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Marketing Management MKTG ??? 508-010 Spring 2010 Dr. Walter Kendall Submitted by Shagun Nagpal On Mar 27th 2010 Tarleton State University Abstract Marketing is a combination of activity and set of institutions that create, communicate deliver and exchange services that have values to society including customers and clients. (AMA, 2007) Marketing emerged as a technical field of study in early 19th century but it came into existence all over when Neil Borden uses the term marketing mix for the first time in 1953.
According to Neil Borden marketing is all about the 4P’s (product, place, price, promotion) and we have to take care only of these 4P’s to become a marketing guru but after reading almost 5 books on marketing I can say that including these 4P’s some other areas are also very important to deal in this corporate world. I have named them as four directions of marketing or 4 M’s of marketing. In this assimilation paper I m going to discuss these 4M’s in detail that why they are important and how I came to this decision. Stanley C. , Kathleen M. , 2005) Introduction As we all know that market is a flexible thing that changes almost everyday and to deals with these changes we have different concepts of marketing such as 4P’s but these concepts were made in 19th century to deals with the problems at that time. These concepts may or may not be acceptable today in 21st century where customer is said to be a king of the market. This new concept of 4M’s of marketing deals with all new ideas and strategies needed to attract and retain customers.
These marketing directions are a set of 4 most powerful marketing tools that can be used to direct the marketing objectives in the target market (Sehew D. C. , Hiam W. A. , 1998) 4 M’s of Marketing As I have discussed these 4M’s are also called as marketing directions. It includes Making good relations (relationship marketing), Marketing plan, Making new strategies, and Market behavior (buyers buying behavior) (Schewe, D. C. , & Hiam, A. 1998), The Marketing Directions 4M’s Making good relation Marketing plan Marketing direction Market Behavior Making new stratagies If we look at any particular organization the purpose of these 4M’s of marketing is to administer the edge of the organization with its customer environment. These marketing directions are all based on the fact that customer is king and provide information about all needs and wants of customers. It basically deals with the different alternatives available to satisfy the needs of customers.
Understanding the customers that what motivates him/her to buy any particular product and then making strategies by using one’s personal creativity to buy him/her that particular product is the core of these 4M’s. ( Schewe, D. C. , & Hiam, A. , (1998), Making Good Relations This is one of the most important marketing tools to enhance new customer and retain old customers according to this first ‘M’ of marketing direction the best way to enhance the sale of any particular product is to make good relationship with your customer by providing after sale services and making them feel like home after purchasing your product.
This is also known as relationship marketing. This relationship marketing was introduced by berry in 1983. According to the Regis McKenna in the book marketing guru it is more important to retain old customers instead of making new customers because a marketer always has to find a new technique to capture customers who are already loyal to some other product (McKenna R. , 1991).
For example if you have heard about ‘AMWAY GLOBAL’ that sells their daily use product like toothpaste, shampoo, face wash etc through internet but after selling their product they give some after sale services like if you don’t like their product you can return the used product in 6 months of time, just because of this 6 months money back guarantee they are earning a trust through their consumers and they always call some of their loyal customers for the feedback and complaints about their product.
By doing this they are making good relation with their customers and this is what we call relationship marketing According to Don Pepper and Martha Rogers in the book marketing guru the new era of marketing is to have 1:1 marketing with the customers. According to me 1:1 marketing is a success because in this 1:1 marketing we have to go door to door to sell the product which help customers to solve their quarries on the sport and results in good relations with the same customers. Marketing is changing from a push to pull model and consumers are taking more control over what they view and how they view it.
To address this challenge, all companies are using relationship marketing in order to develop cost-effective strategies for retaining and building loyalty with their customers (Pepper D. , & Rogers M. , 1993). Now a day if a person is satisfied with a product and he has good relations with the company then he must going to tell all his friends in his social network to buy the same product and this is called word-to-mouth which is being discussed by Emanuel Rosen in the book marketing guru. This is also known as BUZZ which is most powerful and cheapest tool of marketing (Rosen, Emanuel, 2000).
Consider an example from everyday life. Suppose you have your own department store and someone in your department store tells you that one of your colleagues have shifted her soft drink brand from Coke, Pepsi or Dr. Pepper to a new brand XiXi(Chinese brand) because of its better quality, cheap price and more energetic than other energy drinks and they are also offering money back guarantee within a weak of purchase She also tells you that she is also making plans to shift to that new brand. She gives you this suggestion because she has a trust in that company.
