Marketing as the Most Important Aspect of Every Business - Essay Example

Integrating Marketing Communications Introduction Marketing is the core function or the backbone of any business organization. The failure of marketing department may result in the failure of the organization even if all other divisions of the organization function well. Without proper techniques, marketing functions cannot be executed effectively. Customers determine the success or failure of a product or service which demands that the marketing strategies must be customer focussed. But customers are different from country to country, region to region, religion to religion etc. In other words they are different culturally, socially, economically, politically and geographically and the marketing strategies cannot be unique everywhere even if the same product or service is being marketed. Marketing is a science which needs lot of analysis and researches to arrive at conclusions. It is not possible to market a product everywhere using the same marketing strategies because of the difference in market everywhere. “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” (Definition of Marketing). Communication is a vital function of every marketing technique. If proper communication does not occur between the marketer and the customer, it is difficult to achieve results. In order to effectively communicate with the customers, the marketers need to identify the nature of the market, size of the market, characteristics of the customers etc. Based on the above knowledge, marketers need to integrate the communication strategies with the customers. This paper briefly explains the need of integrated marketing communications in order to market a product effectively. Nature of marketing and its role within business (Marketing Mix, 2009) “Marketing has a marketing mix that is made of price, place, promotion, product (known as the four Ps), that includes people, processes and physical evidence, when marketing services (known as the seven Ps)” (Marketing Teacher, 2009). Price of the product or the service is an important factor in the marketing process. Nobody will purchase a product if the product has a substitute with less price. The marketers while deciding the price of their product should consider the price of the competing products in the market also before fixing it. For example, there are lots of mobile phones in the market at present. Consumers will usually compare the features against the price of each product before they purchase it. “Pricing decisions should take into account profit margin and the probable pricing response of competitors” (Quick MBA, 2007) The place decisions should account for distribution channels, market coverage, inventory management, warehousing, order processing, transportation, reverse logistics etc (Net MBA, 2007) Place is another consideration in the marketing process. Rolls Royce or Ferrari cars are labeled as some of the expensive car brands in the world. Only fools will explore markets for such cars in poor countries like Somalia or Ethiopia. On the other hand, same cars may move well in developing or developed countries like, America, China or India. Promotion is another important criterion which can affect the success and failures of a product in the market. Even poor quality products may excel in the market if the right promotion strategies were implemented whereas even better quality products may fail in the market in the absence of effective sales promotion activities. Promotion activities with the help of advertising using different medias and celebrities will help the marketing process immensely. Product is the most decisive factor in the marketing process. Product should have adequate features to compete with the competitors in the market. In the absence of better quality, no products can survive for a longer period in the market. People, processes and physical evidence are the other three domains which can affect the marketing process which are dealt in detail in the last section (LESCANT model of cultural variables) of this paper. Personal Selling, Public Relations, Direct Marketing, Trade Fairs and Exhibitions, Advertising , Sponsorship, Packaging, Merchandising , E-Marketing etc are some of the integrated marketing communication mix used by marketers at present (Marketing Teacher, 2009). Personal selling and direct selling make use of the oral abilities of the marketer whereas other marketing mixes are intended to make indirect influence upon the consumers. The attractive Advertising, merchandising and Packaging can influence the consumers positively. Trade fairs, exhibitions, e-marketing etc can create brand awareness which will boost the marketing efforts. Marketing within business organisations (B2B marketing) Marketing within business organizations is often referred as Business to Business (B2B). B2B is the business that sells products or provides services to other businesses (B2B, 2009). “Before starting a B2B marketing program, it’s vital to conduct thorough and accurate data analysis and build an accurate profile of best prospective customers, then to choose the channels that best reach those prospects” (B2BMarketingSmarts, n. d). Same marketing channels cannot be used everywhere because of the differences in the parameters of B2B marketing in different organizations. For example, most of the organizations may have their own policies and regulations for their functioning. For example, some governmental organizations need at least three quotations from different suppliers before finalizing a deal. On the other hand private organizations may have different criteria for finalizing a purchasing decision. The B2B marketer should have better idea about these differences in the functioning of the organizations in order to formulate effective marketing strategies. Many people believe that the current marketing strategies with the help of the marketing mixes mentioned above are not working properly at present especially because of the global financial crisis. Marketers fail to emphasize the customer requirements because of their over confidence about power of the traditional marketing mixes mentioned above. In a changing market, the customer behavior or the tastes are also changing because of the advancements in technology and science. Marketers need to customize and update their strategies periodically in order prolong their success in the market. Ways for communicating more effectively as an individual It is not possible for an individual to communicate effectively if he doesn’t know much about the opposite party. Effective communication occurs only when both the parties have a mutual understanding and awareness about each other. Former professor of Eastern Michigan University, David A. Victor has defined seven cultural variables for effective communication between two parties. These variables are known as LESCANT model of cultural variables which are Language, Environment, Social organization, Contexting, Authority, Nonverbal behaviour, and Temporal conception (Victor, 2009) LESCANT model of cultural variables Language is one of the core entities for effective communication especially for international marketing. When two parties communicate each other, both of them should have the awareness in a common language in order to exchange the views and opinions between them. For a marketing executive, fluency in the communication language is essential for