A decade or so ago marketing was relatively straightforward. You held all the cards as one would have flyers, brochures, probably a simple website and long mailing list.
The business challenges were much the same as they are now. These included, finding new clients, differentiating yourself from your competitors and getting more referrals. Today’s potential customers’ reaction to marketing has changed rapidly as they are more tech savvy, and cynically connected buyers so that old style marketing is no longer so effective.
Statistics have shown that 44% of direct mail goes entirely unopened, or we delete emails from our inboxes unread. Close to 86% of us skip through television ads. We have changed mainly because the internet has changed the game, social media has transformed us.
The information available about products and services is almost endless. The purchasing power is in the customer’s hands, much more than ever before. In the past, companies had more power to convince and reason with customers with regards to purchases. Sales persons were trusted, and speaking directly to a company was a logical step in making a purchase.
Today, however, the good news is that there is an entire set of new strategies, which marketers need to use such as the use of multiple channels: Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Linked-In etc. The focus should be on the customers, selling products on the specific needs of the customer — not just your needs as a company. The marketing campaigns are to be swayed based on insights you gather from your potential buyers. The organisations need to evolve to address the changes, through innovation for example, digital transformation of the business activities, processes and procedures and information technologies.
Today’s chief executive faces a baffling dilemma. Change gets more expensive every day; yet failure to change can cost even more. Even while adapting to change, a company’s marketing effort must reflect an internal constancy of purpose and an external consistency of image. McKinsey have recognised six features that have changed the face of marketing and these are:
l The dominance of the customer
It is nearly a truism that the needs and wants of the consumer are the critical issues today in creating new products and services, and developing the accompanying plans to merchandise them at a profit. The need for accurate and adequate market information is critical. One marketing vice-president aptly summed it up when he said, “My company’s sales output can’t be any better than my intelligence input.”
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l The spread of marketing research
The second trend is the increased use of marketing research — in terms of both quantity and scope. To an important degree, of course, this trend is a response to the first. If knowledge about future customers is essential, and if the quality of the marketing output is materially affected by the calibre of the informational input, then marketing research is bound to increase in use and contribution as the interest in more scientific marketing grows.
Today, the bulk of company marketing research is devoted to such activities as development of market potentials (for both existing and new products), analysis of customer buying habits and requirements, measurement of advertising effectiveness, share-of-market studies, determination of market characteristics, sales analysis, establishment of sales quotas, and development of sales territories.
l The rise of the computer
The third major trend marketing must consider is the emergence of electronic data-processing equipment as a major tool of scientific marketing not only for reporting data but also, more importantly, for planning and control by management. Most companies have dragged their feet in taking advantage of electronic data-processing analyses, online communications, and information-retrieval systems as tools to help make marketing more efficient.
l Expanded use of test marketing
The move toward more controlled experimentation to narrow the odds of an error in making marketing changes is also a change to note. Two major influences emphasise the need for further expansion of test marketing. The first is the rising cost of marketing changes: the costs, for example, of introducing new products and packaging, of developing new advertising and promotional programs, and of retraining salespeople.
The second influence is the mounting investment in product research and development. The resulting outpouring of new products may measurably shorten the product life cycle and reduce the payout time correspondingly. This is one reason so many innovations in consumer goods are test-marketed before being placed in national distribution, even though the product may have been checked out in the laboratory and its sales potential assessed through marketing research.
l Metamorphosis of field selling
The fifth trend is a shift in the nature of the field-selling job toward a more integrated, profit-oriented marketing effort. A typical salesperson today represents a major investment of company funds. To achieve a satisfactory return on this investment, the salesperson must sell profitably — not just bring in volume. The job is becoming less and less the presentation of the company’s product line, more and more the marketing of integrated systems.
l Global market planning
An ever-broadening application of the marketing concept to worldwide markets is the last of the six broad trends. The concept of a completely integrated marketing effort is valid and is increasingly being adopted. In many companies operating worldwide, it will stimulate the development of global market planning. This means that top management must think through how best to coordinate a multinational selling effort to assure adequate corporate control over a worldwide marketing plan — yet without unduly restricting initiative and responsibility within each national segment.
l Memory Ndoro-Mandiya is fully qualified marketing practitioner, consultant and trainer. She also sits on the MAZ Advisory Council. She can be reached on [email protected] *This article was contributed on behalf of the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe, a leading body of marketing professionals promoting professionalism to the highest standards for the benefit of the industry and the economy at large. For any further information kindly contact [email protected] or visit the website on www.maz.co.zw.
