. Non-Business Marketing:

Marketing is applied not only to business firms but also to non-business organisations. Voluntary institutions are adopting principles and practices of marketing to promote their ideologies, schemes and programs among the target groups.

Related Articles:

• Essay on Marketing: Top 5 Essays | Marketing Management
• Essay on Sales Promotion: Top 4 Essays | Functions | Marketing Management
• Marketing Features: 4 Major Features of Marketing – Explained!
• Difference between Marketing and Selling

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Moller Skycar’s Marketing Mix: Promotion

Promotion for mollar sky cars, promotional strategy for moller skycar.

Promotion is an important component of the marketing strategy, specifically, so far it relates to the marketing mix. The marketing mix consists of 4 Ps and promotion is a very vital element, which can be considered second to the product. The elements of the promotion include many types of promotions like advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and publicity or public relations, and last but not the least, personal selling. The promotional strategy has to be changed at each stage in the product life cycle for better sales of the product. Promotional strategy is a core strategy that has to be implemented in the market with utmost care and awareness. The promotional strategy of a product or a service has to be constructed when the idea of the product or service is finalized. In other words, a promotional strategy for a product should not be thought out immediately after the product or service is created. Besides, the audience or prospective customers should be made aware that such a product or service is on the verge of launching and then after the product launch more promotion should be carried out stating that the product has been launched. Similarly, promotions at each stage of the product should be done appropriately so that the audience is aware of the product’s market presence and performance. Methods should be incorporated for measuring advertising or other promotional effectiveness. Promotional strategies should be different for each of the target markets in order to be more customers oriented. A new product is an entity in the market which is the result of either an invention or an innovation and is something that has extra additional features in comparison to the present products or services. “The purpose of promotion is both to communicate with buyers and to influence them. Effective promotion requires an understanding of the process of persuasion and how this process is affected by environmental factors” (Onkvisit & Shaw, 2004, p.414).

There are different promotional strategies available like that of Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public Relations, Personal Selling, and Direct Marketing. All the modes of promotional strategies have both positive and negative aspects. So when a promotional strategy is chosen it should be such one that has minimum negative points and more positive points. Only then will a promotional strategy be fully useful for a product or a service. The advantage of advertising is advertising allows “complete control over the final message” (Haeberle, 2008, p.139).

Since Moller Sky car is a part of the automobile group, the most effective type of promotional strategy will be highly colorful and bright advertisements. When the production of Moller Skycar starts, right at that stage, the promotional strategies for the product should be designed and incorporated into their marketing system. Since the product will be first launched in California, the first target market should be California itself because for any product it has to first create its niche in its home country for better establishment. The Company can, at the beginning of the product creation i.e. in mid of 2012 itself, publish brochures and notices regarding such a product being manufactured, its extra abilities in comparison to present products, etc. This can be done through public relations activities like short but yet substantial advertisements on the TV Web and newspaper advertisements.

An effective advertising campaign in newspapers at the time of production could be pictured in making with high gloss lamination so that the images themselves are attractive and people are aware and wait anxiously for more information about the product. Similarly, advertisements on TVs and the Web needs to have such visual and sound effects that it immediately attracts people and so they become aware of Sky cars. At this time in advertisements, more writing is not required or writing can simply be ignored and it can simply be graphics with headings like Sky cars and with a small caption like

For Eg: IT IS DIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFERENTTTTT !!!!!!!!!!!!!“

M400 Skycar” (Skycar specs, 2009, para.1).

At this stage, the main aim of the promotion is just to create an illusion in the minds of the local population and to initiate a simple talk among the viewers of the advertisement like “Hey! What is this?”

This advertisement can be shown on TV every day with two rounds which should especially be in prime time such as during news hours or during popular TV programs so that it stays in the minds of the audience. Similarly, in newspapers, it could be a front-page advertisement with a matte finish during weekends and during one day of the week which is considered as a day very popular for business events. Also, one feature of these advertisements can be released in business magazines especially business magazines, of the automobile sector like Autocar.

When the production is running smoothly then a little change in advertisements can be incorporated and it could be such that it creates an understanding in the minds of at least half of the Californian population that this product is slightly differentiated from the competitors’ products. The main idea of promotion at this stage should be to establish only an idea that this product is different from the similar products in the present market.

