The Nature of Marketing Environment - Coursework Example

INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING By Location Introduction to marketing In view of the dynamic nature of the marketing environment, to what extent do you consider consumers to be, in practice, central to marketing activities? Introduction The answer to the question “what is marketing?” is not changeless. There are several definitions of marketing. Marketing is mainly defined as the management process that is responsible for anticipating, identifying, and satisfying the needs of consumers in a profitable way. Considering this definition, marketing starts even before development of goods and services. It also indicates that marketing involves identifying all the unsatisfied wants of customers and finding a way to fulfil them. Another definition of marketing is “a managerial and social process in which groups and individuals get what they want through production and exchanging goods and services with others” (Kotler et al. 2005, p. 4). The main idea behind this definition is “the core of all marketing activities is satisfying consumers, therefore, marketing is a continuous process as environment and consumer demands are constantly changing. Product should adapt to changes in demand. Marketing can also be defined as “attainment of corporate goals by satisfying the needs of customers more than competitors do (Jobber 2010, p. 5). This indicates that marketing includes understanding the needs of customers and tailor the goods and services than the competitors. The above definitions of marketing are not even certain. Therefore, marketing definitely means a challenge for businesses to adjust to the changing the marketing environment based on the positioning of the consumers. However, there is need of companies to find means of adjusting to the changing environment in order to be able to grow much stronger. Therefore, it is essential for them to comprehensively understand the changing marketing environment nature. The body of this paper discusses the changing marketing environment and its impacts to marketing activities, relationship between consumer and marketing, impacts of consumers on design of marketing strategies, and important of marketing environment and consumers to marketing activities. The nature of marketing environment Marketing environment is made up of forces and actors outside marketing who affect the ability of marketing management to develop successful relationship with its consumers (Kotler 2009, p. 14). Marketing environment is divided into two parts; micro and macro environment. Ever-changing nature of the marketing environment and its impacts on marketing activities The dynamic marketing and its impacts on the activities of marketing will be discussed by exploring the two elements of the marketing environment; micro and macro environment. Micro environment Customers- customer markets include international markets, government market, business market, consumer markets, and reseller market. A customer can be a household or an organization purchasing goods and services for their own use or for resale for profit. Suppliers-suppliers are individuals or firms that provide raw materials or resources required by a company and competitors to manufacture goods and services. Companies require labor, equipment, and utilities for production and deliverance of products to customers. Therefore, any event that affects the activities of a producer can also affect the satisfaction of customers. Marketing intermediaries- This refers to the other firms that give support to the company enabling it to distribute, sell, and promote goods to consumers. Such firms include financial intermediaries, service agencies, and distribution firms. These firms give a company financial support to operate, distribute, market, and advertise products. Publics- These are groups that have potential and actual interest in the company’s ability to attain its goals and objectives. Examples of “publics” include consumer organizations, banks, community organizations, board of directors, and newspapers. Company- Micro-environment stands for a company’s internal environment. Each internal section of a company has impact on its marketing decision. For instance, the accounting department approves the financial aspects of budgets and plans of marketing. Macro-environment Demography- Refers to the evaluation of populations of human beings in terms of location, size, density, occupation, sex, age, and race. Demography helps marketers to divide the human population into segments to ease decision making when tailoring marketing plans to attract the entire demographic. Economic environment- It refers to factors that affect the power of consumer buying as well as sending patterns. Economic environment involves industrialized and subsistence economies. These two are essential to marketers because they have different spending pattern and wealth distribution. Natural environment- natural resources used as inputs or affected by activities carried out during marketing. The ability of many companies to manufacture goods is becoming hard because of raw material scarcity. Technological environment- Refer to factors that influence, creating of new technologies, resulting two new products and new market opportunities. Technology includes things like automobiles and credit cards. New technologies create new forms of product use and new markets and therefore, companies need to focus on how to improve their technologies. Political environment- This include pressure groups, laws, and government agencies that have influence on individuals and organizations. Marketers should therefore, understand these limitations in order to avoid negative sanctions