Digital Communications: Points to Be Include To Marketing Management Assignments

Question

Task: Students are required to select two electronic articles during the term, that have been published on either of the following marketing news websites, relevant to marketing issues and/or concepts:

Marketing Week (2018) - (https://www.marketingweek.com/) or American Marketing Association (2018) - (https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/CurrentIssue.aspx )

The article selected is required to have been published on the website no more than three weeks earlier than the article’s due date. So for example, your article submission for article 1 needs to have been published on either of the websites within the 3 preceding weeks (between Monday 12th November and Friday 30th November, 2018).

Your Referencing should indicate the publication date for the article.

All submissions must contain a copy of the full article as an attachment including appropriate referencing for the resource.

Each article submission must not be longer than 600 words and address the following three questions:

1. What are the marketing issues illustrated in this article?
2. Who are the important stakeholders? ie Who will benefit or otherwise from the issues discussed in the article?
3. How would you respond to these issues and why? In answering this question students need to justify their proposed responses by using marketing theory.

Each article is worth 10% for a total grade of 20%

Each article is to be no more than 600 words in length (excluding your reference list)

Answer

Introduction: The article puts focus on the ways marketing is shifting its focus from the sales to customers so that organisations can earn maximum profit. It puts great emphasis on the collaboration in marketing activities that help in enhancing customer satisfaction. The article also highlights that 37% of organisations states that their objective is to give personalised experience to their customers. It states that 60% of sales professionals are of the view that collaborative selling has increased productivity by 25%. Thus, the article focuses on marketing strategies, which are taken by organisations to enhance customer satisfaction.

Marketing issues : The sales team are generally incentivised on an acquisition that ignores the aspect of customer retention (Ingenbleek, Meulenberg & Van Trijp, 2015). As for example, salespersons in electricity and gas sector generally sign up the customers without careful thinking, which results in poor services and the sales teams have to deal with irate and irritated customers (marketingweek.com, 2018). In most of the cases, the sales team lack understanding of deeper customer relationships, which has resulted in decreasing the performance of the sales team. 83% of the high performers are of the view that cross collaboration team is required for enhancing customers experiences which sales team fail to do. As per the view of Watrobski, Jankowski & Ziemba (2016), sales and marketing do not work in different agendas, which are focused on divisive long-term and short-term goals that lead to tension in the workplace.

Challenges of the stakeholders: Important stakeholders in a company are customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, local community and national governments (destination-innovation.com, 2015). In this article, the important stakeholders are the customers who help in driving profits and enhancing brand image. The issues that have been discussed in the article are harming the interests of the customers, as the sales team are not able to build effective customers relationships. According to Gummesson (2017), marketeers indulge in promotional and advertising strategy so that the products reach to a mass audience. The sales team do not have proper knowledge about customer retention as they are more focussed in hard selling (Wagner & Eggert, 2016). The sales team do not have empathy towards the customers and is unaware of their ultra convenience demands, which makes customers, irritated and angry. They complain of poor services due to inability of team to give personalised experiences. As per the view of Järvinen & Taiminen (2016), dealing with the grievances and complaints of the customers results in poor performance of the sales team as they are more focused on sales rather than establishing relationships.

Recommendations and conclusion: Following are the recommendations for overcoming the marketing issues

It is required to align the marketing and sales team in order to understand the profile and needs of customers to whom they are selling. Sales persons need to put themselves in the shoes of the customers in order to understand the challenges of the customers so that they can build empathy with them. The sales team need to focus on collaborative selling as it helps in increasing productivity by 25%. Greater collaboration is required, as customers now prefer ultra convenience brands like Uber and Amazon. Hill, Canniford & Mol (2014) stated that marketing theory states that organizations need to position its products in such a manner that can meet the specific needs of the customers. Therefore, the sales team need to provide customers with more personalised interactions.

It can be concluded that high-performing sales teams more by 2.9 are of the view that their organisations focus on providing customers with a consistent experience than underperformers. The reality lies in the fact that the profitability of bottom-line generates from customer retention and customer engagement. Collaboration with other departments is required for the sales team to retain the customers.

References
Journals
Gummesson, E. (2017). From relationship marketing to total relationship marketing and beyond. Journal of Services Marketing, 31(1), 16-19. Retrieved from: http://shop.phdkar.ir/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/From-relationship-marketing-to-total-relationship-marketing-and-beyond.pdf

Hill, T., Canniford, R., & Mol, J. (2014). Non-representational marketing theory. Marketing Theory, 14(4), 377-394. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim_Hill11/publication/270720750_Non-Representational_marketing_theory/links/56ab9c6608aed5a0135c26f4.pdf

Ingenbleek, P. T., Meulenberg, M. T., & Van Trijp, H. C. (2015). Buyer social responsibility: A general concept and its implications for marketing management. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(13-14), Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Ingenbleek/publication/281197438_Buyer_social_responsibility_a_ general_concept_and_its_implications_for_marketing_management/links/56819f0208aebccc4e0be64a/Buyer-social-responsibility-a-general-concept-and-its-implications-for-marketing-management.pdf 1428-1448.

Järvinen, J., & Taiminen, H. (2016). Harnessing marketing automation for B2B content marketing. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 164-175. Retrieved from: helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/course-material/4454544/Ja?rvinen%20%26%20Taiminen%202016%20IMM.%20Harnessing%20marketing%20automation%20for%20B2 B%20content%20marketing.pdf

Wagner, S. M., & Eggert, A. (2016). Co-management of purchasing and marketing: Why, when and how?. Industrial Marketing Management, 52, 27-36. Retrieved from: http://isisell.com/freeupload/75672co-management%20of%20purchasing%20and%20%20marketing%20why,%20when%20and%20%20how.pdf

Watrobski, J., Jankowski, J., & Ziemba, P. (2016). Multistage performance modelling in digital marketing management. Economics & Sociology, 9(2), 101. Retrieved from: https://www.economics-sociology.eu/files/ES_9_2_Watrobski_Jankowski_Ziemba.pdf

Online articlesdestination-innovation.com. (2015) WHO ARE A COMPANY’S MOST IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDERS? Retrieved from: http://www.destination-innovation.com/who-are-a-companys-most-important-stakeholders/

marketingweek.com. (2018) How marketing is shifting sales’ focus from process to customer Retrieved from: https://www.marketingweek.com/2018/12/19/marketing-shifting-sales-focus-process-customer/