At this stage, the advertisement should contain very attractive properties of the Sky car like its extra dimensions, speed, mileage, etc. Besides, the promotions should be exhaustive so that the product’s properties are known to the local population. The new advertisement clubbed with the earlier advertisement is sure to make an uproar in the minds of the viewers even though there might be an urge in potential customers to know more. For Eg: “Extra Dimensions, Top Speed, Full Mileage” – We r coming to be a part of u !!!! When the product is ready, the main purpose of the promotional strategy is to increase demand for the product in comparison to its competitors, and for this, the product has to be launched in the market. The launch of the product can be done in a full-fledged form with more and more commercial advertisements and posters and banners inviting people to the event. The product launch itself can be advertised through public relations campaigns. At this time, the Advertisements could be more elaborate stating its special features like its military advantages, the high technology used in the manufacturing of the product, its cost and time effective performances, etc, and can also be criticizing a bit its competitors but care should be taken to not disturb the rights and ethics of its competitors.

The main promotional strategy at this point is to increase demand. At the initial point sales promotion techniques can be used like gifts and special prizes for participants. The next step is to incorporate other effective means of promotional strategy for the company is to establish a very tactful direct sales team so that when customers walk indirectly they are taken utmost care of. Direct sales are very important for stabilizing sales in California for Moller Sky cars.

From the above discussions, it transpires that the promotional strategy is divided into stages. Here in the case of Mollar Sky cars, we have incorporated two promotional strategies before the launch of the product and the rest after the launch of the product so that the product stages in the minds of the viewers for a long time.

Haeberle, W. C. (2008). How a business works: What every businessperson, citizen, customer, and employee needs to know about business . Author House, p.139.

Onkvisit, S. & Shaw, J. J. (2004). International marketing: Analysis and strategy . Routledge, p.414.

Skycar specs . (2009). Mollar International. Web.

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Marketing and Promotion is The Key to a Successful Business – IELTS Writing Task 2

Updated On Feb 10, 2023

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Marketing and promotion is the key to a successful business. To what extent do you agree?

Opinion essay

Introduction

Sentence 1&2: Introduction of the topic

Sentence 3:  I agree with the notion of the essay.

Body Paragraph

Paragraph 1: Campaigns promoting the product offered by the company will let customers know of its benefits.

Paragraph 1:  Businesses that try to reach out to customers often ask them to complete surveys. These surveys inform them about the purchaser’s needs, which will help the organization improve.

Summarize your thoughts and express your final opinion.

Sample Essay

Business management is not an easy task. Excellent marketing strategies are among the many that must be implemented . I totally agree with this view as a successful business relies heavily on marketing and promotion.

To begin with, marketing and promotion connect a company and its customers. This is the link that connects customer demand with the company’s solution. Campaigns promoting the product offered by the company will let customers know of its benefits. Marketers can use clever tactics to tempt people into buying their products. This results in a gradual growth of the business. It is difficult to gain people’s attention and make sales when enterprises do not have enough marketing and promotion. Due to this, we see an increasing number of advertisements via various mediums today.

Apart from that, when firms advertise their products, they make customers aware of the speciality of the products. It is essential to make the customers understand the product’s features, services, price, and other attributes that differentiate it from its competitors. This would be impossible without proper marketing. In addition, when businesses run numerous promotions, they ask customers to fill out surveys. These surveys inform them more about the purchaser’s requirements. Therefore, this will benefit the firm by making them more efficient and also by increasing sales.

Some might argue that apart from proper marketing, the quality of the product is more significant for the success of the business. But it can only happen if people are aware of the product and are prepared to test its quality. This can only be accomplished through marketing and promotion.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that marketing and promotional offers can prove invaluable to a company’s success in terms of expanding the customer base and increasing profits.

Meaning: A plan that you use in order to achieve something Eg: “You should have a good strategy to win this game.”

• Implemented

Meaning: To start using a plan, system, etc. Eg: it will take twenty hours to implement the code changes in the software.

Meaning: to need support, help., etc. Eg: The old lady relies on her son for financial support.

•   Campaigns

Meaning: a plan to do a number of things in order to achieve a special aim Eg: He launched an advertising campaign for winning the elections

Meaning: the particular method you use to achieve something Eg: We must decide our tactics for the next meeting.

Meaning: to try to persuade or attract somebody to do something Eg: “Don’t tempt thieves by leaving valuables clearly visible”

Meaning: happening slowly or over a long period of time; not sudden Eg: There was a gradual increase in the GDP of the country.

•  Attributes

Meaning: a quality of somebody/something; a feature Eg: She has a charming attribute.

• Accomplished

Meaning: highly skilled at something Eg: He is an accomplished actor.

•  customer base

Meaning: group of customers who repeatedly purchase the goods or services of a business Eg: Brand image and a large customer base are strengths of a business.

