For any business to grow and thrive, it needs to be well-established in the local economy. Market advertising can be one of the most cost-effective ways of reaching out to potential customers. It is also one of the most important components of establishing a strong company identity. Marketing refers to the act by which an organization undertakes so as to identify its target audience, create strong bonds with them, create value for the customer in terms of products or services so as to extract value from him in exchange for payment. This value is known as the Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI).
Marketing is based on the concept of creating a favorable climate for sales by communicating with customers. Marketing thus involves communication with both the customer and the market. In today’s globalised economy, markets are globalised and customers are globalised. Thus, effective marketing requires a global perspective. Also, organizations are increasingly sourcing their requirements from all around the globe and integrating these needs into a single marketing concept known as coordinated marketing.
Coordinated marketing includes activities that cross borders; e.g., web marketing, search engine marketing, electronic selling, media marketing, advertising and promotion, events and promotions. The term ‘scalped marketing’ is used to represent a sales concept that involves selling at two different phases prior selling and after selling. The goal of coordinated selling is to provide maximum benefit to the organization by optimizing two discrete marketing processes:
Marketing myopia refers to the narrow focus on a single product concept. For example, marketers might only consider products that will solve a particular crime. If this limited view of crime prevention were to be sustained over a period of time, it could be detrimental to the overall effectiveness of crime prevention programs because fewer products would meet the need to address the underlying problem.
When a marketing concept is adopted and used, marketers must evaluate whether it is still relevant in light of changing consumer preferences and tastes. Marketing myopia can lead to an ineffective allocation of resources. Marketers should also look at the cost/benefit trade offs associated with marketing techniques. This means that they should identify the marginal cost of adopting a new marketing concept vs. the savings that they would achieve by not using the concept.
Another challenge in applying marketing concepts is the creation of a comprehensive marketing management framework. Most organizations have a marketing management framework (or a series of marketing concepts) that they apply in their efforts to improve customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and customer service. Although all of these concepts may be well intentioned, they often fail to mesh well with each other. Organizations that develop and fine-tune their entire framework for the purposes of applying marketing management principles may be able to leverage the collective power of the various marketing concepts to create more productive and efficient efforts.
Developing and fine-tuning a complete coordinated marketing concept that targets the key factors that contribute to satisfying consumers is necessary if organizations are to maximize their potential to earn larger profits. Marketing concepts should integrate both the basic purpose of attracting customers and the methods by which they do so. Customers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by a number of external forces, including product features and benefits, perceived value, price, and advertising messages. Marketers should take note that a customer’s buying decision may not be influenced by any or all of these factors. Therefore, a comprehensive marketing concept should take into account not only the known factors that influence consumers’ buying decisions, but also the unknown drivers of demand. For instance, when conducting a study to determine which marketing concept will yield the greatest profits, marketers should take into consideration the factors that impact the level of demand.
A fourth challenge to properly applying a marketing concept is the absence of an effective execution strategy. Marketers need to understand the benefits of their chosen concept and plan how to implement it in real life. They also need to evaluate whether their chosen concept is workable in relation to existing market conditions. Marketers must keep in mind that effective marketing strategies are rarely a one-time event; rather, they are typically refined based on the actual experiences of the target market. In order to identify problems with a marketing concept, marketers should conduct real-world research using a variety of measures, including customer reaction, market shares, and sales figures.