FOUR STEPS TO MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Answer 1

There are an insurmountable amount of products, as well as sources that can be used to purchase them. With a company’s name recognition not being enough to collect customers these days, marketing management has become even more crucial then ever. By breaking the marketing process down into four distinctive steps, the necessary workflow becomes much more clear.

The initial step in executing effective marketing management principles requires analyzing the market. Is there a demand for the product? Is it fulfilling the needs of it’s target market? Is the cost sitting at a beneficial balance between being affordable enough for its customers, and for the company to produce, promote, and profit?

Researching current spending habits and customer complaints and praises of the product help lead to the second phase of marketing management - planning. Now that the market has been scrutinized to determine the product’s appropriate audience, a strategy must be devised to make the product’s target market aware of it, and to stimulate interest in it as well. Based on the company’s goals, measurable objectives are created for the marketing plan so that it can be observed, and tweaked to adapt to sudden changes and new trends.

Step three in the marketing management cycle is implementation. The company must take this marketing plan and put it into action. Timing is a critical ingredient to market implementation. You should know what your competitors already have scheduled, holidays or current events that could increase the need for your product, and typical spending habits for that time of the year. Marketing activities that could be utilized include: e-mail marketing, television and radio commercials, coupons, special contests and promotions, and direct mail pieces.

After your marketing plan has been launched, the last step in marketing management is referred to as market control. This is the stage when marketing managers determine what portions of the campaign succeeded, and which activities failed. Some of the methods commonly used to evaluate the results of the marketing plan are customer surveys and sales statistics. Hopefully, if all four steps of marketing management were followed completely, there will be a pretty profit waiting at the end of this ordeal.