convincing the opposite party. The views and suggestions of the marketer and the consumer in a marketing process can be conveyed properly if both the parties don’t have a language barrier. Both the parties must understand clearly what others are trying to communicate or convince for getting the maximum out of the deal. Communication often reflects the level of confidence a person have in his abilities. So in order to communicate properly with the other party the marketer or a marketing executive should have better awareness about the language of the consumer. A marketer cannot force the consumer to use the language of the marketer. He should try to communicate using the language of the consumer in order to succeed in his marketing efforts. For example, it is not possible for a Chinese marketing guy to convince the American customers using the Chinese language. He should learn the English and use English as the language for communication whenever he communicates with the American or UK customers. Environment is the second variable in a communication process as per the LESCANT model. As mentioned in the above example, if a Chinese marketing guy tries to market a product in America, he should study the American environment first. It is difficult to get two markets with same environment especially in different countries. The social, economical, cultural, political, communal and legal aspects will be different for different markets and the marketer should study this difference for effective communication with the customer. “Whenever two parties negotiate, the entire process occurs under two umbrella contexts, environmental and immediate” (Phatak & Habib, 1996) The working culture, environment population size, technology, economy and natural resources etc will be different in different markets and even same products cannot be marketed in different markets using the same marketing strategy because of the differences in markets at different regions. The marketer should evaluate these differences before formulating his communicating strategies with the customers. Social organizations can also play a vital role in the communication between the marketer and the market. Most of the social organizations are culturally oriented and may have some regional peculiarities. For example, in some areas, the environmentalists may be more active whereas in some other areas, they may not be that much active. The marketer should realize this difference in attitudes of the social organizations in different regions in order to formulate effective communication strategy with the market or the society. Contexting or the level of knowledge possessed by two parties can also play a vital role in the communication process. “Communication can be seen as being high or low in contexting” (Victor, 2009). For example, it is difficult for a person to communicate effectively with another person if the first person possesses less knowledge compared to the second person. So in order to communicate properly with the customers, the marketer should be higher contexted person with respect to the consumer. If the consumer develops doubts about the marketer because of the marketer’s lack of knowledge about the product or service, he will not be convinced. In order to convince the customer, the marketer should arrange his arguments logically and hierarchically which is possible only if the marketer have better knowledge about the product or the service. Authority is the fifth variable in LESCANT model. The view of authority in a given society affects communication in the business environment significantly (Victor, 2009) Authority and power are perceived as the two sides of the same coin. Communication without authority may not yield results. For example, in our society we can so many people who talks meaningless things continuously. Most of the listeners won’t bother about the content of their talks because of the less authority by which they present it. On the other hand, people will always listen to others if they have belief in the abilities of the speaker. Many people have a false belief that it is not possible to communicate effectively in the absence of a language. They conveniently forget that even dumb persons communicate effectively with others using nonverbal means. Some experts believe that the amount of nonverbal communication is more compared to the verbal communication in a communication process. “Much of nonverbal communication may be broken down into six areas: dress; kinesics, or body language; oculesics, or eye contact; haptics, or touching behaviour; proxemics, or the use of body space; and paralanguage” (Victor, 2009). Our gestures, facial expressions and body language can communicate so many things to the people to whom we are dealing with. Temporal conception is the understanding of time. The concept of time may be different for different people. Some people give more value to the time concepts whereas some others may not give much importance to the time concepts. The concept of time can be classified into two categories; Monochronic time (M-time) and Polychronic time (P-time) (Victor, 2009). M-time is nothing but doing one thing at a time while P-time means doing several things at the same time. The awareness about the time concepts of the opposite party will help the communicator to succeed in his communication efforts with the opposite party. Conclusions Marketing is the most complex and important aspect of every business units. The failure of the marketing strategies may even force the entrepreneur to close down his business. Marketing strategies should address the marketing mixes like, product, promotion, price, place etc. At the same time the marketers should realize that market undergoes changes periodically and the customer requirements need to be given more emphasize than the marketing mixes. Effective communication between the marketer and the customer is essential for the success of every marketing effort and for that purpose; the marketer should address the differences in the market and the customers in different regions. References 1. B2B, (2009), Retrieved on 16 December 2009 from http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/b2b/ 2. B2BMarketingSmarts, (n. d), Are your B2B marketing messages boring?, 16 December 2009 from http://b2bmarketingsmarts.com/?p=552 3. Definition of Marketing (n. d), Retrieved on 16 December 2009 from http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/DefinitionofMarketing.aspx  4. Marketing Teacher, (2009), Introduction to Marketing Communications, Retrieved on 16 December 2009 from http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_marketing_communications.htm 5. Marketing Mix, (2009), , Retrieved on 16 December, 2009 from http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_marketing_mix.htm 6. Net MBA, (2007), The marketing mix, Retrieved on 16 December, 2009 http://www.netmba.com/marketing/mix/ 7. Phatak Arvind V. , Habib Mohammed M. (1996), The Dynamics of International Business Negotiations, Retrieved on 16 December, 2009 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n3_v39/ai_18348264 8. Quick MBA, (2007), Marketing, Retrieved on 16 December, 2009 from http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/mix/ 9. Victor David A. (2009) Cross-Cultural/International Communication Retrieved on 16 December, 2009 from http://www.enotes.com/biz-encyclopedia/cross-cultural- international-communication Read More