Chapter 6 Chapter Five Marketing Awareness of Sales Managers

Marketing is a social and managerial activity in which individuals and groups obtain what they want by creating, offering, selling, and exchanging products and value with others.The definition of marketing points out the importance of the market in marketing. Both the need and the satisfaction of the enterprise must be realized through the exchange of the market. Therefore, the marketing concept requires starting from the needs of consumers, and the ultimate goal is to occupy the target market.The marketing awareness is the sales manager's knowledge and understanding of marketing, which determines the sales manager's marketing strategy, planning, control and management.Therefore, the choice and abandonment of marketing concepts must be taken seriously by sales managers.

From the perspective of revealing the connotation of marketing as a concept, marketing master Philip Kotler defined marketing and explained the multi-level connotation of marketing in detail. Philip Kotler defines marketing as: Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and want by creating, offering, selling, and exchanging products and value with others. This definition includes the following levels: First, human needs, desires, and demands are the basis upon which marketing arises.People need food, air, water, clothing, and shelter to survive, have a strong desire for services, and have a taste for the specific form of products.

Kotler also distinguished needs, desires, and needs, and pointed out that human needs refer to the feeling state of not getting some basic satisfaction.This state of feeling is inherent in human beings, and cannot be created by society or marketers. They exist in people's own physiological structure and human conditions.Desire refers to the desire to obtain the specific gratification of these basic needs.Human needs are few, but desires are many, and various social forces and institutions will constantly stimulate human beings to form and re-form various desires.Demand refers to the desire for a specific product that can be bought and is willing to buy.Desires are transformed into needs only when there is purchasing power.

The above distinction clarifies a misconception about marketing that marketing does not create needs, it can only affect demand by making appropriate products, making them attractive, affordable, and accessible to target consumers.In other words, it is because of the influence of consumer demand that marketing is necessary.Influencing demand is also the ultimate goal of marketing.The value judgment of consumers on products is a prerequisite for marketing to affect demand. Secondly, consumers rely on products to satisfy their various desires and needs.Consumers rely on value judgments to choose among a group of products that may satisfy a particular need.These judgments can be based on various theories of consumer choice, but there is one thing - consumers tend to choose products that can bring him the most value for every penny.For this reason, the way that enterprise marketing affects demand has emerged. Enterprises should be able to create products that are closest to customers' ideal products through marketing, and affect consumers' value judgments, thereby affecting consumers' demand for this product.

Thirdly, facilitating the exchange in the market is the ultimate realization of marketing goals.The needs and desires of people and the value judgments made by people when purchasing products are necessary conditions for marketing, and they provide marketers with the possibility of making potential exchanges into actual exchanges.The realization of this possibility must be carried out through exchange on the market.Marketers must use a variety of means to make this ultimate leap. Philip Kotler's definition of marketing covers the origin, approach and goal of marketing, giving us a clear understanding of the origin of marketing.

Different understandings of the market have resulted in different marketing concepts.One of them is the market-centric concept, the so-called marketing concept, which is a marketing concept centered on customer needs.With the development of the market, the contradiction of oversupply has not been resolved, the market competition is becoming more and more fierce, the consumer demand is also undergoing tremendous changes, and people's requirements for commodities are becoming more and more diverse.Pure marketing means can no longer adapt to the increasingly diversified market.The market-centric concept is a marketing concept that adapts to this market change. This concept adopts the order from the outside to the inside, starting from a clear market, centering on customer needs, coordinating all activities that affect customers, and through creative Satisfied customers to profit.

