Why is marketing needed in the modern world? What is marketing in simple words: types and functions, goals and objectives, strategies and plan. Marketing service tasks
More recently, industrial enterprises focused mainly on operational marketing: sales, promotion, prices. Today, the role of strategic marketing is growing: studying the macro- and microenvironment, developing long-term forecasts, choosing strategic product areas, target segments, etc.
In any case, marketing for most electrical enterprises in Russia is a daily practice from which they expect maximum returns, but do not always receive it.
What can be done to ensure that the work of marketers brings the greatest benefit to the company, in what direction to search for the optimal marketing model - Oksana Ulyanovna Yuldasheva, an expert in the field of industrial marketing, devotes her article to these problems.
Oksana Yuldasheva, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Marketing, St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Economics, expert consultant at the Higher Economic School, St. Petersburg
Features of marketing organization are related to the specifics of the market situation in Russia and the prospects for its development.
This article does not present direct recommendations for companies, but only some of the author’s generalized conclusions. Each specific company, its product and market creates such a variety of solutions in the field of organizing marketing activities that it would be foolish to try to frame them within the framework of several typical models.
Nevertheless, the theses presented in the article will help business managers determine the goals of the marketing service in the existing conditions, and perhaps slightly adjust its work.
Why does a company need marketing?
The role of marketing in an organization is completely determined by the attitude of management towards it. If there is no awareness of the need for marketing for a business, then the structure will never work successfully, even if the best specialists in the country are gathered in it.
Management's attitude towards marketing is determined by two important factors:
- general qualifications of the manager (there are managers who do not fully understand what marketing means for their enterprise, what its functions are, and therefore do not see how it can be integrated into the existing structure of the company);
- the environment, the market (if the market is scarce, low-competitive, and characterized by low consumer incomes, then the manager simply does not see the need to spend serious money on marketing. And he is absolutely right).
Marketing is a technology for generating potential demand for a company’s products and services. That is, the marketer prepares a potential market and is responsible for informing the consumer, and not for sales volumes.
The entire company is responsible for sales volumes. If a company is unable to make a competitive offer to a potential consumer, then no marketer will be able to convince the client to buy the product. If the sales team is not prepared for a qualified sale, then this is not the fault of the marketer. If consumer expectations formed by an advertising campaign do not coincide with the realities of the product, then the fault lies, rather, with the management, which is unable to coordinate the activities of marketers, production and service. But if the product is positioned incorrectly, that is, the target segment or its needs are incorrectly identified, and therefore the advertising campaign turns out to be completely ineffective, then the marketer is to blame.
Thus, all the tasks of a marketing specialist are related to creating a market of potential consumers (buyers), for which he must:
- conduct research on consumers themselves, their requirements for products, and competitors’ strategies;
- make recommendations to all departments of the company to meet customer requirements;
- convey information about the company and its products to customers in the most effective way.
In some cases, the formation of a separate functional unit responsible for performing marketing functions is indeed impractical.
In this regard, it is important to note: the more standardized the product, the more the company needs a marketing service. The market for standard goods is always larger, and therefore more competitive. To promote products in a highly competitive market, professionals are needed, and, accordingly, a marketing service is required.
Markets for non-standard products are smaller and less competitive. Here you can do without a marketing service, using part-time marketers - engineers, salespeople, service specialists and enterprise management.
In table 1 presents the arguments for and against the organization of an independent marketing division in an enterprise. Assess how close these arguments are to your company.
Table 1. Independent marketing department in an enterprise: pros and cons
| Arguments for": | Arguments against": |
| 1. Comprehensive marketing based on an analysis of the external environment helps to form an idea among the company’s management about the strategic goals and directions of activity. 2. Marketing allows the company to monitor the current market situation and respond to its changes in a timely manner, making adjustments to the company's strategies. 3. Even if today marketing does not bring real benefits to the company, experience is accumulated in order to implement it in full at the right time. | 1. For many companies, a special department is too expensive and does not pay for itself. 2. Specialists from other departments effectively perform marketing functions; there is no need to coordinate their activities. 3. There are few highly qualified marketing specialists who know what and how to do to help the company, and not just eat up its money. 4. Quality problems are more acute in many enterprises. When an enterprise cannot guarantee quality, no amount of marketing will help to gain a stable position in the industrial market. |
How to form a marketing department?