As a result you start selling this brand in your store and so the story spreads (McKenna R. , 1991). I strongly believe that making good relationship with the customers is the best way for a long survival of business for example if you are buying a car from any car dealer but after taking you feel some problems in the car registration and that dealer is not helping you out he is just simply says that we are not responsible for anything once you go out of our showroom or garage then what happen, you will never go to that car dealer again and will never recommend him to anybody.
On the other way if he sends a person from his business and solve your problem, make you feel like a family member and insure you that he is always there to help you then you will recommend him to everybody in your contact list. All this happen just because of relationship marketing tool (McKenna R. , 1991). Market Behavior Understanding what is going in the market and why this is going is the most important thing in marketing or in other words we can also say that understanding the buyer’s behavior is one of the most important and complicated thing in the marketing process.
We can also say that the meaning market or buyer behavior is to know what things influence consumers to buy product and services. Law of mind from the book 22 immutable laws says that its better be first in the mind of customers then to be first in the market. This is not at all possible if you are not able to understand buyer’s behavior (Ries A. , & Trout J. , 1993).
For example Apple I-pad is not yet launched in the United States market but still almost 90 percent of peoples in United States know about apple I-pad and they are ready to buy this new product. This is all because Steve Jobs the owner of Apple easily understand what’s going in the minds of U. S peoples and what their expectations from a digital slate. This study of buyers mind is the most important tool of marketing that’s why I have used this tool as one of the 4 M’s of marketing and a part of marketing direction concept (Ries A. , & Trout J. , 1993).
Law of Perception says that” Marketing is not a battle of product it’s a battle of perception” and before making any product its important to know consumer preference or what is the perception of different consumers in the market about the similar kind of products and then launch your product according to the needs and preference of customer. It’s not easy to understand the customer perception directly because some consumers may favor the cheap product even if they don’t like it (poor people) and some may favor the most expensive product even if they are not happy with that product ( rich people).
So the best way is to read customers mind by 1:1 marketing or by the buying behavior pattern (Ries A. , & Trout J. , 1993). As we all know that everybody have their own liking and disliking according to there preferences and perceptions somebody like sellers to be friendly with them and somebody just want sellers to sell their product and go. To know how the customer wants you to behave, you have to read customers mind and then treat them as they want you to treat. This will help you to fully satisfy them. According to Robert B. Cialdini in his book Influence, people prefer to yes to the people they like.
The Liking chapter of this book is all about how the likings of the people influence them to buy any particular product. People will not like you if you are not doing what they want and to make them feel happy you have to understand there likings and this all concept comes under Market behavior (Cialdini, B. R. , 1994) Marketing Plan Making a marketing plan is one of the most important things to do before starting the marketing procedure. These marketing plans ensure you that you will make profit or not. Marketing plan include all 4P’s of marketing with market research, customer services and sale patterns.
Making a marketing plan is really very important because it identifies and tells us about the target market because Law of leadership says that it is very important to be number one in the category because nobody cares about number 2 or 3, everybody asks for number one. Marketing plan is important because it tells us all about marketing conditions that what market needs what? And on the basis of this information you can choose the preferred market and then become first in the category to launch your product (Ries A. , & Trout J. 1993) If you make a marketing plan you will definitely look for both short term and long term marketing strategies and the effects of these marketing strategies both in the long run and short run. According to Law of Perspective” marketing effects take place over an extended period of time” (Sink E. , 2004) and the basic point of this law to explain that some marketing strategies may be beneficial in short run but it may not be beneficial in long run. Law of line extension is also beneficial in short run but it crates competition between our own products after some time.
Line of extension is impressive for a short time period but it never works for long term ( Ries A. , & Trout J. , 1993) For example IBM stands for mainframe computers and they were the specialized company in mainframe computers, but it has extended its brand with so many products like storage devices, printers, personal computers, software etc. I the beginning people enjoyed there products a lot but now it stands for everything which means it stands for nothing. Now IBM is not specialized in any particular thing they are just like all common I. T companies.
Making a marketing plan helps a company to know advantages and disadvantages of using any particular strategy in the long run as well as short run. ( Schewe, D. C. , & Hiam, A. , 1998), The most important reason of why we should make marketing plans is that it clearly explains what we have to do, when we have to do and what marketing tools we have to use. On the other hand we can say that marketing plans tells us about what is good for your product and what is bad for your product and under what categories these are going to benefit you. Law of Differentiate says that two companies can not survive with a same word in the same market.