Theodore Leavitt made a profound comparison between the sales concept and the marketing concept: the sales concept focuses on the needs of the seller, while the marketing concept focuses on the needs of the buyer; Marketing considers how to satisfy the needs of customers through products and all things related to creating, delivering products and ultimately consuming them.The comparison between the selling concept and the marketing concept is shown in the figure below. The other is the overall concept of society, which is a marketing concept that combines social needs with customer needs.In today's world of environmental degradation, resource scarcity, population explosion, worldwide famine and poverty, and neglect of social services, the market-centric concept is no longer an appropriate goal for businesses.The contradiction between consumer needs, consumer interests and long-term social welfare cannot be ignored by enterprises.For example, the disposable tableware and disposable syringes used in large quantities in our country have caused a lot of waste of resources, and many materials cannot be restored or decomposed, which aggravates the degree of environmental pollution.

The emergence of the above situation requires a new concept to modify or replace the market center concept.Various topics such as "concept of human being", "concept of wise consumption" and "concept of ecological norms" have explored this issue from different angles. To sum up, the social marketing concept is a supplement to the marketing concept, which holds that in addition to the needs, desires and interests of the target market, it should also be more effective and beneficial than competitors in a way that protects or enhances the welfare of consumers and society. To provide the expected satisfaction to the target market.

In 1976, Anita Roddick opened a cosmetics store in the UK, with an annual sales growth rate of 60% to 100%.Her company manufactures and sells only cosmetics based on natural ingredients in recyclable packaging.She understands her business in this way: "The most important thing is that our business is not only hair and skin care, but also society, environment and the wider outside world besides cosmetics." It is an inevitable requirement for the continuous development of the market to replace the old marketing concepts with new ones.For an enterprise, the marketing concept is the soul of its operation. Only by establishing the correct operating guiding ideology can it be able to cope with the vicissitudes of the market with ease.Clearly, under conditions of shortage economies and monopoly markets, firms do not have to make any effort to please customers.But today, the characteristics of the market have undergone great changes. Enterprises are facing the fiercest competition in decades. The formation of a buyer's market enables customers to choose among numerous products and services.Enterprises must provide acceptable quality, otherwise they will lose the market.The characteristics of consumers have also changed. They are often more educated and have higher requirements, and their expectations for product quality have also been continuously improved due to the guidance of some excellent companies.In such a business environment, clinging to the past business philosophy can only lead to a dead end.

The definition of marketing is concise, but for individual sales managers, in order to establish a marketing concept within the enterprise, they must have a comprehensive understanding of the marketing concept and infiltrate it into the corporate philosophy. The first step for an enterprise to establish a marketing concept is to strive for customer satisfaction. Customer value refers to the expected value of consumers for products, including product value, service value, personnel value and image value.Satisfaction refers to the feeling state formed by a person after comparing the perceived effect (or result) of the product with his expectation.The core of marketing is market-oriented, that is, customer satisfaction-oriented.Customers are satisfied or highly satisfied if the perceived effects of the product match or exceed customer expectations.Many successful companies are persistently pursuing Total Customer Satisfaction (TCS).Rusina's ad proclaimed: "We will never be 100% satisfied until you are satisfied." Honda's ad proclaimed: "One of the reasons our customers are so satisfied is that we are not satisfied. "

