Importance of Marketing

To the Marketers:

1. Financial Success:

Nothing succeeds like success and financial success often depends on marketing ability. Finance, operations, accounting, and other business functions will not really matter if there is not sufficient demand for products and services. There must be a top line for there to be a bottom line. Marketing is a profit centre, other functions are cost centres.

2. Marketing is often the Route to the Top:

Most companies have now created a position of Chief Marketing Officer, similar to Chief Finance Officer or Chief Strategy Officer. Most of the top positions in the company are being fulfilled by people from marketing. There is no management discussion in the annual reports without describing their latest marketing achievements, and the strategies and tactics adopted.

3. Helps Boost Product Sales:

Marketing is a core business discipline. Apart from spreading awareness about the products, marketing actually helps boost sales and the revenue growth. Marketing creates desire among the general public to buy the product through effective strategic marketing plans including integrated marketing communication. The more people hear and see the products, more they would be interested to buy.

4. Builds Company Reputation:

Marketers aim at creating brand equity through brand 'name, images, logo, or caption ('Iodex maliye kam par chaliye') that the customers listen and watch in the advertisements. McDonalds is immediately recognized by its arch design. With an established name it is easier for marketers to expand and to grow. Companies also create reputation through innovation of products, which is possible because of financial resources generated from sales.

5. Marketing is the biggest component of a product offering:

Normally 40-60% of the price charged from a customer comprises of marketing-related costs, like advertising, market research, development, etc. The greatest challenge before the marketer is how to bring it down without sacrificing marketing objectives.

6. To Cope up with the Changing Marketing Environment:

Globalization, the internet, and information transparency have led to an increasingly mobile workforce, ever more fussy customers, and rapidly changing technologies and business models.

Thus, companies are less able to predict - let alone control - the short-term shape of their own markets. Consequently, more and more organizations are choosing to adopt a marketing-led philosophy to enable them to win market share and capture and retain the hearts and minds of current and prospective customers.

Marketing is becoming more important as organizations around the world strive to develop products and services that appeal to their customers and aim to differentiate their offering in the increasingly-crowded global marketplace. Marketing is no longer the sole prerogative of a single 'function'.

To the Consumers:

1. They can buy goods globally:

Marketers through computer and information technology are able to satisfy more customers across the globe than ever before. Marketers do recognize the role of websites and the blogs, online communities, SMS, e-mail etc which facilitate marketing exchanges. Today if someone has to buy a fridge, he can visit the sites for new and old fridges, compare them and can find the best value.

2. Promotes Product Awareness:

Getting the product recognized by the market is the primary objective of marketing, by which customers take advantage of them. Customers never thought of mobile phones, personal computers or laptops. Awareness of them was spread by marketers only. Thus, marketing helps to improve the quality of life.

3. Creating Utilities:

Marketing creates form utility (from timber into desired furniture), place utility (moving product closure to customer), time utility (product being made available when it is needed), information utility (informing of availability of a particular product at a particular place and at a particular price), and possession utility (through transfer of ownership).

To the Society:

1. Protection against Evil Effects of Depression:

It is through marketing that the spending is continued and the depression is kept at bay.

2. Employment:

Marketing offers many exciting, interesting, and challenging careers, like personal selling, advertising, transportation, packaging, marketing research, product development and design, cash and carry stores, retailing, lobbying, event management, etc. Apart from such commercial activities, many non-governmental organizations engaged in cause marketing, advocacy marketing, social marketing etc. also provide great opportunities.

3. Availability of Various Products:

Society would have no choice in the absence of marketing. Today, there are hundreds of new products and tens of variants of every product are available only because of marketing.