Introduction
The concept of building a market-driven company has been the fundamental to many marketing firms and companies. Different institutions have developed good strategies that facilitates the building for their finished products. The strategies are aimed at not only improving sales of the existing company’s product but also to boost the image of the company (Armstrong, 2011). Many companies have majored in having good marketing strategies such as use of e-commerce, massive advertising campaigns through branding of the existing products, and database marketing among others. Firms have changed from the traditional marketing strategies such as personnel selling to modern methods such as entertainment and viral marketing. Modern firms rely on customers’ feedback on when, how and why to buy the existing products using emails and social media for communication.
How to Build a Market Oriented Company
One way of ensuring that companies change to market oriented approaches is changing from managing company product portfolios to managing customer portfolios by effectively managing customer databases for better understanding of the market (Keller & Kotler, 2012). Proper communications are encouraged through dialogue in their respective websites, emails and social sites as opposed to previous monologue in the market. The approach helps in measuring returns on their market investment and the effects on the shareholder’s wealth. Proper exchange of information between companies’ staff and customers is also another approach. It is initiated through the use of company emails and social sites. In this way, there is a platform which encourages interaction between the company and the customers on when to buy, how to use the product and the effects of the products on the body and the environment.
A company could also shift to a market oriented approach by encouraging holistic marketing in the organization. Marketing should not be a departmental approach. Such an approach ensures that everyone participates in marketing the organization as opposed to the traditional view where marketing was solely left for the marketing department. The approach could also be coupled with developing good marketing strategies and plans. Good marketing plans and strategies ensure that marketers and customers are able to get adequate products at an appropriate time and also outlines when to produce and where to sell the product. Strategies marketing may include;
Value Delivering Of Products
Companies have recently adopted this strategy to reach customers who may have shortage of goods in their localities. The marketers are able to segment the market, select the appropriate target, and develop the value positioning
Value chain strategy
The process involves activities that are aimed at creating customer value in terms of designs, and delivery of the product to the market. The value chain strategies used involve bringing materials into the business, converting raw materials to finished goods, outbound logistics, marketing, procurement, technology and human resource management.
Building Strong Brands
It involves understanding the strengths and weakness of the existing brands that the customers can see. Besides it also monitors what strategies to adopt should competitors develop brands that compete what the company produces.
Shaping Marketing Offerings
The process entails checking the product in terms of quality, design, features and packaging. Companies may provide training to the marketers on the product and the reason for rebranding using cost effective marketing strategies such as discounts and psychological selling. The price to be adopted must correspond to the buyer’s perception of the product to avoid buyers from moving away to competitors. Marketers adopted new-product developments, which is often as a result of research about the market gaps and needs of the people.
Mission Statements
According to Peter Drucker, there are key concepts that guide an organization’s mission. For instance, a mission defines what a business is in terms of its identity. The mission also identifies what the customers of the business and the value that the business attaches to them. These aspects define the business and its purpose, which also relates to its culture. Fundamentally, a business will only achieve its purpose if it sticks to organizational goals (Kotler, 2007). Therefore, organizations and companies have developed mission statements that guide the employees, managers and customers bound by a common goal. Good mission statements provide a sense of opportunity, direction to all the stakeholders of a business because they reflect the vision of a company. A mission statement will always describe a number of fundamental aspects of a company. For instance, it may focus on limited achievable goals, which makes the business to have a sense of direction in its operations. Having numerous marketing and organizational missions may require the management to prioritize the most important mission and adopt the least important mission which may be irrelevant. A mission statement also emphases the business policies and values. Employees must adhere strictly to the business policies otherwise the goals would be irrelevant.
A mission statement communicates the life of an institution. Missions should not be short term in nature since organizational objectives may be subjected to changes which may make it difficult to achievement of goals.
Vision Statements
A company’s vision statement defines the organization’s performance and what they intend to do in future. A good vision statement must meet a number of characteristics, which define the company. For instance it shows what the company does and what it intends to achieve in future. It also communicates the life of a business because it is always long term in nature and not prone to changes.
Customer Satisfaction
Anderson (2004) asserts that different companies have initiated various strategies’ aimed at ensuring customers are satisfied with the products produced. The marketing department in the organization has adopted strategies to ensure that customers are satisfied. Such strategies may involve treating customers fairly. For instance, the process may entail giving indiscriminate information to customers regardless of their locations and their purchasing power. Companies could also offer quality products at an affordable price and rebrand products that have been in the market for a long period of time. Another approach is offering products to consumers in different sizes depending on their needs. The business may also reward the customers through attaching gifts to products purchased, give consumers a chance to express their views related to the product.
After achieving customer satisfaction, the company needs to determine the demand of the product through carrying out marketing analysis. The analysis should be focused on the general market trends in terms of consumer’s tastes and preference, the past or previous sales and the consumer’s affordability.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, companies marketing strategies should be encouraged because of the dynamic nature of the market and business and the levels of competition among companies dealing in similar products. The strategies to be adopted must not be static because of the market variations.
References
Anderson, R. E., & Dubinsky, A. J. (2004). Personal selling: Achieving customer satisfaction and loyalty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Armstrong, G. (2011). Principles of marketing. French’s Forest, N.S.W: Pearson Australia.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2012). Marketing Management. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Kotler, P. (2007). Marketing management: Analysis planning implementation and control. New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India.