In fact, for those companies that are customer-oriented, customer satisfaction is both a goal and a tool.The pursuit of customer satisfaction is highly consistent with the long-term interests of the enterprise.High levels of satisfaction and enjoyment create a resonance with the brand, create brand loyalty among customers, and keep repeat customers.At the same time, the publicity of customer satisfaction rate increases the popularity of the enterprise, improves the image of the enterprise, and greatly promotes the sales of the enterprise.Dell Computer's rapid growth in the personal computer industry is due in part to the fact that the company achieved and advertised its first-class customer satisfaction. How can we achieve high customer satisfaction?For enterprises, three aspects must be paid attention to. First of all, establish the principle of customer first within the enterprise.Its purpose is to establish customer orientation as a concept.The manager of a supermarket in the United States restrains his employees in this way. He has formulated two principles: The first one: the customer is always right.Rule 2: If the customer is wrong, refer to Rule 1 (see Figure 5-2). Secondly, establish a real-time control system of customer satisfaction within the enterprise.Businesses today have realized the importance of keeping customers.There is such a fact that the cost of attracting a new customer is about 5 times that of maintaining an existing customer.Therefore, if the company cannot know the customer's satisfaction with the company's products in time, the old customers are likely to be lost. Again, implement total quality marketing.This is the minimum guarantee for customer satisfaction.The greatest marketing department in the world has no way to make up for poor quality products or services. Small problems such as incomprehensible product manuals will greatly reduce customers' impression of the company.Today's enterprises want to win in the competition, except for total quality management, there is no other way.Jack Welch, former chairman of General Electric, said: "Quality is the best guarantee for us to maintain customer loyalty, our most powerful weapon against foreign competition, and the only way for us to maintain growth and profitability." Maintaining the spirit of innovation is the third step for enterprises to establish marketing concepts.The rapid development of modern science and technology has shortened the cycle of transforming new scientific inventions into productivity, and accelerated the replacement of production equipment and products, forcing enterprises to scientifically foresee the opportunities or challenges that may be brought about by future development. With the improvement of people's income level, new demands emerge in an endless stream, requiring enterprises to have more varieties of products, more products and higher quality and services.The continuous development and change of market demand forces enterprises to innovate constantly and develop new products that are marketable. The ever-changing international economic environment has brought new opportunities and new threats to enterprises. Enterprises that do not have the ability to be flexible and changeable are often helpless in the face of some great changes and let them perish. 3M Company sets an example of innovation for companies all over the world.The company can do this mainly because of the company's philosophy and system. One is that the company strives to cultivate an important concept among employees, namely: loyalty and dedication are necessary conditions for successful product development.In this way, when developing new products, everyone in the company can treat the product as their own business, whether it is to successfully launch a product that others have no confidence in to the market or to find ways to mass-produce it to reduce costs, and most of the bosses let it go. let them do it. The second is to attach importance to the protection of innovation fighters.An important role of the boss or supervisor of the innovation champions is to protect the younger generation of fighters from unintentional interference by company personnel. The third is to set up an innovative product group.This is the basic unit of innovation for a company.This special group has three important characteristics: it is fully participated by various professionals, and the task is unlimited; it is all volunteers; it has considerable autonomy.The members of an innovation team include at least technical personnel, manufacturing personnel, marketing personnel, business personnel, and even financial personnel, and all of them are full-time.Although this will cause a waste of personnel, the company seems to be willing to pay this price so that the staff can concentrate on their work.Their argument is that only full-time assignments can motivate employees to give their all and focus on one task. The fourth is a good incentive system.The company's reward system, whether it is for the entire group or specific individuals, has an encouraging effect.Every member of the team will be promoted when their product development plan overcomes obstacles and achieves success.When the group thrives, the innovation champions benefit; and vice versa.In a company, as long as a person participates in the development of new product innovations, his job title and salary level in the company will naturally change with the business performance of his products. The fifth is to attach importance to honor.Once an innovation champion's invention is successful, it is immediately greeted with a corporate hero's ovation.Once a product breaks through the one-million-yuan sales mark, spotlights, bells, and cameras will all come out, and warmly praise the achievements of this enterprise vanguard. If the sales manager wants to implement the marketing concept in the enterprise, he must also establish the corresponding process.The analysis, planning and control of marketing are the necessary means to ensure the implementation of the above three ideas. In a company that has done a good job of coordinating relations