These business plans help us to know which product of which company already have a focus word in the market and then you will never try to put your hands on that market with the same product. For example the book 22 immutable laws of marketing have focused on the war between Duracell and Energizer for the word ‘Long Lasting’ even the book was published many years back this war is still going on and no body fully captured the word ‘Long Lasting’. Marketing plans looks at your business as a complete set and bind all marketing objectives together for the benefits in the long run of any business (Ries A. & Trout J. , 1993) Making new Strategies “Marketing strategy is a process that helps organization to deliberate the use of limited resources for greatest opportunity available to increase the sales and to reach sustainable bloodthirsty benefit” (Baker M. , 2008). I have used marketing strategy as one of my tool in 4M’S because according to me every company has its own marketing strategies which are used to capture customers from the new market and retain old customers. The most important work in whole marketing process is to make such strategies which are never being used by any one.
This is the key concept of marketing. One of the most common strategies which are being used everywhere now a day is to become number one in the category and if you can not a number one in that particular category then make a new category in which you can become number one. This is also discussed in Law of Category. For example after the launch of apple I. Pad the other I. T companies were feeling afraid of loosing their customers because they know its very difficult to become number one in this category so all decided to go for something more innovative then Apple I. ad and they decided to built a new advance machine that is tablet computers, dell introduced new mini 5 tablet computer on Feb 27, 2010 and now dell is like number one in tablet computer category( Schewe, D. C. , & Hiam, A. , (1998). It is very important to update your strategies according to the needs of the needs of the customers and if are not ready to update your strategies then you can not run the business smoothly and even you have to face lots of problems which may let you to to shut down your business.
For example few years back when I was in high school I use to take my lunch break in a small restaurant called ‘KISMAT’ which was just a walk distance from my school. In the lunch time I have to stand in a long cue just to buy a cup of coffee and a burger because they were using good strategies like free coupons for ice cream with a purchase of one cold drink and burger and they were doing so well in their business, but few years later when I finished my college.
I once again go there and I saw that the owner of ‘KISMAT’ shut down its business and when I asked some students that what happened to ‘KISMAT’ they said some other person have started a new game parlor with a bowling alley and a fast-food restaurant and ‘KISMAT’ was not providing things according to the students need they were just keep sticking to their old menu and old strategies to attract students and that what I thing was the reason for their shut down.
After reading this example you can conclude that if your strategies are working well this time it may not work in the future and to avoid loses from everyday leaving customers you always have to make new strategies according to the needs and wants of the customers (Cialdini, B. R. , 1994). Conclusion To conclude this paper I can say that the old marketing concepts like 4P’s are the evergreen concepts which are always a mandatory thing for marketing but still to run smoothly in this corporate world you have to change your arketing concepts the new ones to encourage new customers and to retain old customers. At the end I would only say that 4M’s are the based on current market requirements and they may also not be acceptable after few years. References Baker M. , (2008), The Strategic Marketing Plan Audit, pp 03 Buttle, F. , 1996. Relationship Marketing, London Prentice Hall Cialdini, B. R. , (1994), influence, Canada, HarperCollins publisher’s ltd Humby C. & Hunt T. (2003) the marketing guru, Philadelphia, Kogan page, pg. 132-147 Hiam, S. , (1998), The Portable MBA in Marketing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. , Canada Kawasaki, G. , (1995) the marketing guru, NA, Hyperion, pg. 148-166 Kotler P. ,& Bes D. T. , (2003), the marketing guru, NA, John Wiley & sons, pg. 17-32 McKenna R. , (1991), The Marketing Gurus, AddisonWesley Publishing Co. , MA, Pg. 49-65 Popcorn F. , (1991), the marketing guru, NA, Doubleday Dell publishing group, pg. 33-48 Pepper D. & Rogers M. , (1993), The Marketing Gurus, New York, NY: Dell Publishing Group Inc. , Pg. 100-113 Raphel M. , & Raphel N. , (1995), The Marketing Gurus, New York, NY: Harper Business, Pg. 114-131 Ries A. , & Trout J. , (1993), The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Harper Collins Ltd. Rosen, E. , (2000), The Marketing Gurus, New York, NY: Doubleday/Currency, 1540 Broadway, Pg. 200-215 Schewe, D. C. , & Hiam, A. , (1998), the portable MBA in marketing, Canada, John Wiley & sons, Inc.