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Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Reasons behind the popularity of smm, advantages and disadvantages of smm to entrepreneurs, how smm helps pepsi gain more customer insight, two businesses that have used smm to their advantage, future expectations of sm on marketing.

The business realm across the world has been undergoing enormous transformations and one of the foremost changes in the entrepreneurship sector is the emergence of technological advancements (Evans & McKee, 2010).

Modern technologies have been integral in supporting the growth and development of rapturous networking activities and Social Media (SM) has presently become one of the main issues in the business paradigm. Social media platforms, which comprise the actively consumed websites that are enhanced by the advent of the net 2.0 technologies, have been significantly influential in major business undertakings.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a modern marketing technique that uses social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Google+ among other social networks (Neti, 2011). The use of social media marketing strategies is increasingly becoming viral across the world, thus becoming renowned as viral marketing. This study examines the overall impact of SMM on modern entrepreneurship.

Marketing as a business strategy entails activities such as advertisement, announcement, promotion, and these marketing components require effective communication. As one of the best contemporary innovations, social networks are exceedingly becoming the focal point of human social interaction, thus presenting unique entrepreneurial experiences (Evans & McKee, 2010).

Social media is one of the modern communication tools that have recently proven to be powerful in influencing both informal and formal communication, where millions of potential consumers interact freely. Having the ability to engage consumers in an active interaction where sharing of information is effectual through powerful technological devices, social media is gradually receiving attention from businesses of all sizes.

Social media platforms currently tend to associate with flexibility, effectiveness, convenience, and efficiency in business communication where investors are capable of sharing important information with their stakeholders, who include potential business clients (Bailyn, 2012).

By using social networks in business communication, flexibility is achievable via devices that support these platforms, which mainly include accessible technological devices like mobile phones, computers, and tablets (Pradiptarini, 2011). Users access these social networks at their convenient time, hence communication consistency.

Businesspersons consider social networks as convenient communication and information-sharing tools for they involve instant feedback ability where messages reach users expediently. Most recently, researchers have found a great correlation between the use of social networks in businesses with enhanced sales output following increased connection between consumers and entrepreneurs (Pradiptarini, 2011).

Communities, which form the most excellent composure of active consumers of products and services of businesses, are the leading cause of rapid growth of social media marketing.

Since social media involves engaging in diverse online social networking communities, it potentially has substantial influence on attracting enormous consumer population (Pradiptarini, 2011). More specific, as all modern businesses in the markets are targeting the youthful consumers, vibrant youths in social networks offer business boom.

Social media marketing emerged with numerous experiences and brought several opportunities as well as challenges that entrepreneurs have encountered. Being a hotly business contested subject, social networks seem to have presented some potential benefits that have encouraged businesses in their performance (Evans & McKee, 2010).

Social media platforms are essential facets of exposing the business to the competitive markets and reaching out potential consumers. The foremost advantage of social networks in businesses is the enhancement of communication, information exchange, and knowledge sharing.

This aspect of social networks enhances a mutual connection between consumers and entrepreneurs that subsequently boosts the productivity of the businesses. During promotion, advertising, and announcement of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are progressively becoming essential communication tools (Bailyn, 2012).

These social media networks play a pivotal role in boosting marketing campaigns for organization’s products and services, which subsequently influences positive business outcomes. Modern consumers currently rely more on social networks to access relevant information concerning new products and services offered by companies.

Marketing also involves procedures of unveiling and introducing new products to the market in a process commonly known as product launching. Research considers social media as a great platform useful in creating the accurate market buzz before launching a new product or service (Vries et al., 2012).

As consumers are currently demanding exemplary services, social media enhances marketing campaigns, which are becoming useful in strengthening product and service information within the markets.

Consumers tend to concentrate and associate with famous market products and since social media are assisting in communication of information pertaining to product and service, they help in building brand reputation.

Companies using social networks are capable of attracting public attention more easily and marketing effectiveness of these networks becomes eminent when business performance enhances through increased market share and revenue performance (Vries et al., 2012).

Using powerful videos, photographs, audio streaming, widgets, and other social media features, companies create and share quality content to communicate their services and products to the business community.

Notwithstanding its ability to transform almost every aspect of modern business activity through sophisticated technologies, social media has also received criticism from entrepreneurs (Pradiptarini, 2011). The foremost challenge that comes with the modern technologies and the social media networks is the presence of insecurity within these platforms.

Entrepreneurs have little potency to control the growing cyberspace and Internet security, possess little control over the entire conservation, and can barely manipulate the pessimistic perceptions of clients expressed in public social websites (Vries et al., 2012). There is a high possibility of getting negative feedback from ill-motivated clients due to bad opinions from competitors expressed on social media.

