Understanding What Makes Marketing Successful by Jolito Ortizo Padilla



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All business want to be profitable. This means having sufficient customers buying sufficient product/service at the right time and the right price, and being satisfied and returning for more. This does not just happen. Even when product quality is high, customers have vast choice and competition is strong: few products are unique and so good that people beat a path to their provider's door unasked.

Business has to be sought out. Marketing is the process of "bringing in the business". It is not an option-it is a necessity. To achieve results means creating profitable sales and delivering planned growth; it must be well done.

In addition to the marketing mix of promotional activities (everything from advertising and sales to maintaining an effective website), marketing covers much more. Marketing is not a single activity.It includes the whole business.It affects business planning and what products or services are sold; it affects organization and how the company sets itself up to relate to its market and customers, and deliver satisfaction to them. It involves many techniques and considerations -some that affect all organizations (such as pricing policy) and others particular to specific businesses (such as merchandizing and display when selling through retail channels). It also includes associated areas such as market research, forecasting and all those aspects concerned with branding, positioning and customer relationship management (CRM). Doing what is necessary in all these areas and more, and doing it well, is vital. Other business functions are important, but marketing is essential. No marketing, no customers, or certainly fewer of them.

Marketing is clearly too important to be left to marketing people.

A MARKETING CULTURE
Marketing is full of jargon. "Marketing culture" is one such phrase, but it has real, practical relevance. If an organization has a good marketing culture , then all non-marketing people who influence marketing are involved. Active steps are taken to ensure that things and people work well together. Consider a very simple example: waiting in a company's reception area, I heard a busy switchboard at work. Most calls were clearly from customers, and had to be directed appropriately between two separate departments:one dealing with new inquiries , another progressing orders. To allow the operator to accurately transfer call quickly; she has evolved phrase that provided instant clarity; she asked: "Are you placing an order or chasing an order?" It worked administratively , but was suggesting to hundreds of people every day that orders routinely needed chasing; it hardly projected a good image. Whose fault is that? I do not think the operator can be blamed. If she reported ( as was likely) to an administration  manager rather than to marketing, should that person have checked and taken what is essentally a marketing view? Some kind of liaison was necessary , but lacking. However things are organizaed , the net results has to be that the customer interface is well managed.

This example is not so minor. But it is surely important that people at every level work together on more major matters. Lost opportunities or errors may cause significant problems. People differ.It was a simple example. Marketers tend to view money as for investment (in advertising or a sales drive perhaps), in order to promote sales and revenue. Conversely, accountants tend to see it more as a resource to be guarded, and certainly not to be spent with, what may apear, scant consideration, on things that seem to them somewhat vague. Marketing is rightly described  as being "as much as science". Understanding is necessary if disagreement and stalemate amongst managers are not to lead to  inaction that will affect sales adversely.

KEYS TO EFFECTIVE MARKETING
Senior managers in functions other than marketing may not need to get involved in detail , but they should understand what makes marketing successful and play their part in making it so. Five factors establish what makes marketing effective. It must be:
- Customer Oriented. Every aspect of marketing -the concept, the planning through to research, communications and the application of every technique- must focus on customers. Profitability can only come from satisfying the market. Knowledge of, and respect for, the customer is essential to business success. All managers must always act in accord with this if they are to contribute to overall corporate success.
- Continuously deployed. Marketing is not a bolt-on activity, or for moments when "time allows"; it must be present continuously as a company operates. This means that planning is crucial or marketing activity will always be less effective. It also means that everyone contributing to marketing's work, even just by voting for or against its planned budget on the Board, can help ensure the necessary continuity , or disrupt it. Marketing must command understanding and support. Perhaps marketing people should ensure that this is the case, though others may want to take an initiative if they feel in the dark about it.
- Coordinated effectively. Unless the varous techniques of marketing are made to act together their effectiveness will be diluted. The different factors, sales and advertising, say are not alternatives; both are necessary. When, how and how much all the techniques interrelate and overlap depends on the skill of those involved. Marketing must logically coordinate its own activities ; also there are many matters that demand working together with other functions (and perhaps locations). Only if marketing is truly a management function, starting from senior level, and supported by the whole senior management team, can complete coordination be achieved.
- Creatively carried out. All marketing communication must be creative. In these very competitive times, doing so is a challenge; the combination of competitiveness and the need for creativity makes marketing dynamic. It is not an exact science; many of the variables that affect it are external.It is never certain , for instance , what competitors will do next. However the necessary creativity shows itself-through product innovation, clever (or, more important, persuasive and memorable) advertising or promotion , or special attention to aspects of service-it must always be there. It needs to bring something new to counter unpredictable competitive pressures or changing customer attitudes and expectations;or both. Lack of understanding by senior management of what is needed here can see even effective plans come to nothing.
- Culturally underpinned. This is the key area. Marketing is, above all, dependent on people ;not only in marketing-the researchers, marketing managers, sales managers, public relations people and more- but others at every level throughout the organization.Their work contributes to the marketing process, whatever their job title and responsibilities suggest.

If effectiveness of marketing is not being maximized, then the organization's results are likely to suffer. Those primarily involved-the marketing people-must be effective.Indeed , in any organization where all the right people are not involved in supporting and helping to drive what goes on, marketing will be handicapped to some extent. Whatever else may be necessary to make your organization's marketing successful, one factor can almost certainly strengthen it-you.