The Role and Operation of Marketing - Essay Example

Student’s Name: Professor’s Name: Subject: The Role and Operation of Marketing Date: Q1. Based on economics principles, discuss the role and operation of marketing. Aspects to consider: how marketing tries to influence the demand curve; the impact of social media on the cost of marketing, and the corresponding shift towards online methods of promotion. Introduction Marketing is the process of management that identifies, anticipates and satisfies the profitability of customer requirements. Marketing refers to the process by with the want and needs of customers are determined and being in a position to deliver the products that can meet the wants and needs. The process incorporates every activity that is required to in moving a product from the manufacturer or producer to the customer or consumer. Basically, marketing symbolizes the bridge between consumers and producers. In economics, marketing begins with a market research. This is a process of learning whereby marketers strive to establish each possible person that could help them with the wants and needs of the consumers. The process comes to an end when something is bought by someone. Several companies believe that services provided to consumers after the purchase are essential marketing components. The marketing process, therefore, is made up of advertisements, production, processing, transportation, selling and packaging. The customers are at the heart of marketing. A business, therefore, will ignore that fact at its peril (The Chartered Institute of Marketing 2009). The marketing function, in essence, studies the factors and forces in the market and how the company can develop its position and hence optimize its benefit from that. Marketing involves getting the service or product that is right to the customers at prices that are right, at the right time and in the right place. A company is not able to get close to its customers and fulfil the needs of the customers without marketing. From the history of business, if a company fails to market its products and services, a competitor will for sure. At times, marketing is wrongly defined within the narrow advertisement or selling contexts. However, that is never the entire story. It is a fundamental discipline of management that enables services and goods producers interpret the desires, needs and wants of customers (The Chartered Institute of Marketing 2009). How marketing tries to influence the demand curve A demand curve in economics is a graph that depicts how the price of a given commodity relates to its amount. The amount should be one that a customer is willing and capable to buy at the given price. It represents the demand schedule. Demand curve depicts the product demand as well as its price. The depiction is done using a graph. Quality is put on the x-axis while price appears on the y-axis. The demand curve is affected by a number of factors (Brookins 2015). Marketing is a key aspect that affects the curve because it cuts across several factors. Marketing has a great influence on the size of the market. Proper marketing expands the market size whereas poor marketing negatively affects the size of the market. When the size of the market is affected, the demand curve automatically affected as a result. It marketing is not properly done, and then the market size reduces, the demand curve will be seen to shift from right to left. This will hence indicate that there is a fewer potential of buyers because of higher prices. If marketing is done promptly, and, as a result, there is an increase in the market size, the demand curve will shift right. This is an indication of a larger number of possible buyers due to the lower prices. A product and service that compliment what a company gives a market has effects on the demand curve. For instance, one may sell hot dogs while on the other and, a complementary business provides rolls of hot dogs. In case the rolls of hot dog prices increase as a result of poor marketing, the hot dogs demands may decrease. The demand curve, therefore, shifts left making the hotdog price to increase (Brookins 2015). The other most essential factor is the customer preference. The preference of the customer affects the demand of a given market. The preference of any customer is influenced to great deal the kind of marketing the customer has experienced and seen. Advertisement is only but a portion of marketing. Advertisements shape and influence the customer preferences in the market. The preferences and tastes of the customers are flexible depending on the marketing strategies, the season, type of information or advertisement they get from family and friends. The extent at which a consumer needs a company’s product can have effects on the demand curve. The demand curve shifts right when more customers are in need of a service or product. As more customers need fewer services or products, the curve shifts left. The demand curve therefore indirectly depends on marketing and where it shifts solely depends on the intensity of marketing (Brookins 2015). Future expectations are also another key factor influenced by marketing. The future expectations also directly affect the demand curve. If a certain consumer expects the service or product cost to increase, they might start stocking for it very early. This helps them in avoiding paying prices that are higher in the near future. A customer, however, may not be able to realize that there will be a subsidy or rise in the prices of a product without marketing. Through marketing, a consumer is kept updated about the promotions in the near future and any reduction in the prices of the products. Advertisements play crucial roles in the future expectations of a product. A customer might as well start stocking finances for a product being market that is yet to be introduced in the market. Stocking of cash by the customer might make the demand curve to shift right. Nevertheless, when there is an increase in the prices, as the customer expected initially, the demand curve shifts left (Boundless 2014). The impact of social media on the cost of marketing Several companies have incorporated social media in their different websites and make use of it as new channels for marketing (Saputra 2014). As entrepreneurs, social media changes how organizations create and establish the marketing system in that social media adds more marketing channels at operational costs that are lower than the orthodox ones. The social media has a vast and massive array of impact. The social media creates impact on marketing in a big way. Contemporarily, the social media is vital and essential trade and marketing channel. For last few years, the social media has transformed itself and evolved into a fundamental in any toolbox for marketers savvy. Most consumers are said to spend a lot of their time dealing with social media sites. According to House (2012), online marketing