The vibrant cyber activities that engage genuine civilians and illegitimate users across networks with little control strategies placed by the organizations, places companies at high risk of encountering fraud (Bailyn, 2012).

Tracing the route of negative conversation and fraudulent activities is a challenge and as many companies continually engage in social media marketing, the fears about losing billions of finances in fraud cases remain unsettled.

Since its inception as a potential marketing tool, social media marketing has been the most anticipated practice among several small, medium, and even multinational corporations. As Neti (2011) postulates, “Adult beverage companies, exotic automobile manufacturers, pastry shops have been using social media tool” (p.8).

Alongside other major multinational companies, PepsiCo is one of the world-leading international companies famous for producing carbonated Pepsi soft drinks, and currently, its Pepsi Refresh project has provided a new breakthrough in its marketing strategies.

Pepsi Refresh project is responsible for turning individuals’ dreams into realities by producing and researching about marketing possibilities of PepsiCo and funding amazing ideas that support the notion of Pepsi as a soft drink that refreshes the world.

Being responsible for managing resources of the billion dollars worth corporation PepsiCo, Pepsi Refresh project has recently associated with social media marketing as one of its major strategy to make Pepsi a world refreshing drink.

In marketing their major business, going to the market, unveiling, and launching new brands from the company, Pepsi undertook an online consumer-based study in which it concluded that social media was essential in creating and sharing ideas.

Results on the investigations from the 2009 Pepsi Optimism Project about the means of communication of the research impelled PepsiCo to develop off and online forums where social innovation could help in marketing the Pepsi Refresh Project. According to Neti (2011), “Pepsi Coke, Nokia and many of the top brands have effectively used social media for achieving their business objectives” (p.8).

During the process of establishing and informing people about the Pepsi Refresh project, PepsiCo consistently used social media tactics to access multitudes of people.

PepsiCo used Facebook, Twitter, and refresheverything.com to market its idea, and this viral marketing through text messages and video clips captured a huge public attention successfully. In using social media in marketing the Pepsi Refresh Project, the company spent less money.

Through refresheverthing.com, Pepsi became the most publicly renowned Super Bowl brands. In its impact, approximately 37% of Americans familiarized with Pepsi compared to 12% for the same marketing program. Over eighteen million exceptional consumer-oriented visitors engaged in activities of the refresheverthing.com website.

In online brand rating and voting, more than 12,000 projects received consumer votes, with approximately 2 million online comments from 76 million votes cast.

Benefiting from the newly developed refresheverthing.com website, brand attributes increased exponentially with products receiving favorability, trust, and attention among other important public interests. Online communities and consumers’ fan pages concerning the Pepsi products started developing following the initial influence.

Demonstrated by a continuum of studies, investigations on the marketing rivalry among the major U.S corporations have continuously identified Pepsi and Coke as the biggest rivalries. However, most American companies, including those in the fortune 500, have already integrated social media marketing. Apart from the beverage companies, exotic automobile manufacturers are using social media marketing.

Retail companies as well as other major corporations have noticed the positive impact of social media in marketing. Microsoft and Wal-Mart are two major fortune 500 companies that have demonstrated exemplary approach towards social media marketing, with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn being the most used social websites in marketing their products.

The two companies have established social media as one of the most effectual communication and interaction tool where millions of active potential consumers made of optimistic youthful population meet freely. Pradiptarini (2011) acknowledges a substantial influence of these social networks in enhancing marketing strategies, boosting sales revenues, and subsequently influencing financial growth.

As social media gives marketers opportunities to communicate to the public and more specifically, the vibrant peers, consumers and potential customers, both Coke and Pepsi have been lively in promoting their brands through major social networks renowned in the US.

Microsoft and Wal-Mart have been using social media marketing as a strategy in building brand awareness, launching new products from the company, and generating leads. As Vries et al. (2012) affirm, “Companies can place brand posts (containing videos, messages, quizzes, information, and other material) on these brand fan pages” (p.83).

Wal-Mart and Microsoft have engaged their potential consumers in advertisements, promotional activities, and other marketing activities that reveal product information to the consumers.

Regarding their involvement in brands and companies on the social media, Pradiptarini (2011), noticed that approximately 71.14% of the Facebook users proved to be fans of brands produced by the two companies. In addition, 38.63% of their Twitter fans and followers, followed brands advertised by the two companies.

