Marketing Management Orientations

Marketing management wants to design strategies that will build profitable relationships with target consumers. But what philosophy should guide these marketing strategies? What weight should be given to the interests of customers the organization and society? Often these interests conflict.

There are five alternative concepts under which organizations design and carry out their marketing strategies the production, product, selling, marketing and societal marketing concepts.

The Production Concept

 The production concept holds the consumers will favor products that are available and highly affordable. Therefore management should focus on improving production and distribution efficiency. This concept is one of the oldest orientations that guide sellers.

The production concept is still a useful philosophy in some situations. For example, computer maker Lenovo dominates the highly competitive price-sensitive Chinese PC market through low labor costs, high production efficiency and mass distribution however although useful in some situations, the production concept can lead to marketing myopia. Companies adopting this orientation run a major risk of focusing too narrowly on their own operations and losing sight of the real objective satisfying customer needs and building customers relationships.

The Products Concept

The product concept holds that consumers will favor products that offer the most in quality performance and innovative features. Under this concept, marketing strategy focuses on marketing continuous product improvements.

Product quality and improvement are important parts of most marketing strategies. However focusing only on the company’s products can also lead to marketing myopia. For example some manufacturers believe that if they can “build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to their door.” But they are often rudely shocked. Buyers may well be looking for a better solution to mouse problem but not necessarily for better mousetrap. The better than a mousetrap. Furthermore a better mousetrap will not sell unless the manufacturer designs, packages and prices it attractively places it in convenient distribution channels brings it to the attention of people who need it and convinces buyers that it is a better product.

The selling concept

Many companies follow the selling concept which holds that consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort. The concept is typically practiced with unsought goods those that buyers do not normally think of buying such as insurance or blood donations. These industries must track down prospects and sell them on product benefits.

Such aggressive selling however carries high risks. It focuses on creating sales transactions rather than on building long term profitable customer relationships. The aim often is to sell what the company makes rather than making what the market wants. It assumes that customers who are coaxed into buying the product will like it or if they don’t like it they will possibly forget their disappointment and buy it again later. These are usually poor assumptions.

The Marketing concept  

The marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions better than competitors do. Under the marketing concept, customer focus and value are the paths to sales and profits. Instead of a product-centered “make and sell” philosophy, the marketing concept is a customer-centered “sense and respond” philosophy. It views marketing not as “hunting,” but as “gardening.” The job is not to find the right customers for your product, but to find the right products for your customers.

In contrast, the marketing concept takes and outside-in perspective. As Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, colorful CEO, puts it , “We don’t have a marketing department; we have a customer department ‘And in the words of one Ford Executive, “If we’re not customer driven, our cars won’t be either.” The marketing concept starts with a well defined market focuses on customer need and integrates all the marketing activities that effect customers. In turn, it yields profits by creating lasting relationships with the right customers based on customer value and satisfaction.

Marketing Research

In such situations marketing intelligence will not provide the detailed information needed. Managers will need marketing research.

Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data relevant to a specific marketing situation. For example, marketing research can help marketers understand customer satisfaction and purchase behavior. It can help them to assess market potential and market share or to measure the effectiveness of pricing, product, distribution, and promotion activities.

Some large companies have their own research departments that work with marketing managers on marketing research projects. This is how Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Citigroup, and many other corporate giants handle marketing research. In addition, these companies like their smaller counterparts-frequently hire outside research specialists to consult with management on specific marketing problems and conduct marketing research studies. Sometime firms simply purchase data collected by outside firms to aid in their decision making.

The marketing research process has four steps.

1. Defining the problem and research objectives.
2. Developing the research plan, for collecting information.
3. Implementing the research plan.
4. Interpreting and reporting the findings.

Interpreting And Reporting The Findings

The market researcher must now interpret the findings draw conclusions and report them to management. The researcher should not try to overwhelm managers with numbers and fancy statistical techniques. Rather the researcher should present important findings that are useful in the major decisions faced by management.

However interpretation should not be left only to the researchers. They are often experts in research design and statistics but the marketing manager knows more about the problem and the decisions that must be made. The best research means little if the manager blindly accepts faulty interpretations from the researcher. Similarly managers may be biased they might tend to accept research results that show what they expected and to reject those that they did not expect or hope for. In many cases findings can be interpreted in different ways and discussions between researchers and managers will help point to the best interpretations. Thus managers and researchers must work together closely when interpretations research results and both must share responsibility for the research process and resulting decisions.