Managerial Approach to Marketing

Overview

The managerial approach to marketing is very necessary when doing a marketing strategy. The most common kind of marketing strategy is boosting the product’s ability to be sold. There are many aspects that involve inside the marketing strategy and the presentation of the strengths and weaknesses are presented in the study.

Marketing occupies a critical with respect to the growth areas of the company. Indeed, marketing is the most important “multiplier” of such developments. It mobilizes latent economic energy and contributes to the greatest needs; that for rapid development of entrepreneurs and managers and at the same time it may be the easiest area of managerial work.

The determination of the customers’ needs and wants is the first thing that a marketing manager should answer. And upon the determination, the duty of the marketing manager starts to run. The manager must get interaction to their customers and prospective customers and persuade them that the customers need something that only your product can fulfill. Some of this kind of persuading product is endorsing a kind of hair gel to fix their hair easily.

Marketing Activities

Of course, a product should introduce to the people to earn profit and a manager should find an excellent way to communicate with the customers. Finding a good medium for certain to pay its way to the market is both exciting and challenging in the part of the manager. The importance of marketing in a company's ongoing success can better be understood and appreciated when you consider the activities it embraces. In essence, marketing anticipates and measures the importance of needs and wants of a given group of consumers or the target market. Accomplishing this requires the firm to:

v Target those markets most compatible with its resources,

v Develop products that meet the needs of the target market better than competitive products,

v Make the products readily available.

v Obtain the feedback from the market about the success of company products and programs.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Aspects of Marketing Communication

Advertising in Television

Strengths	Weaknesses
Allows for creativity and engages multiple senses.	Audience is fragmented. Station loyalty is lowering, and program loyalty is increasing.
Single exposure reaches a large audience.	37% of adults are light TV viewers, investing only an average of 34 minutes per day with TV.
Your message can be heard, even if the viewer is in another room.	Viewers are primarily in the home.
The advertiser can be his or her own spokesperson.	Prime time availability is scarce.
TV ads can be visually stimulating, adding credibility to the business.	Spot costs are very high.
Targets groups by program interest.	Production costs are continually growing.
Relatively lower cost ad rates on local systems allow high ad repetition.	Ads cannot be pulled off the air or revised at last minute.
Less restrictive creatively e.g. longer commercials, more "edgy" content.	Ad effectiveness depends on market penetration of cable.
High inventory of availability.	Non-cabled markets disrupt effective mass marketing.
Subscriber counts are growing.	Audience is fragmented.
	Competition with broadcast TV.
	Poor research available for viewership to understand target audience

Advertising in Printed Materials (magazines, newspaper, yellow pages)

Strengths	Weaknesses
Can engage the visual senses well with graphics, colors, and content.	Specialized circulation can miss some of your target audience.
Long ad life. Magazines are kept and passed to others to read.	Limits frequency of your message.
Targeted markets.	CPM is increasing your advertising expenses.
Ad copy can be lengthy. Plenty of room to make your point.	Ad clutter means low readership, or the ability to recall the ad
A mass medium - reaching a large audience in single exposure	Ads must be placed long before publication date.
You can write your ad copy and design your own ads.	Circulation doesn't necessarily mean readership.
Ads can be torn out and saved.	No competitive protection.
Optimum targeting. Customers are looking for someone to buy from.	Weeklies often have poor editorial quality.
Can accommodate loads of information such as address, contact info, credit cards accepted etc...	Reach is sporadic. Daily or Weekly reach is impossible to measure.
Positive image. Many consumers use the phone book when the purchase.	Revisions only allowed annually.
	Very inflexible, ad must be prepared months before publication.
	Competitor's ads are on the same page.

Direct Marketing (Direct Mail)

Strengths	Weaknesses
Capable of targeting your market specifically.	Lists become inaccurate quickly.
Production costs can be controlled to a certain degree.	Mailing costs continue to rise.
Can cover every household.	Printing and production costs continue to rise.
Response rate can be easily measured.	Difficult to coordinate delivery with sales dates.
You can personalize your mailer.	Low response rate.
	Inflexible, requires maximum preparation and lead time.

Sales Promotion

Strengths	Weaknesses
Involvement of the team in a promotional event.	Considered as costly promotional agenda.
Customers can ask questions or inquiries through a representative	Ineffectiveness might lead to do the same promotion more than twice.
	Premium offers like "Send three proofs-of-purchase and $3.99 for shipping and handling to get this great coupon organizer!" Overused and usually disappointing to the consumer.
	Over promising odds of winning don't make consumers think they're going to win every time they open a soda.

Public/Publicity Relations

Strengths	Weaknesses
Ensures that everything the press sees or hears is controlled and is consistent with the image plan.	Time consuming and costly that involves the talent fees and rent expenses.
News releases of new ideas.	Needed long range of time in preparation.
Feature stories and interviews.	The participants are not expected to get hook in the product
Exclusive discounts or passes and privileges.	The venue might not hold the undetermined number of spectators.
Opinion pieces (maybe from a person who try it first and giving statements).	The knowledge in discussing the facts about the product will not fit to the allotted time.
Photo shoots with the invited guest and celebrities.
Speeches or appearances at seminars, conventions, etc.
Local, regional or national talk shows and other programs.
Online chats and forums.
Community involvement, lobbying and social responsibility activities

Personal Selling

Strengths	Weaknesses
The power of persuasive talk is highly needed.	Needs full effort and usually the sellers don’t walk together.
Desirable call frequencies (number of sales calls on an account per year) are established for each class.	It is traditionally done by walking.
The personal experience in using the product will be a great help in promoting the product.	They sometimes do demos.

Conclusion

The use of modes of communication to sell is a good activity to boost the profit of the company. The job of a marketing manager is to establish a good tactic to make the customers turn their attention towards their product. This is a great success in the career life of the manager. As always, marketing strategies are not dependable in the research that done through the customers but also the participation of the competitors that can help the marketing manager to formulate a new agenda.

References:

Managerial Approach to Marketing [Online] Available at: http://www.managerialmarketing.com/ [Accessed 13 Aug 2009].

Obringer, L., (n.d.) How Marketing Plans Work? [Online] Available at: http://money.howstuffworks.com/marketing-plan.htm/printable [Accessed 13 Aug 2009].

Ratliff, J., (n.d.). How to Understand the Specific Strengths and Weaknesses of Media Types? [Online] Available at: http://money.howstuffworks.com/marketing-plan.htm/printable [Accessed 13 Aug 2009].

The Selling Strategy [Online] Available at: http://www.web-articles.info/e/a/title/Personal-selling-strategy/ [Accessed 13 Aug 2009].