When creating a marketing department, it is necessary to determine the scope of functions that will be assigned to it. This will help to efficiently select specialists for this department. The structure and tasks of the marketing department directly depend on the marketing strategy of the company’s positioning in the industrial market (Table 2).
Table 2. Objectives of the marketing service
Company positioning strategy | Marketing service tasks | Specialists |
| Low Price Strategy: release of a product of low or average quality at a low price with a low level of service and marketing support |
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| High price strategy (quality strategy): release of a standard high-quality product at a high price, with high-quality service and active marketing support |
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| Adaptation strategy: release of a non-standard product of low quality at a price higher than the price of a standard product, with a high degree of adaptation to customer wishes, good service and sufficient marketing support |
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| Joint development strategy: release (custom creation) of an innovative non-standard product with high quality and level of service, individually for the customer, at a very high price and with high marketing costs for each buyer |
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This problem arises primarily in large companies, where the volume of work cannot be handled by one specialist.
Classic literature presents 6 main structures of the marketing service: functional, product or brand, market (by consumers), geographical, matrix (products/markets), corporate. Traditionally, most companies start with a functional structure of the marketing service, which includes 4 main departments: marketing research, product range planning, sales and advertising.
If the products are fairly homogeneous, standard, and promoted under one brand, then the optimal organizational structure is functional, and it is better to distribute promotion work on a regional basis.
At the same time, the practice of industrial marketing shows that enterprises, as a rule, produce a wide range of products; accordingly, it is most advisable to distribute responsibilities among products.
- development of a competitive long-term strategy for the product line;
- development of an annual and long-term marketing program for product promotion (sales forecasts, assortment planning, promotion tools, customer research, measures to increase customer satisfaction, pricing strategies, product marketing budget, etc.);
- assortment management within a product line (research of life cycle stages, portfolio analysis matrices, etc.);
- planning and organizing events to stimulate product sales among the company’s sales staff, distributors, etc.;
- constant monitoring and analysis of information about product performance, attitudes towards it on the part of buyers and sellers, new problems and opportunities;
- participation in programs to improve the product, its promotion, consumer research, etc.
Is it possible to optimize marketing costs?
In some cases, having a full staff of specialists in the marketing department is impractical.
There are many consulting companies that can perform specific functions. As a rule, work related to the following tasks is outsourced:
- organization of marketing research (it should be noted that for manufacturers of non-standard specialized products, outsourcing of marketing research is unacceptable, since no professional agency will most likely be able to find specialists who own such a narrow market);
- advertising and PR (as a rule, it is more economical to outsource the preparation of catalogues, writing articles, organizing exhibitions and presentations to companies specializing in this work).
Marketing service: intra-company interaction
Marketers do not have direct access to consumers. In such a situation, how to provide the marketing service with information about customer needs?
Possible solutions:
- establish a certain form of reporting for sales managers (for example, oblige agents to make reports on changes in needs, customer complaints, changes in market conditions, etc., and then transfer them to the marketing service for analysis);
- establish a procedure when a marketer is required to be present at negotiations with the most important clients;
- establish a procedure when the marketer is obliged to regularly communicate with customers, discuss problems with products, prices, services (what prevents us from working more efficiently, which competitors have more effective offers and why, what needs our company does not satisfy, etc.);
- implement a CRM system and oblige salespeople and service specialists to enter the information necessary for a marketer into the customer database.
- organize regular presentations by marketing department specialists (product managers) to specialists from other departments, where marketers will present market needs, and engineers will offer technologies to meet them;
- attract specialists from other departments (engineers, salespeople) to participate in events held by the marketing department (exhibitions, seminars);
- submit draft technical solutions for examination to the marketing department and sales department.
Marketing service: interaction with the external environment
For an enterprise, the way to achieve goals and implement a strategy appropriate to the market environment is its organizational structure. Accordingly, the place of the marketing service in the structure of the company depends on the model of the enterprise’s behavior in the market.
