Key Role of Marketer - Term Paper Example

It has been said that a key role of marketer is to act as a champion to the organisation. Discuss. The globalisation of world has changed the mindset of customers, who today have different tastes, preferences, attitudes, beliefs, behaviours, lifestyles and living standards. Indeed, the technological developments have enabled the free flow of information, interaction and communication over remote distances. This not only benefits marketers who utilise new marketing communication channels, but also the consumers who make the most of new media to enhance their awareness, information and know-how of existing and new products in the marketplace. This paper will provide arguments on a relatively newer statement that marketers should become customer champions so that they could establish a loyal customer base and could strengthen their relationships with potential and actual buyers of Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C) products. The researcher will also highlight the importance of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to argue the key role of marketer as customer champion rather simply sales / advertising agents or personnel. The paper first throws light over the importance of marketing followed by discussion of arguments regarding the above mentioned statement. The researcher will then conclude this paper by providing a summary of findings and key discussions throughout the paper. Marketing is about creating value for customers in short and long run, which later triggers purchase responses and generate revenues for organisations. For instance, marketing is a process through which a good or service is advertised and offered in a distinctive / unique / differentiated manner to entice a maximum pool of potential buyers towards any particular product. It is worthwhile to mention the fact that marketers play the most important role in any business organisation because they formulate and implement ways of selling to establish a loyal customer base. Hence, the more competent, adaptable / flexible, creative, visionary, open- and broadminded and extrovert a marketer is, the greater the probability that he / she would prepare excellent product mix, formulate excellent marketing / advertising strategies and tempt maximum customers towards a particular good or service. It should be clarified that a marketing campaign is reckoned to be successful when the sales generated from such initiatives exceed the costs incurred during formulation and implementation process. In simple words, the success of marketing campaigns is directly related with sales increment and monetary gains. Hence, the role of a marketer is to ensure the attainment of financial objectives and long – term value creation for company (Kumar, 2004, pp. 4 – 8). It is worthwhile to pinpoint that Customer Championship refers to knowledge about customers, such as their tastes / preferences, consumption patterns, living standards, income level / purchasing power, behaviours, attitudes, norms, societal values and taboos. Without any doubt, a customer champion is aware of market demand besides changes in fashion and future trends because he / she works closely with customers / buyers and becomes specialised in this area. Indeed, a customer champion knows the art of building friendly and cordial relationships with customers because of regular / frequent meetings and discussions. For instance, he or she also provides free / paid consultation and advice to potential buyers who are hesitant in making certain purchase decisions due to lack of knowledge and / or past experience (Customer Champion Article, 2010). Therefore, it is justified to argue that marketers should also play the role of ‘customer champions’ so that they could use marketing strategies coupled with specialised customer knowledge to facilitate organisations (in general) in offering want – satisfying goods and services at affordable / competitive prices. It should be pointed out that business marketers conduct extensive Marketing Research (which includes interviews with customers, suppliers, distribution channel members and business partners, consumer surveys, focus groups, observations and experiments) to obtain pertinent information regarding sales potential, competitors, value creation, economic, political, socio-cultural, environmental, technological and legal factors etc. Nevertheless, the purpose of this research is nothing but to develop a bundle or portfolio of products that would meet consumer preferences and influence their buying behaviours / product acquisitions. By becoming customer champions, marketers could put themselves in the place of customers and critically evaluate / analyse the four major types of values, such as functional, symbolic / expressive, experimental / hedonic and cost / sacrifice, that a product provides or generates for buyers. In addition, the marketers could obtain an insight over the perceived benefits and costs of acquiring and using a specific brand / product to a customer (Hulbert, 2010, slide 15 - 16). Therefore, the researcher would like to argue that marketers could gain a near-to-accurate understanding / insight about what and why consumers actually demand in different circumstances and what factors influence or impact their buying behaviour. This, of course, may enable marketers in determining the actual value, analysing the scope of different products in the market as well as forecasting sales / profitability in monetary terms (Berger et al, 2002, p. 40 - 42). Nonetheless, an important aspect of marketing is to define value proposition (by marketers), which refers to promises / benefits a good or service may deliver to purchasers. In fact, it is worth mentioning that when marketers become customer champions, they have better insights about consumer preferences; hence, they could develop better products and communicate value proposition in an effective manner. It should be clarified that if a product fails to deliver what it promises and communicates through a value proposition, then consumers take negative impression and switch to available substitutes in the marketplace (Homburg & Jensen, 2007, pp. 127 - 130). For instance, it should also be emphasised that marketers of an organisation prefer the retention of existing customers instead of making new customers because the returning customers have already enjoyed the product / service quality and benefits. Quite unequivocally, these old customers have sufficient information about company’s market offerings, prices, brand power, brand symbol / status and selling points (where the