Reflective Log on Marketing, Essay Example

Before I took this course, my understanding of marketing was not very different from an average person who often equates marketing with advertising and promotion. Taking this course has made me realize that marketing encompasses all aspects of product planning which can be best described by the 4Ps i.e. product, price, promotion, place(Lake). In other words, marketing involves deciding on a product or service to offer and the targeted market, deciding on price/prices to be charged, promotion tools to be used, and distribution channels to be utilized. Each of these steps requires careful planning and research. Consumer is always at the center of each decision and successful marketing is all about understanding consumers’ needs and desires and fulfilling them profitably. The focus on consumer in marketing has taught me the importance of listening to those who matter. Marketing also taught me that the quality of product is not everything because quality only matters when the customers accept it and are willing to pay for it. A product that doesn’t win approval of the market doesn’t matter no matter how good it is. Thus, marketing is to earn profits by satisfying customers’ desires and needs.

This course has taught me the importance of research and planning. Unless we know where we want to go or what we want to achieve, we can’t formulate an effective action plan. Without a clear target, we may be wasting our limited resources and energy. If marketers don’t know what their target markets prefer or the price points they can afford, they may market a product with lot of features and high price points and the most likely end result would be a product failure as well as financial losses. I also learnt that marketers do not act on their own but often work closely with other departments such as finance and manufacturing. For example, marketers will provide data regarding product features and price points preferred by the target market to the finance and manufacturing departments. This will help finance and manufacturing departments figure out ways to produce a product that can be sold at prices preferred by the majority of the targeted customers. When manufacturing department will know exactly what customers want, they will avoid adding unpopular features into the product. This will help bring down manufacturing costs, enabling the marketers to sell product at prices affordable by the targeted market.

The academic discipline of marketing has evolved considerably over the last century that it could be considered a legitimate branch of management science. Different tools have been developed to help marketers make more effective decisions and improve efficiency. The marketing field realizes that an organization is not only affected by its internal stakeholders but also by outside actors as well as the external environment. Thus, decisions made without taking into account the potential impact of external forces may turn out to be inaccurate and ineffective. Some of the decision tools are PEEST, Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT Analysis, and Value Chain Analysis. This teaches me valuable lessons about effective decision making in others aspects of life, too. We are part of a large environment, thus, external factors have the ability to render our decisions ineffective. Thus, a good decision requires 360 degree analysis of all the potential factors that can affect the outcome of our chosen courses of actions. For example, SWOT analysis not only looks at the organization’s own strengths and weaknesses but also considers the opportunities and threats in the external environment(Danca). Similarly, firms are also affected by factors outside their control such as legislation, economic growth, and political factors. Even though firms have no control over these factors yet firms can’t afford to ignore them.

Since marketing revolves around customers, the course incorporated theories such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and influence of reference groups that help us understand consumers better and how they make their decisions. Understanding consumers’ behavior and buying habits is important because consumers’ are not always vocal about their choices but instead express their opinion through buying habits. Thus, firms who become skillful at understanding their consumers translate are able to beat the competition and enjoy higher profits. The course also taught me about the importance of differentiation. Differentiation is always an asset in any kind of competition. Even when we compete in the job market, one of the ways we try to gain advantage is to differentiate ourselves from the competition in ways that will be valued by the recruiters. Similarly, companies try to differentiate themselves from the competitors in order to gain brand loyalty as well as secure market share and pricing power. Without differentiation, it is hard for the firms to convince the customers to pay prices that ensure the firms’ profitability.

This course also taught me the importance of continuous reinvention as the customers’ tastes evolve or firms spot new, more profitable opportunities. It presented the example of Nintendo that started as a cardboard game company in the late nineteenth century but has totally reinvented itself through continuous R&D and innovation. This also applies to academic and practical life because our world is changing first, requiring new kinds of skills in order to stay competitive. Globalization has intensified the competition and one way to stay competitive is to continuously reinvent ourselves by learning new skills. The course also made good use of historical examples from reputed companies that introduced innovative products but incurred losses because they didn’t correctly identified the needs and the preferences of the market. Thus, it is becoming even more important to stay in touch with the consumers especially since new product development is often quite costly.

The team project was a useful exercise because it forced us to make use of all the material we had covered in orders to see whether we grasped everything well or not. In addition, we had to work with team mates that would often have quite different opinion and yet we had to work each other. Such conflicts taught valuable teamwork and conflict resolution skills especially the fact that listening is one of the most effective tool to solve problems. Preparations for presentations involved anticipating potential questions from the class fellows which was not very different from an organization’s need to anticipate the needs of its targeted market segments.

Seminars were a great way to become familiar with the latest trends in marketing and convinced us the need of continuous education even after we have graduated from the university. The changes have been happening so fast and the customers’ tastes change so often that seminars can be useful to anyone wanting to learn about the latest research and industry best practices. This course will improve my future academic performance because it has taught me research skills, team work skills, investigation skills, and presentation skills. Reflective essay was a good way of critically thinking over the semester and find out my overall understanding of the marketing discipline from this course. The fact that could easily recall course lecture by going through the slides proves that I have grasped the course material quite well.

References

Danca, Anthony C. SWOT Analysis. 10 July 2011 <http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/btopics/works/swot.htm>.

Lake, Laura. Developing Your Marketing Mix. 10 July 2011 <http://marketing.about.com/od/marketingplanandstrategy/a/marketingmix.htm>.