There are two main models. According to the first, the company is completely dependent on the characteristics of the external environment (market), changes in the environment are not under the control of the company, they are objective, so it must constantly adapt to these changes. At the same time, the main goal of the marketing service is to record changes and adjust the company’s strategy. Thus, the marketing service is a buffer between the external environment and the company (Fig. 1).
According to the second model, the company assumes that through its actions it will be able to achieve the desired changes in the microenvironment, and, under certain conditions, in the macroenvironment. To do this, with the help of the marketing service, the enterprise studies the structure of the environment, the system of relationships between market actors, their positions and mutual influence, and looks for an optimal position for itself in the existing system. To occupy it, the company develops a goal, strategy, and organizational structure. Depending on the market reaction, the company's strategy may change (Fig. 2).
The interactive model of interaction with the external environment is especially characteristic of large industrial enterprises.
The task of organizing effective marketing activities at an industrial enterprise is multifaceted and does not have clear, comprehensive answers. Depending on the specific conditions, the problem will have many possible solutions.
At the same time, one must clearly understand that the practice of marketing will give real results only when marketing itself for the head of the company becomes not only a tool, but also a business philosophy.
need marketing?
Hi all! In my last article, I talked about what marketing is not. This article will be its opposite: I will tell you why marketing is needed, what it is in general, and will dwell in detail on the 5P principle in marketing!
Marketing is profit!
Let’s skip the history of the emergence of marketing and the stages of its development and turn to reference books for a definition: “Marketing is the research and organization of activities in the market of goods and services, aimed at ensuring sales, promoting goods from manufacturer to consumer”.
It’s too boring and unclear how to apply it in practice, let’s paraphrase:
Marketing is the science (or art) of offering the right product in the right place at the right price in the right way in order to make a profit.
From the last lines it is clear why an entrepreneur needs to understand marketing - “in order to make a profit”
What is the 5P principle in marketing?
Let's analyze the entire definition into individual phrases and get a marketing mix. At the same time, we will not use its classic variation 4P, but a more advanced one - 5P and consider further modification of this cocktail.
So, the 5Ps (Product, People, Price, Place, Promotion):
Product
We decide on the product or service that we will offer to the consumer. What will it be? What format will the product be? Will it be liquid, viscous, solid or gaseous? What design will the product have and what functionality will it provide?
“What nonsense?!” - you say. - “And it’s clear that I’m engaged in construction or bread production and I don’t need knowledge in marketing.”
But this is not enough! Let's assume that an engineer has created an innovative product - a driverless car. This is a real shock to the technological world.
But our innovation can gather dust on the mezzanine if the right application is not found for it. We need to research the market to understand how to present our services or product.
People
So, you've come up with a great product. But we remember that the main goal is to make a profit.
Who will we sell this product to?
At a minimum, we need to segment our target audience according to socio-demographic characteristics. And even better - in terms of behavioral characteristics. What is the logic behind the behavior of lovers of expensive cars? Where do they rest? What do they eat? What books do you read in your spare time? What do they even breathe?
Pricing
A truly underestimated aspect by Russian marketers.
We are ready to make a cool product, find a cool audience... And at the same time we take the price out of the blue. We can dump it, or we can inflate it and immediately call ourselves a comfort class.
But pricing is a whole science that includes price factors, the political situation and much more.
In short, you need to remember that the price must ensure the profitability of the company, be interesting to the buyer and at the same time allow maintaining the presence of the product and its sales at an irreducible level.
Place
Once we have a product, its price and target audience, there is very little time left before making a profit. You need to place your product or service somewhere.
This is the place - the place of sale, accessible to your target audience.
What to choose - a retail chain or online stores? How to properly organize an offline store? How to arrange the goods? What should the company website be like? How do visitors perceive information on it, is it convenient for them?
Promotion
The icing on our cake. All other points have been completed. The store is ready with goods and reasonable prices, the portrait of the audience is clear, but there is still no profit.
4P, 5P... Or maybe 7P?
We looked at a marketing mix based on the 5Ps. There is also its classic variation - 4P (Place, Product, Price, Promotion).
There is also an expanded 7P model, which adds Process and Physical Evidence.
Processes - imply the process of providing services. Let's take, for example, McDonald's and their speed of customer service or Lamoda with delivery and trying on clothes at home.