products are available). Marketers, therefore, maintain electronic records (bio data and preferred products in specific sizes) of existing customers and frequently inform them about innovations, differentiations, updates and new arrivals because they do not have to invest greater time on convincing and persuading these valued old clients. In contrast, the new customers are yet to use and benefit from a company’s product portfolio; hence, they do not have real exposure and first – time experience of market offerings, which is why it becomes difficult and costly for marketers to entice new clients. It should, therefore, be argued that marketer as a customer champion could easily strengthen business relationships with existing / returning clients and could facilitate his / her respective firm in long – term customer retention (Johnson, 2010). Berger et al (2002, p. 40) has highlighted the importance of ‘asset value or customer lifetime value’ that refers to customer’s inclination to remain connected with a particular product / brand / organisation for a longer time period. Indeed, it should be emphasised that the globalisation of world has enhanced business competition as more and more firms, groups and individuals have been entering the business arena due to availability of communication and transportation networks. Nevertheless, customers are the actual beneficiaries because firms tend to offer innovated / differentiated / better quality products at reasonable prices to ensure their survival, growth and sustainable development. Quite unequivocally, customers (today) have greater variety and freedom of choice at their disposal; therefore, it could be argued that the power has been shifting from producers to consumers. For instance, the producers / suppliers / sellers have also changed their strategy as they now focus on ‘sense and respond’ (to offer what is demanded and desired) strategy instead of old-fashioned / traditionally used ‘produce and sell’ (to offer what could be easily produced and marketed) approach. This is mainly because of the fact the customers constantly seek for premium quality products and disregard what is not according to their choice and need. Hence, it is justified to argue that being customer champions, marketers could easily conduct near-to-accurate needs assessment as well as could identify what media should be utilised for publicity and enhancing market reach / size (Saini et al, 2008, pp. 2 – 6). For example, customer champions are aware of the fact that the best media for targeting teenagers and young adults’ market segments are internet websites, social networking and digital communities (You Tube, Face Book and Twitter), weblogs, micro blogs etc. The reason behind it is that customers from these aforementioned segments spend greater time on new media in comparison to traditional media (electronic, print and radio). Nonetheless, the brand loyalty has reduced in comparison to past because cutthroat competition among enterprises has led to bombardment of products in the marketplace, thereby increasing consumers’ bargaining power (Wood et al, 2009, pp. 2 – 8). It is worth mentioning that the external business environment has become extremely complex, uncertain, unclear and unpredictable therefore, the fittest could easily survive because of its extensive resources, established brand recognition, prestige and market reputation that provides the firm competitive edge over rivals. Nonetheless, the business firms never flourish if their sales decrease or become stagnant. Unequivocally, the increment in sales is directly related with performance of marketers because these personnel have direct contacts with distribution channel members and customers (or end-users). Hence, in order to become fittest, a company depends heavily upon performance of its marketing personnel who facilitate a firm in offering differentiated and innovated products to obtain a clear and distinctive image in the minds of customers. Marketers, as customer champions, could help organisation thriving, even, in an uncertain and unstructured business environment. For instance, customer champions could also help organisation’s survival during recessionary period. In a nut shell, the customers of today have greater bargaining power unlike customers of past because of free flow of information and greater communication among people worldwide. Hence, the customers not only use new media to enhance awareness about existing or new products in the marketplace, but also share / convey their experiences about use of any specific product. There is dire need that marketers should also act as customer champions to the organisation because it would enable them to maintain / retain relationships with existing clients as well as enable to bring new customers through referrals from existing customer base. Moreover, they could direct companies in using ‘sense and respond’ approach through production and sale of want-satisfying goods and service; thereby resulting in revenue generation and maximisation of shareholders’ wealth. References Berger, Paul, Ruth Bolton and Douglas Bowman (2002). Marketing Actions and the Value of Customer Assets. Journal of Service Research, Volume 5, No. 1, pp. 39-54 Johnson, Branwell (2010). Marketers are consumer champions, says Ad Association chief. The Marketing Week [Online] Available at http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/industry/industry-bodies/marketers-are-consumer-champions-says-ad-association-chief/3017371.article Homburg, Christian & Ove Jensen (2007). The Thought Worlds of Marketing and Sales:Which Differences Make a Difference? Journal of Marketing, Vol. 71, pp. 124–142 Hulbert, Bev (2010). Value-Driven Strategic Marketing. University of Southampton, Power Point Presentation Kumar, Nirmalya (2004). Marketing as Strategy. Harvard Business School, pp. 1-14 Saini, Amit, Rajdeep Grewal and Jean Johnson (2008). Driving Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Performance: The Role of Knowledge Stores and Technology Assimilation. The Pennsylvania State University, pp. 1-37 [Online] Available at http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/Content%20Partner%20Documents/ISBM/Driving%20Customer%20Relationship%20Management%20%28CRM%29%20Performance.pdf Wood, Matthew, Julie Fowlie, Peter Watt and Heather Wills (2009).Social Marketing Through Emotional Connections: "Myth Busting" in a London Borough. ANZMAC, pp.1-8 Customer Champion Article (2010). What is a Customer Champion and why do we need them? Customer Champions [Online] Available at http://www.customerchampions.co.uk/knowledge-employee-2.php Read More