through media is contemporarily a very effective solution for small businesses in enhancing their relations to customers. They also use the social media to market their companies and hence broaden the base of their consumers without affecting their savings. In reference to the marketing industry report of social media 2011, small businesses are likely to benefit more from marketing via social media. Social media helps companies in extending their brands via increased traffic and exposure (Saputra 2014) Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Skype are the most popular channels of communication. Most companies have embraced them as the most fundamental channels for reaching their target markets. Companies use the sites for advertisements. Contemporarily, there has been a vast change in traditional media like broadcast and print (Armbruster 2015). The traditional media outlets have been losing audience consistently and are as well failing out of the consumers favour. Advertisements no longer prioritize them like it used to some ten years ago. The Newspaper Association of America stated that for the last ten years, the industry of newspaper has reduced by almost fifty per cent. The postal service of the US reports a twenty-eight percent decrease in the mail volume of first-class level in the last ten years. Television was once reportedly the second best channel of getting shoppers into the stores that were behind the programs of signage (Armbruster 2015). Currently, it there is an increased number of fragmented audience that watch hundreds of cable channels. There are stiff competitions from services that stream live like Netflix. Companies are shifting towards social media because it is cheap and some entirely free. Social media, therefore, cuts the marketing cost of the organisation. The media also reaches several people at ago. Most social media sites, for instance, Facebook are global. This means that the marketing process creates a global impact The company, therefore, spends less or does not spend at all but reaches a market that is so large. It is easier and cheaper to access a social media site. Accessing a site It as simple as using your Smartphone to login and make an advertisement. The social media hence proves to be faster than the traditional modes of advertisements. A saying goes “time is money”. Saving time in marketing by use of social media, therefore, cuts costs. The social media has proven to be an efficient and powerful tool for message distribution to groups of buyers that are highly categorised. The internet, like traditional media, is a channel of information distribution. Due to its ability to allow for precise and targeted advertisements, it is more cost effective than the traditional incremental methods for instance broadcast and print. Models that are viable are getting themselves into the play. However, what sets aside social media as the most effective method and cost-effective marketing strategy is its specific potentials. Its specific potential refers to the way it can select the specifically targeted markets and prospects. After it has selected the prospects, it creates immediate interactions between the marketing companies and the target market (Armbruster 2015). The corresponding shift towards online methods of promotion Marketers have regarded the internet as the laboratory that is vast since its dawn. Therefore, companies are launching experiments in attempts to cracking of the code that develops customer loyalty and sales. Consumers have adopted online promotion technologies as they see fit. That has significantly altered the manner in which they make decisions about their purchases. Companies that have understood the evolution are cautiously shifting towards digital online interactivity. They are making the online methods of promotion the core of their strategies of marketing. The companies are rethinking the budgets and priorities they initially had. They are therefore reshaping, substantially, their skills and processes (Boundless 2014). The most successful online digital promoters focus to manage four important value sources. They do so as they also focus on increasing the channel spending and marketing that is directed towards the digital activities. To start with, the companies make a coordination of their activities in that the consumers are totally engaged throughout the journey of the increasingly online purchase journey (Kotler 2011). Second, the companies harness the interest and good attitude in their brands. They do so by syndicating consumer empowering content to build their identities for marketing. In the processes, the consumer will serve as the ambassador of the brand of the products of the company. Third, the companies acknowledge the need of rethinking like large-scale multimedia publishers as they manage staggering increases in the content created. The content created supports segments, promotions, channels and products. The marketers, finally, strategically plot the way they can gather and made use of the plethora of online available digital data. To give marketing a new image means agreeing to abide by the new digital perspectives accomplishment. It takes the marketing executive to take a step in coordinating cross-functionally to abrader extent. The executive should be armed with deep journey decisions and insights of what consumers are undertaking as well as the tools that are required to guide it (Pettinger 2012). Conclusion In conclusion, marketing is a very fundamental aspect of any company, however, small. It brings out the image of the company to the consumers. The consumers are shown what the product of the company is and how much the products and services cost. Any company should therefore not avoid marketing. If a company fails to market its services and products, its rivals will obviously advertise and will, therefore, create a monopoly in the market. List of references Armbruster, B., 2015, “Using Social Media to Reduce Marketing Costs in Dispositions,” Retrieved on 5th May 2015 from, Abramovich, G., 2012, “Social as Cost-Cutting Tool,” Retrieved on 5th May 2015 from, Boundless, 2014, “Changes in Demand and Shifts in the Demand Curve,” Retrieved May 4th 2015 from, Brookins, M., 2015, “Factors That Affect Demand Curve,” Retrieved May 4th 2015 from, House, L., 2012, “Social Media Marketing: Increase your reach, reduce your marketing costs,” Retrieved on 5th May 2015 from, Kotler, P., 2011, “Principles of marketing,” Retrieved May 4th 2015 from, Pettinger, T. R.(2012).Factors affecting demand. Retrieved May 4th 2015 from < http://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/equilibrium/demand/ > Saputra, D., 2014, “What is the impact of social media in marketing and strategic management?” Retrieved 4th May 2015 from, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2009, “Marketing and the 7PsA brief summary of marketing and how it works,” Retrieved March 5th 2015 from, Read More