And the businesspeople?

For us as marketing laymen, it may be interesting to form an idea of the general perception of marketing of important businesspeople of today. In doing so, we will be able to compare our final conclusion about the role and influence of marketing with theirs. 

Leonard Lodish is professor and marketing guru of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. From his standpoint, no product will ever sell if the consumers do not know they need it.  Lodish even observed that 60% of business failures are really failures of marketing. Assuming this is true, marketing thus has a huge role in a company.

Frontman of Google, Eric Smidth describes the importance of marketing in a short video. Smidth explains that there is a new way to do marketing i.e. by measuring the results. These are the numbers, generated by the marketing department, which play a very important role in the way to business success.

To conclude, I will mention one of the most well-known quotes about marketing. David Packard founder of Hewlett-Packard said: “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department”.

It’s clear that these three people, among many others, are pro marketing. But then why is there such a debate about the influence of marketing nowadays?

Charlotte De Volder

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2001/sb20010618_984.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcG_h27D1gw

http://www.marketinginprogress.com/2010/03/13/david-packard-marketing-quote/

Index system marketing

I read this introduction on an index system selling site. I found it remarkable and fascinating because it has a double significance. They advertise about a product/system that is be used as an advertising tool.

They claim that "seeing is buying" so they recommend to bring special offers of their company under attention of their clients by using a display at the checkout. It's an unique system that brings along a lot of opportunities.

Marketing is a never-ending issue. It's important to bind your clients even when they left your shop. These costumer relations can be realised by setting up a system of loyalty cards. "Index" claims that their technology is proven the best in the world. 

I'm convinced by the statement of the effectiveness of this technology. I think it's really important these days for a brand to catch the eye. If no one knows about your product, you won't sell without regard to the excellence of it.


Stijn De Schutter
source: http://www.indexsystems.nl/Marketing.html

The American Marketing Association

The AMA is a huge union of marketing professionals and marketing tutors. It counts 38000 members in the USA and Canada and has connections with many American universities. They are responsible for writing some influential marketing publications.

It was founded in the early 1900's when a large group of marketeers merged. Their purpose was to inspire each other and collaborate. nowadays they make the news by creating virtual events about marketing strategies using social media chanels such as facebook. Their studies (and results) are revolutionary.

The AMA awards influential papers, articles and books in marketing. They publish some prominent journals, magazines and newsletters. To summarize they are a coordinating organization that influences a lot of beginning and seasoned marketeers.


Stijn De Schutter
Sources:
http://www.marketingpower.com/AboutAMA/Pages/AMA%20Publications/AMA%20Journals/AMAJournals.aspx

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Marketing_Association

Cause-related marketing and corporate philantrophy

I read this scientific article about cause-related marketing written by varadarajan and menon. To specificate further they mention: a coalignment of marketing strategy and corporate philantrophy.

In their article they try to explain what cause-related marketing contains. It is a new and promising marketing tool. They also try to define corporate philantrophy (through 3 rationales) which is a "hot topic" these days if you ask me. Their study explains cause-related marketing as a subject of corporate philantrophy.

Corporate philantrophy started as an overall attitude which chiefs took up. It later evolved into an phase of mandated corporate evolvement. Now it stands for an investment in social responsibility. In the beginning these attitudes were undertaken voluntarily; however not always with an altruistic purpose. Nowadays social values are taken very seriously in a corporation. It's important to keep the atmosphere healthy on the shop floor.


Stijn De Schutter
Source: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1251450

Social Influence Marketing

Social Influence Marketing is a recently new type of marketing. It means that people feel the influence of the social websites and the internet. The boom of the internet made it clear that companies need to advertise on the Internet to reach their public.

Social Influence Marketing is just so important as the traditional marketing because the net is still growing and people surf a lot on the Internet. There are also believers who think that the Social Influence Marketing will have a bigger effect on the customers than the other types of marketing.

This new form of Marketing uses Social Networks like Facebook, Linkedln,MySpace,.. Companies need to think how they will link to a social network and more important to what social network. Today Facebook is the most important network but you can never predict who long it will stay the leader  of the Social Network.

The influence of social networks is very big because there are not just your friends that you can see but in fact you can communicate with the whole world.

The conclusion is that Social Influence Marketing is something that every marketer need to use because it’s something that have a big influence and it’s still growing…

An-Sofie Despeghel 

http://www.goingsocialnow.com/2009/03/trends-in-social-influence-mar.html

http://www.shivsingh.com/goingsocial/2007/12/think-social-influence-marketi.html

Beyond the four P’s

I want to remark upon An-Sofie’s latest blog about the four P’s of marketing. These are considered to be the most important aspects when dealing with marketing decisions. But beside these key factors, there are still some other topics the marketing department shouldn’t ignore, such as environment, competition, development of the company, prospect, the costs to enter a market…

Some of them need more explanation. Environment first of all includes the government's policy. A good knowledge of subsidies, licensing requirements and price control are recommended. Further, a company has to keep in mind the influence of technological, demographic or cultural changes.

Prospect is another aspect an enterprise has to take into account, mainly in bounding its market segment. For example how much time the production department can spend on innovating products or processes. Also market studies can provide relevant insights for your niche.

Once more, this confirms marketing contains much more than I had first thought.

Pauline Deturck

http://www.businessplans.org/market.html

The marketing mix

We already know that the Marketing Department has a very important role in the company. Maybe it’s also necessary to think how you need to set up the right marketing mix.

The Marketing mix show us the basic elements of a marketing strategy. There are 4 P’s in the marketing mix. That are price, product, place and promotion.  Not every company has the same accent, there are companies that find the price the most important P but that depends on their strategy choice.

• ·         Price : You can choice a particular way to price your product. There is penetration pricing (to reach a big part of the market) , economy pricing (the lowest price ), price skimming, product line pricing..  The way you chose depends also on the type of company you are, a low-cost or a high-level company.
• ·         Product: Here they use different methods to do research on the products. A very known method is the product life cycle. Through the different stages in the product life cycle the marketing situation changes. You have 4 different stages: introduction, growth, maturity, decline. Each stage has his typical features.
• ·         Place:  The place of the marketing mix is the way of distribution of the product but also the place where the customer can buy the product.
• ·         Promotion:  With promotion the marketing mix means the way of communicating with the (possible) customers. There are different ways to reach the people, but the best known is through advertisement.

Nowadays there are people who suggest a  marketing mix with more P’s. They think there are three more P’s, that model names ‘the Extend marketing mix’. The extra  P’s stand for people, process and physical evidence. 


Despeghel An-Sofie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix#Extended_Marketing_Mix_.283_Ps.29

http://marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-marketing-mix.html

http://marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-pricing.html

http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/product/lifecycle/