Physical evidence - this includes the company’s reputation, customer reviews, certificates and licenses, that is, everything that speaks about our competence and the quality of the services provided, product, service on the market.
I will tell you more about marketing analysis methods in the next article!
Surely you have met people who work effortlessly, and everything they come up with flies away like hot cakes. Those who spend considerable resources on building a marketing system in business always want to ask these lucky ones: “How do you do it? How much do you spend on advertising? And the answer most often is: “Why do I need advertising: it sells itself!” My marketing research professor used to say that if everything sells, there is no need for marketing. Let's see how true this statement is.
Marketing is not promotion or advertising
Advertising- these are any communications that we carry out to directly sell our product. The advertisement will be a post on a social network with the call “Come to the training!” and a TV spot promising “My yogurt is the best!”
In a situation where “everything is on sale anyway,” advertising is really not needed. When production capacity is fully utilized, growth opportunities arise: you can increase production, expand your product line, and so on. And as it grows, advertising support may be required. But here and now it is not needed.
A promotion- these are actions aimed at maintaining your brand as a whole. This includes speaking at conferences, interviews, publications in some publications, blogging, and so on.
Even if everything is on sale here and now, promotional actions are most likely justified as an investment in future sales. You don't need promotion if you are suffocating under a flood of applications and your problem is small opportunities. Simply put, you cannot and do not want to make more product or provide more services. And if they wanted to, they would expand production - which means you would need support in the form of promotion and advertising.
Marketing is a broad concept.
Marketing is needed to understand what product A will be and how much it might cost. Come up with discounts so that they benefit profits. Or vice versa, you will have to raise the price. You need to come up with product B and make it so that after purchasing product A, the client will automatically buy B. Creating product packaging also relates to marketing. Packaging can be both tangible and intangible (descriptions and evidence base for sale). It wouldn’t hurt to build an affiliate system to sell your product through someone else’s hands. You also need to understand what prevents your client from choosing you, to say about yourself in such a way that “extra” clients who are not yours do not come. It's all marketing.
Doesn't anyone really need marketing after all?
I believe that strong intuitives who are not interested in achieving any specific indicators in their business or private practice do not need special marketing actions.
Strong intuitives are precisely those who “sell themselves.” It seems to me that this is a special talent - to feel your client and intuitively do exactly what the client needs, and exactly as needed.
If this sounds like you, perhaps you don’t need to bother yourself with marketing so as not to scare away your inspiration. After all, it is known that when you try to complicate everything, simple intuitive solutions can suffer. And using inspiration and a sixth sense as fuel, you can create successful projects without a “smart” marketing framework.
Under one condition - I mentioned it above - if you do not have clear quantitative goals in your project and there is no goal of business growth.
For example, if you make handmade jewelry (teach English via Skype, conduct psychological consultations), all this is sold through word of mouth, through friends, feeds you enough to make you happy and carefree, and you have no goal of building a project that brings, Let’s say, passive income, when you may need separate marketing tools (let’s say you want to make a convenient website or manage social networks competently), then you don’t have to build a system. And so there is something to eat.
Please note that I am not saying that such intuitive projects without KPIs (target indicators) are bad. It's great, actually. I believe that it is not the person who serves the business, but the business who serves the person. And if you personally are happy in your business, then why burden this happiness from above. I myself periodically dissuade people from going to my trainings for exactly this reason.
In other cases, as soon as you set out to start a business, grow a private practice into some kind of stable and profitable system, or develop a freelance project, marketing is your first and best friend.
The main thing to remember is that marketing is not general advertising or senseless and merciless promotion. This is the construction of such a system (from scratch, from the foundation, from getting to know yourself and the client, from carefully thinking through the product, and so on), in which even advertising may be superfluous. At the very least, you will know which buttons to press to ensure that the marketing system you create works reliably.
“From time to time, not entirely flattering reviews appear on the Internet on the topic of why marketing is needed in a company. And why do we need marketers, they only waste money. Naturally, such statements rarely evoke positive emotions for any specialist in this field. Emotions, emotions, but let’s constructively understand why marketing in general and marketers in particular are needed.”
So, what is marketing for?