and perception of the public. Cultural environment- These are forces and institutions that have effects on the basic values of a society, its behaviors and perceptions preferences. Marketers should focus on their marketing campaigns to reflect them to the values of the target market. The main role and impacts of consumers on formulation of marketing goals As it is indicated in the marketing definition that states that there is need for marketers to understand the demands, wants, and needs of customers and satisfy all their needs. In other words, customers are the centre of marketing and its aim is meeting all their needs, demands, and wants. Customer is the key element of marketing and without customers, marketing cannot survive. Therefore, firms should give customers the first priority when choosing marketing strategies. There are essential questions that guide marketers in order to make appropriate marketing strategies. What is going to happen and why? How should a certain strategy be used? Who carries out certain activity? Where will the activities happen? When should various activities occur? For companies respond to these questions, they must use a certain marketing strategy known as the marketing mix. This is a set of manageable marketing tools that companies use to respond to the target market (Kotler et al. 2005, p. 44). When firms are marketing their goods, they should create an appropriate mix of 4Ps which are; product, promotion, price, and place. They should ensure that they offer the right products at the suitable price using the best promotion at the right place. Companies should try their best in order to satisfy the demands, needs, and wants of customers. Importance of marketing environment and consumers to marketing activities As analyzed above, businesses give customers the first priority and aims at satisfying all their demands, needs, and wants. A company cannot survive without customers. Therefore, companies should base all their marketing strategies around customers and consider the 4Ps. Marketing environment, on the other hand, is also essential for firms since it covers many elements that a business should keep in touch with. However, these elements keeps on changing very often and therefore, it is difficult for business grasp all of them very fixed. What they need to do is just adapting them (Businesscasestudies.co.uk. 2014, p. 56). In addition, some of the marketing environment’s elements look like they are not so necessary for small firm. Furthermore, some of the elements are also irrelevant to some big businesses. Therefore, both customers and marketing environment are important to marketing activities. However, customers are the most essential compared to marketing environment. For instance, firms select a convenient selling location like high street or internet for online shoppers. Therefore, this proves that customers are more important to marketing activities than marketing environment. However, marketing environment is also important to marketing activities. Consumers determine whether a certain marketing strategy is appropriate or not, but if the environment is the leading factor there will be occurrence of many variations. For example, there are very many new technologies being launched daily (Nordmeyer 2014, p. 47). This causes suffering to the goods and services of a company. Therefore, in order to overcome such problems, companies should ensure that they implement flexible strategies (Iyamabo&Otubanjo 2012, p. 36). Conclusion In conclusion, everything nowadays in the marketing is changing a faster rate, for instance, technologies. Thus, companies face a big challenge trying to cope with the changing environment. Therefore, for companies to prosper in the current competitive market, they should fully understand the dynamic nature of today’s marketing environment. Additionally, companies should give consumers the first priority when it comes to choosing marketing strategies. Companies should do their best to offer the right products at the suitable price using the best promotion at the right place. Companies should try their best in order to satisfy the demands, needs, and wants of customers. Lastly, although marketing environment has some advantages such as enabling companies to increase their marketing opportunities, customers play the most essential role in marketing activities. This is because the success of any marketing strategy is based on the consumers’ response. Marketing environment is disadvantageous in that companies should use flexible strategies for them to stay successful in the changing environment. Therefore, consumers stand out as being the main factor for marketing activities. Bibliography Boundless. 2014, The Dynamic Environment - Boundless Open Textbook. [Online] Available : https://www.boundless.com/marketing/an-overview-of-marketing/introduction-to-marketing/the-dynamic-environment/ [Accessed: 26 Feb 2015]. Businesscasestudies.co.uk. 2014, Creating strategies that meet customer needs (the marketing mix) Marketing mix business studies and business english | The Times 100. [Online] Available at: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/business-theory/marketing/creating-strategies-that-meet-customer-needs-the-marketing-mix.html#axzz2wQtqdKuf [Accessed: 26 Feb 2015]. Iyamabo, J., &Otubanjo, O 2012, A Three-Component Definition of Strategic Marketing,International Journal of Marketing Studies, 5 (1), 16-33. Kotler, P, Armstrong, B, Saunders, Y & Wong 2008, Principles of Marketing. 5th ed. London: Financial Times. Nordmeyer, B 2014, What Is Microenvironment in Marketing? [Online] Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/microenvironment-marketing-22920.html [Accessed: 26 Feb 2015]. Read More