Marketing happened to be the most difficult course in my Business Administration undergraduate program. Although, it wasn’t due to the material covered but because I had the privilege of taking the tenured professor who started our marketing concentration. Even though we were overwhelmed with 3 times the workload of my mom’s marketing mba course, it was worth learning from a legendary professor.
We began the course understanding the evolution of marketing throughout the past century and a half. Macro Marketing is believed today to be a series of activities that facilitate transactions involving promotions and distribution. These activities provide satisfaction in the form of utility of what customer’s want in a desirable form. Although, Micro Marketing is activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating the customer’s needs. Well throughout the past, merchants had to adapt their strategy so their products continued to meet customer’s needs. Between 1869-1930’s, companies assumed a Production Orientation. There wasn’t much competition so those who were wealthy enough to produce practically help monopolies within their towns in their given trade. Between 1930-1950, companies maintained a Sales Orientation when competition began to rise. Companies had to sell their products which began the integration of marketing concepts. Since the 1950’s however, companies adapted towards a Marketing Orientation. Companies began trying to carry out the marketing concept, and Theodore Levitt came up with the concept of “Marketing Imagination” that focused on satisfying the customer at a profit which more closely resembles our definition of Macro and Micro Marketing.
The Marketing Orientation today, means to attempt to carry out the Marketing Concept. The Marketing Concept includes three related concepts of Customer Orientation, Profitable Sales Volume, and Organizational Structure. Customer Orientation is made up of Relationship Marketing and the Societal Marketing Concept. Relationship Marketing is basically fulfilling the customer’s needs and wants after the initial transaction to develop loyal customers. The Societal Marketing Concept refers to the breadth of long term relation with the 6 main stakeholders and long term horizon. Companies inherently have a hexagonal contract to satisfy their customers, investors, supply chain, employees, society and environment. A company should also strive for long term horizon which refers to the ultimate goal of a firm to be to achieve immortality rather than chasing short term profits. That being said, the second idea of the Marketing Concept is achieving profitable sales volume to satisfy those 6 main stakeholders. Last but not least, the last idea of the Marketing Concept is abiding by the Organizational Structure of separating the powers of Finance, Marketing and Production.
Management in a company needs to practice carrying out the Marketing Orientation and they can do so by the Marketing Systems Approach. The three elements of the Marketing System is the External Macro-environment, Target Market, and Marketing Mix. The first step of the Marketing System is understanding the Demographics, Economics, Social Culture, Political Law, Technology, and Competition that inherently influences operations for the company’s Marketing Orientation. Understanding these elements of the Macro-environment will narrow down the Target Market of the Company’s products and/or services. The Target Market is mainly made up the consumer and institutional market and a company can target either one or both markets. These markets however should be narrowed down to subcategories within each market, such as 18-25 year old female consumers. Once the Target Market is discovered, the Marketer should prescribe a Marketing Mix between the 4 P’s of Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. A company should know the targeted Price for specific Products and how they should go about Promoting the product in the right Place to reach the Target Market.
As I stated in my Corporate Finance series, I’m going to be closing out the year with a Marketing series. This series will be the longest running Business series yet, but I will likely take breaks in between throughout the rest of the series to make room for other content.