with customers, innovating, and positioning, if it does not have a sound marketing plan and control system, its marketing concept will be incomplete.Marketing plan is the transition of corporate strategy from macro to micro, and the analysis and prediction of target market demand is the beginning of this micro activity, which is a specific and detailed plan.Planning and control is the primary function of the sales manager, which unifies the command of all sales activities of the marketing department.If the marketing department is compared to a human body, the marketing strategy and plan are equivalent to the human brain, and the new products are its lifeblood, and various human, material and financial resources are equivalent to muscles and bones, and affect the nerves of the activities of various parts of the human body. It is planning and control. This metaphor vividly illustrates the status and role of planning and control in marketing activities.Therefore, as a sales manager, you cannot relax in the slightest in every link.For example, in a large bank, the senior staff in charge of commercial loans in each fiscal year propose to the above the business volume index of this year, which usually increases by 10% compared with the previous year, and at the same time, the budget they request also increases by 10%.They propose these goals without accompanying reasons or plans.A young man who took over later, after analysis, proposed to increase loans by 50% next year. Only then did the president of the bank realize painfully that he did not measure the potential of different markets, did not ask for a marketing plan, and did not determine a quota. Nor was a proper reward system in place. If the concept of focusing on analysis, planning and control is not established in the enterprise, and the corresponding system is established, all marketing concepts are castles in the air. No one will deny the necessity of marketing management.Engaging in exchange activities requires considerable work and skill, and without effective marketing management, marketing cannot play its due role. Simply put, marketing management is the planning, control, command, coordination and leadership of the marketing process.That is to say, marketing management is the concretization of marketing, a process of concretizing marketing from a concept to an enterprise, and a process of achieving the goals of the enterprise and customers through various means.The modern marketing management model is shown in Figure 5-3. As can be seen from Figure 5-3, successful modern companies are driven by market orientation and strategic planning. First of all, the company's strategic plan determines the company's overall goal, but the overall goal is only the starting point, which determines the company's development direction and the results to be achieved. The sales manager's marketing goals follow closely behind, and include goals such as sales volume, market share, sales revenue, profitability, and product development.When setting marketing goals, two things should be clear: First, the marketing objectives are subject to the major objectives of the enterprise and provide services for new market development, new product development, and existing product updates.Therefore, marketing plays a decisive role in the entire operation of the company, and its operation method is also planned.The company's established policies have a restrictive effect on marketing goals.It is difficult for low-price shopping malls to have a high corporate image. Woolworth stores started with 5-10 cents merchandise. Although it spent a lot of money to improve its image, it is still regarded as a low-level market retailer. Second, the formulation of marketing goals should be considered as a whole with the goals of other functional departments of the enterprise.Production is constrained. Equipment, employees and other people, finances and materials will determine the type and quantity of products to be produced. Production costs and control methods will affect profitability and thus the return on assets. The ability of the company to raise funds will affect the expansion of the company's plan . Second, the sales manager conducts marketing research.This link is mainly to collect information and analyze it.Information is extremely important when developing a marketing strategy.Enterprises need to understand consumers as much as possible, understand how products or services adapt to market demand, understand how the market operates, what actions competitors have on existing and new products, and the flexibility of production. Again, sales managers must develop market segmentation and target markets.The results of market research and internal information about the products that the firm is capable of producing and that the marketing department believes consumers want are often used to determine how best to change the existing product mix.When designing and developing product structures, companies must determine the best use of limited resources.For example, to enter a new market or to develop a new use for an existing product, the benefits derived from it must be estimated.At the same time, it is necessary to develop new products to replace old products. In terms of product development strategies, attention should be paid to maintaining the balance between the short-term costs related to new products and the long-term benefits obtained by maintaining a leading position in the market, so as to ensure future income. . Next, the task of the sales manager is to formulate a marketing plan and design a marketing strategy.To realize the marketing goal, or called the practical marketing strategy, there must be a feasible realization plan, which requires the formulation of a marketing plan and the design of a marketing strategy.Broadly speaking, the marketing plan must also include the formulation of marketing goals, but we have already mentioned this, so the plans and strategies mentioned here refer to the actions of how to achieve the goals under the premise that the marketing goals and the target market have been determined