What areas is marketing responsible for? And he is responsible for the interaction of almost all departments and divisions of the company with its clients. I wrote earlier about what falls under the responsibilities of a marketer, according to the HR department. However, these are the responsibilities of the specialist directly, but is the company able to do without marketing entirely? My personal opinion is that a normally developing company cannot exist without marketing. Without a staff of marketers, it’s quite easy, but additional functionality will fall on the shoulders of other company employees - sales people, suppliers, managers and other company personnel. However, everything is in order.
Why does the purchasing department need marketing? There are several key points in this connection:
- Marketers determine the concept and direction of assortment development.
- We, marketers, are directly involved in the formation of the company's pricing policy.
- Who else but marketers analyze the company's supplies and sales?
- One of the key responsibilities of a marketer is to analyze product shortages or, conversely, warehouse overstocking.
- Who calculates the turnover of product groups? Often marketers.
- The compilation of an assortment matrix should take place exclusively at the suggestion of marketers.
Naturally, all these responsibilities can be performed by the supplier on his own, but when he performs his own functions - directly ordering goods and maintaining warehouse stocks. There simply isn’t enough time for everything.
Why do sellers need marketing? How can a marketer benefit sales managers or sales consultants:
- Assistance in training salespeople in original and new ideas.
- The logical display of goods on the sales floor will reduce the time it takes to select goods.
- The marketer responsible for the sales floor can help determine the main features and nuances of product placement on store shelves.
- Assistance in the selection and designation of products that will increase the profitability of the company.
- Plans the time and place of launching an advertising campaign.
- Develops and approves the format and type of advertising.
- Marketers evaluate the effectiveness of promotional activities.
Marketing is needed by the management team of the organization. Naturally, such concepts as mission or development strategy are not present in all companies, however:
- Determining the general direction of development of activities.
- Segmentation of the market and customers.
- Analysis of the company's competitive environment.
- Analysis of the company's own indicators.
- Participation in the preparation of various instructions.
It is these components of marketing that contribute to the relationship between marketers and company management. Based on all this data received, management makes decisions about the prospects and further development of the company.
And finally, Why do we need marketing to customers?. Key points of interaction between the marketing service and the company’s clients:
- Providing complete and clear information about a product, company, news
- Identifying and meeting customer needs
- Timely notification of ongoing company events
- Creating a favorable and calm atmosphere for the buyer who comes to purchase
- Planning, development, implementation and control of the execution of a loyalty program for the company’s clients.
Naturally, not all areas of responsibility of the marketing service are listed and briefly described here. Absolutely all processes taking place in the company, one way or another, relate to marketing. In this regard, I think that the question - What is marketing for - is simply inappropriate. What do you think, dear reader of the Diary of a Marketer? Why is marketing needed, in your opinion? Have your say in the comments.
Today it is difficult to imagine a modern company that does not have a full-time marketing and advertising department. Even small enterprises that do not have the opportunity to maintain a full-fledged marketing and advertising department have a person on staff who deals with these issues. Often this person is the director of the enterprise himself.
Marketing in an enterprise is no less important than advertising activities. A company that does not monitor the actions of its competitors will never be able to claim the place of market leader, since it will make the same inevitable mistakes as its competitors. It is also very important to monitor new products and advertising activities that competitors offer in order to successfully promote your product or service on the market.
Many large companies that have their own full-time marketing and advertising department still turn to marketing agencies to order marketing research from professionals. Marketing research helps you competently promote your product and take your company to the next level.
Also, before launching a new product or service, it is important to thoroughly research the competitor’s market in order not to act blindly and prevent failure.
Monitoring competitors is just as important for the successful operation of the company as such important things as the price of the product or range you offer.
Also, before launching any project, a competent and thoughtful business plan and an accurately calculated budget are very important. The very concept of the product you offer is also very important. And the terms of sale. Such conditions include price, quality of product and service, and many other factors.
Also, do not forget that marketing and advertising are only a tool that helps you offer a product or service. The correct positioning of the product determines who will buy from you, how much and at what price.
It is important to understand that it is not possible for one company to organize the entire work process and solve all existing problems. Moscow Marketing Agency, conducting market research, found that only those companies achieve success in which marketing activities are well established.
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