Introduction
This paper will explain the role of marketing in improving the ability of businesses to address existing challenges in competitive markets. It will identify marketing solutions while focusing on a specific business challenge. The work will extend to explain the impact of globalization by describing Ansoff,s growth matrix using a SWOT analysis. An explanation of how businesses use digital marketing to influence growth and performance will be offered. Moreover, the paper will explore the introduction to marketing concepts and mix, competitive markets and solutions, the impact of globalization, and digital marketing.
Marketing and Customer Value
Marketing refers to the set of institutions, activities as well as processes that are meant for delivering, communicating, exchanging, and creating a high-value offering for partners, clients, customers, and society. It explains activities undertaken to improve the selling and buying of a service or product (Kotler et al., 2019). It usually includes delivery, selling, advertising to customers and sometimes to other businesses. Market needs refer to diverse offerings including the product nature and customer requirements such as desires for a specific benefit either emotional or functional (Chintalapati, 2020). Marketing utilizes the 7Ps and it attempts to identify potential customers and win their attention.
Businesses can use the 7Ps to develop customer value by promoting awareness of the existing products or services. The marketing mix entails seven elements, namely price, people, promotion, process, place, physical evidence, and product (Anabila, 2020). While the place explains where the product can be accessed or purchased, the price provides details on the amount to be paid. Understanding the product facilitates the establishment of the best strategy to satisfy the market.
The 7 Ps tend to interact to facilitate the identification of key factors in a business, such as how well the provided product meets the consumer expectations, and perception, and evaluates its performance. They also help evaluate the business’s interactions with its customers and facilitate the identification of areas requiring improvement (Anabila, 2020). Businesses benefit from a marketing mix in many ways, including understanding the position of their products or service. This facilitates effective planning for the product offering and enhances proactiveness in the management of risks, effective distribution, and provision of the necessary information to customers. It enables the identification of when and how to initiate product promotion.
Developing a strong marketing mix facilitates the development of an appropriate product to make a positive impact in the market. Moreover, it promotes executing, developing, and implementing strong marketing strategies and planning for a successful product offering. In the price element, businesses should consider the credit terms, list prices, payment period, and discounts (Hanlon, 2019). The “place” decision should be based on public relations, sales promotion, advertising, and personal setting. Business needs to ensure that the right quality of after-sale services is offered by promoting efficient processes.
Use of Marketing to Promote Competitiveness
Marketing can enable businesses to understand their operating environment and develop measures to promote their ability to satisfy the market. A competitive environment refers to a system enabling businesses to compete using pricing methods, promotional strategies, and various marketing channels. It is influenced by factors such as barriers to entry, number of sellers, product features, location, as well as information availability (Chintalapati, 2020). Businesses use marketing as a tool to identify the most effective promotion, advertising, and pricing approach. Businesses need to conduct a SWOT analysis to understand their position. SWOT refers to a strategic planning technique applied to help explain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Anabila, 2020). The tool is applied to enhance the awareness of important factors that promotes the decision-making process. It helps businesses operate efficiently and establish measures to make continuous improvements.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors that every business must strive to understand to gain better knowledge of its potential. It helps companies understand strong areas requiring perfection and limiting factors that need corrective actions to enhance capabilities. Strengths explain areas where the business is doing well, unique resources, and positive perceptions from customers (McDonald, 2007). Understanding strengths enable businesses to learn about their positive traits such as better technology, loyal customer base, and strong brand image.
Opportunities and threats are external factors affecting the business in many ways. Businesses should learn about their opportunities to understand available and open factors that can be beneficial. Prevailing opportunities should be exploited proactively to offer an edge in the market. Analyzing opportunities explains how an organization can leverage its strengths and take advantage of the market trend (Kotler and Armstrong, 2017). Moreover, threats analyze strategies applied by competitors and show activities that cause harm.
Ansoff’s Growth Matrix
The Ansoff Matrix referred to as the product/market expansion grid is a tool applied by businesses to facilitate the planning and analysis of growth strategies. The tool was named after H. Igor Ansoff, who developed and later published it in 1957 in the Harvard Business Review. It was embraced by many business leaders and marketers for supporting the analysis of risks of growth (Chintalapati, 2020). It has four quadrants, namely diversification, market development, market penetration, and product development.
Businesses can use market penetration and market development to realize success in the market. Market penetration strategies can help boost sales and play a role in the improvement of business profitability (Baack, Czarnecka, and Baack, 2018). The company may consider reducing prices to motivate and attract new customers, acquire competitors to gain a monopoly, and increase distribution and promotion efforts. Businesses can use the Ansoff Matrix to expand sales in the existing market and products. This is because they understand the nature of the market and its opportunities. Companies are likely to experience fewer surprises or market failures when operating in an existing market. The Ansoff Matrix encourages businesses to establish effective measures to leverage from a known market and makes an effort to achieve the best outcome.
Market development strategies can help generate a new product to offer better satisfaction in an existing market. They encourage extensive expansion, development, and research to provide innovative solutions and satisfaction in a new market (Kotler et al., 2019). Businesses can use the Ansoff Matrix to push an existing product to a different market by introducing new features. Creativity and innovation in the development process can enable businesses to find a new application of the product or benefits. This can make it easier for the company to join the new market and perform excellently.
Role of Digital Marketing in Improving Business Performances and Growth
Digital marketing is sometimes referred to as online marketing, and it entails the promotion of brands to enhance connections with potential customers using digital communication platforms, electronic devices, and the internet. It includes multimedia messages, web-based advertising, social media, and emails (Baack, Czarnecka, and Baack, 2018). One role of digital marketing is to improve the visibility and accessibility of business by boosting online sales and business websites. This implies that customers searching for certain products can easily locate companies, which have invested in digital marketing. Another role is to improve the customer base and make it possible for companies to meet diverse market requirements. It facilitates market expansion while increasing the chances of expanding business and workforce. Moreover, it helps build traffic, sales, and leads and facilitates the satisfaction of the company’s mission.
Another important role of digital marketing is supporting businesses to gain an opportunity to establish better and consistent branding. It facilitates the displaying of the company logo, slogan, and name across diverse social media platforms. It enables the creation of an effective website marked with professional graphics that help communicate with customers. This implies that digital marketing promotes customer acquisition and interactions and supports improved sharing of information. Enhanced interaction with customers facilitates their satisfaction and limits complaints (Blythe and Martin, 2019). A positive relationship is an important element that promotes internal marketing and helps achieve organizational goals.
Digital marketing plays a role in the reduction of the cost of advertisement and marketing. Unlike traditional marketing, this approach offers an effective and cost-effective method of reaching out to customers. It presents specific metrics that are usually tracked and analyzed to support optimal performance (Chowdhury and Naheed, 2020). All businesses, including small ones, can leverage digital marketing because it comes with minimal cost. The other role is enabling the targeting of relevant and potential consumers. It enhances connection with people interested in the business’s products. It becomes possible to establish a target audience and facilitate the establishment of an advertisement plan based on the market requirements.
Conclusion
Marketing is an important component of a business and determines how well it meets its objective, remains competitive, and satisfies its customers. It encourages communication and positive interactions with clients to build long-lasting relationships while enhancing profitability. Moreover, marketing benefits companies by enhancing performance, identifying strong areas requiring perfection, opportunities to exploit, weaknesses to improve, and threats to avoid. Globalization can bring beneficial changes enabling businesses to face issues affecting them in a better way. Moreover, digital marketing has provided improved means of establishing a strong customer base.
Reference List
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