Program.The marketing plan is based on the market information and internal information of the enterprise, and its main content includes the allocation of marketing budget, marketing mix and marketing resources. In the marketing plan, we must first determine the marketing expenditures required to achieve the marketing goals.Marketing spend is closely tied to marketing goals.If a company's goal is to seize market share, then its marketing expenditure will be relatively high, and the marketing expenditure must be determined on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the various marketing efforts required to achieve the goal. Finally, make a detailed plan of how you will present your product to the market.This part is mainly to determine the marketing mix.Marketing mix is ​​one of the important concepts of modern marketing, which refers to a set of marketing tools used to seek marketing objectives from the target market.The marketing mix must be tailored to the product and market. There are dozens of elements in the marketing mix, and McCarthy summarizes these variables into four categories, called "4P" (as shown in the figure below): product (product), price (price), channel (place) and promotion (promotion). The product is at the center of the marketing mix because the management of a strategic approach to product management determines the success or failure of a business venture.Product strategy, product development, product design, any improvements that may occur during the product lifecycle, and product removals and additions will all affect how the rest of marketing is composed. Pricing decisions are key as it determines whether a product will be launched in the market in high volumes or in small volumes.Price can help consumers understand a product and influence purchases.Not all products respond equally to price changes, but those that are substitutable must be priced at or near competitive prices if they are to achieve desirable market share.Together, price and sales volume determine a company's revenue. The channel is the distribution channel, which includes all links of delivering products to consumers.A wide range of distribution channels can be used, ranging from direct contact between manufacturer and consumer (which is common in industrial marketing, while some consumer goods are sold directly through mail order channels) to through a series of intermediaries such as Agents, wholesalers, retailers, etc.In order to achieve the final sales volume of its own products, the company must determine the level of control over the final sales of the product and the degree of capital occupation and distribution expenses it can afford, instead of letting experienced middlemen decide these. Promotion refers to how information about a product is disseminated in the market.In addition to conveying information, advertisements are also used to shape the image of products.It increases the value of a product by increasing the satisfaction gained from using it.If sales volume increases, the business may benefit from economies of scale and thus be able to sell products at a lower price.But decisions have to be made on what media to use, how large the commercial should be, and how far to reach the final consumer and distributor.The company's sales policy is: how to sell products to distributors and consumers will depend on the nature of the product and the method used in the industry.Trade fairs, exhibitions, promotions, sales force size all play an important role in marketing mix management. The four marketing tools above represent the seller's point of view, that is, useful marketing tools that sellers use to influence buyers.From the buyer's point of view, every marketing tool is used to provide benefits to customers.Therefore, Robert Lauterborn proposed 4 "Cs" of customers corresponding to the 4 "Ps" (as shown in Figure 5-5 below), that is, the needs of customers, the cost to customers, the convenience to customers, and the communication with customers . The point of view of 4 "C" is that a competitive company should be able to meet customer needs economically and conveniently, while maintaining effective communication with customers. The last link in sales manager marketing management is organizing marketing and executing and controlling marketing plans. A plan must be translated into action, otherwise it is meaningless.But many surprises can arise in the course of a marketing organization's actions to implement a marketing plan.In order to ensure effective implementation, it is necessary to control the implementation process and establish a set of feedback and control procedures to ensure the realization of marketing goals.The main task of control is to find out the gap between the two and the reasons for the gap between the plan inspection and the implementation of the plan, so as to revise the plan and formulate a new plan. There are three different types of marketing controls: annual planning controls, profitability controls, and strategic controls.Annual plan control is to ensure the realization of sales, profit and other goals formulated by the company in the annual plan.For control purposes, targets should be broken down to monthly and quarterly levels, it must be determined how plan execution will be measured, and it must be possible to determine the cause of critical gaps in execution so that the best corrective action can be chosen to fill the gap between goals and execution. the gap between. Profitability control is the measurement of the actual profitability of products, customer groups, trade channels, and order sizes.This must be done on the basis of financial analysis, using existing financial data and information provided by the marketing information system for calculation. Strategic control is the reassessment of the company's marketing strategy to see if it is still suitable for market conditions.The changeability of the marketing environment means that the company's marketing strategy cannot be static, but must be constantly analyzed and tested through strategic control to determine the most appropriate marketing strategy.