People have awakened towards a contemporary business world that requires present and forthcoming technologies to improve their overall effectiveness and social media is the probable marketing tool whose influence may never cease (Vries et al., 2012). The world is currently experiencing a shortage of youth employment and social interactions have been one of the leisure activities that keep youths engaged.

With the emergence of powerful technological devices like tablets, upgraded laptops, and the Smartphone technologies, social media continue to be a trendy business and social tool. The number of Facebook accounts, Twitter users, and other social media users following new brands and products online is rapidly increasing (Neti, 2011).

Coupled with unique and captivating experiences that social networks provide to the active youths and businesspersons, online working opportunities like brand advertising, social media may continue influencing social and business life for millions of decades to come (Pradiptarini, 2011).

Social media is an all-inclusive advancing technology where all age groups have their portion and as the present population gets weary, new generating still admire these experiences.

Notwithstanding its great potential in influencing millions of users, emerging issues in the cybercrime and related cyberspace insecurity may continue posing significant challenges to the social network users. Internet hacking activities, cyberbullying, and several other unethical practices associated with social networking are subjecting users to frustrations (Evans & McKee, 2010).

Since few policies and rules are currently present in curbing cyberspace insecurity and users are becoming used to social networks unaware of the mushrooming dangers, use of social media may face drastic collapse in the occurrence of a significant concern (Evans & McKee, 2010). Organizations themselves do not have governance and processes for controlling the use of social media within and outside the company.

Both Facebook and Twitter have reported criminal challenges and even in their privacy terms, abuse-related concerns are not addressed appropriately (Bailyn, 2012). In other websites, cases pertaining to social media crime remain undermined, go unreported, or even lack enough evidence to capture and prosecute the offenders.

The US is among the nations experiencing a rapid influx of social networking activities with this rise in social media networking, providing companies and consumers a gateway to enhanced communication. Advanced beverage companies, exotic automobile companies, and even pastry shops have recognized social media as a powerful marketing tool that connects companies with consumers.

Pepsi, Coca Cola, and Nokia technologies are among the American multinational companies that have embraced the use of social media in marketing and successfully witnessed impressive results. They have reported increased brand positive reputation, increased product attention, enhanced customer relationship, and boosted sales turnover.

Although most likely to continue facing high risks related to cybercrime, social media marketing may continue influencing marketing strategies of companies as present and maybe future generations will still continue anticipating for these experiences.

Bailyn, E. (2012). Outsmarting Social Media: Profiting in the Age of Friendship Marketing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Evans, D., & McKee, J. (2010). Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement . New York, NY: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Neti, S. (2011). Social media and its role in marketing. International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business Systems, 1 (2), 1-15.

Pradiptarini, C. (2011). Social Media Marketing: Measuring Its Effectiveness and Identifying the Target Market. Journal of Undergraduate Research, 14, 1-11.

Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. (2012). Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26 (1), 83–91.

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IvyPanda. (2019, April 21). Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-marketing-smm-essay/

"Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique." IvyPanda , 21 Apr. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-marketing-smm-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique'. 21 April.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique." April 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-marketing-smm-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique." April 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-marketing-smm-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Social Media Marketing (SMM) as Networking Technique." April 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-media-marketing-smm-essay/.

Jacqueline Stewart Exits Academy Museum as Org Makes Key Promotions in Marketing, Finance and Archive Divisions

Amy Homma has been named director and president of LA-based museum.

By Matt Donnelly

Matt Donnelly

Senior Film Writer

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has undergone an executive reorganization that includes several promotions and departures within the governing body that hands out the Oscars. Jacqueline Stewart is out as Academy Museum director and Amy Homma has been named to succeed her, while chief communications officer Jennifer Davidson was promoted and additional changes were announced in the Academy’s revenue and archival departments.

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Meanwhile, Stewart will return to the University of Chicago to resume her scholarship, writing and teaching. One of the world’s foremost scholars and public educators on cinema, she was honored just as the museum opened in 2021 as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Her immense contributions to the Academy Museum are lasting, including making new galleries bilingual, initiating the museum’s first strategic planning process, and the opening of exhibitions including “Shifting Perspectives: Vertical Cinema” and “Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971.” Davidson, widely known within the industry thanks to her role as AMPAS CCO, has been named chief marketing and communications officer. As of June 1, she will oversee marketing and audience development, communications, digital/social and creative brand strategy for all arms of the Academy, including the Academy Foundation, Academy Museum and the Oscars. She previously served as EVP at Babygrande PR and as VP of media relations at Sony Pictures Television, overseeing the studio’s domestic publicity for all series, pilots and awards campaign strategy.

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