Discuss the various trends and developments in marketing concepts and applications.
Discuss the various trends and developments in marketing concepts and applications.
Ans.
Various Trends and Developments in Marketing Concepts and Applications
Marketing and marketers operate in a dynamic environment. As a result, marketing concepts and applications are constantly evolving and changing, so the strategic marketing planner must consider these when formulating plans.
1. An Envolving Marketing Concept-Relationship Marketing – An envolving nature of the concept of marketing itself and in particular the trend towards a concept of marketing based upon developing and maintaining long term relationships with customers, referred to relationship marketing. Relationship marketing concepts and techniques are still at a comparatively early and underdeveloped stage. It is based on the idea that an organisations marketing effort should be designed around a series of contacts with customers over time, rather than being based on single transactions.
The conventional marketing concept centres on the motion of understanding customer needs so that marketers can develop strategies that better meet these needs so that the organisation achieves its aims and goals.
Relationship marketing is built on creating and maintaining mutually satisfying commercial relationship which appears to be only a slightly different perspective from the traditional transactional view of marketing. It is a fundamentally different perspective on the marketing concepts and gives rise to potentially different approaches to developing market strategies. It is the subject of how we promote products and services, how we deal with customers and customers service functions and how we develop and use information about customers for targeting and other purposes.
One of the other reason for the growth of relationship marketing is the recognition of the importance and value of customers loyalty and retention.
The essence of effective loyalty programmes is building communication and trust between the marketer and customers.
2. Services Marketing – A major development has been the growth of services marketing. Service industries have been the major growth area in most developed economies. Banking and finance, insurance, healthcare, tourism and leisure are all major service industries that need and use the tools of marketing. There are differences in the application of marketing principles for the services marketer. A major difference is the need to consider the elements of the marketing mix from a slightly different perspective. The characteristics of service products have led to the notion of an extended marketing mix for service marketers. In addition to the conventional Tour Ps’ of product, price, place and promotion it is suggested that a fifth ‘P’ at least should be added to this mix, namely the ‘people’ element. People’ means anyone who directly interfaces with customers including: sales representatives, commission agents, distributors, franchise holders, service engineers, etc. In addition, two further Ps’ namely ‘process’ and ‘physical evidence’ may be added (referred to as the ‘3Ps’ of service marketing). So that this element is crucial in the marketing and must be considered and planned for by services marketers. Service marketing gives rise to, along with extended marketing mix elements.
3. New Technology: E-Commerce and Internet- This development has affected every facet of business over the past 20 years, but the marketing function in particular has been influenced by the impact and importance of new technology. There are so many ways in which this has affected marketing, ranging from developments in communications to technologies of transportation and distribution and underpinning product technologies such as genetic engineering. Perhaps the most significant development for marketers has been the growth of e-commerce and the Internet. Originally confined to being another promotional technique and a channel of distribution, the Internet is now proving an invaluable tool in marketing applications ranging from market research through to speeding the acceptance of new product innovations or even scanning the marketing environment for marketing planning. In addition of course the Internet is now a major element in the continued growth of direct marketing.
4. International/Global Marketing- Major development in marketing has been an increasingly international and global approach to marketing. Marketers have extended their activities and international marketing has been one of the fastest growing areas of trade and commerce.. Factors like the continued liberalisation of international trade, more cosmopolitan customers and potential for profit opportunities have led to the growth of global companies increasingly marketing global brands. The basic concepts and techniques of strategic marketing apply irrespective of whether we are marketing in domestic markets or across international frontiers. As with services marketing, the extra considerations caused by the complexity of marketing on an international or global scale mean there are a number of special issues for marketing that do not arise when marketing on a purely domestic basis. International and global aspects.
5. Internal Marketing- In the marketing oriented company it is essential for everyone in an organisation to become customer oriented. This view of Internal marketing centers on the notion of marketing’ the importance of customer orientation to everyone in the organisation. This idea suggests that employees of the organisation can usefully be looked at and dealt with in the same way as external customers.
Among the most important of these is the fact that it encourages functions that do not have a direct contact with external customers to appreciate the ideas of marketing and customers and to understand how their activities can affect external customers with regard to customer satisfaction and service. Some even suggest that internal marketing has important implications for and is related to the happiness of employees at work. Internal marketing has important implications for the implementation of strategic marketing and in particular the development of marketing orientation.
6. Ethical and Social aspects of Marketing – This is another aspect which marketing must keep in view. Profit maximization must not lead to consumer exploitation.. Advertising sometimes has a corrupting influence on young minds and encourages immorality. This adversely affects the social values. Introduction of new products sometimes destroys the utility of existing even before their usefulness is over. It also promotes artificial living as people are forced to buy things beyond their means. Marketing has to avoid such practices.
7. Legal Aspects- It is the most important aspect of marketing. At the time of preparation of marketing strategies it must be ensured that limits of laws and regulations are not crossed. There are many rules and regulations to regulate the business in each country. Main objectives of such rules and regulations are to avoid consumers from any unfair trade practice.
8. Extended Applications For Marketing- For many years, marketing concepts and techniques were associated with and applied to, the marketing of consumer products in the business-to-consumer (B2C) sense. These applications spread into business-to-business marketing (B2B) such as component suppliers and industrial equipment suppliers. Increasingly, marketing concepts and techniques are being utilized by any organization that has exchange relationships with its public. This includes charities; public sector organisations like libraries, public amenities and the police service, political parties and candidates; causes and ideas; schools and universities; hospitals and other health services. It is now generally accepted that marketing concepts and techniques are not only useful and relevant to any organization where an exchange takes place between one party and another, but also that their application is, in principle, no different from the original applications for marketing in profit-seeking consumer goods organisations.
