University Course Reflection: Marketing Management and Marketer Role

This essay provides a comprehensive reflection on a marketing management course, detailing the student's initial understanding of marketing, which was primarily focused on advertising and promotion. The course broadened this perspective, revealing the multifaceted responsibilities of a marketer, including product development, market research, consumer behavior analysis, and strategic planning. The essay highlights the importance of understanding marketing management principles, such as market segmentation, marketing mix strategies, and environmental analysis. The student emphasizes the key learnings from the course, including the importance of building brand values, utilizing various distribution and promotional channels, and the direct relationship between marketers and customers. The essay concludes that the course has significantly influenced the student's career aspirations, fostering a deeper appreciation for the diverse opportunities within the field of marketing.

Running head: REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The process involving the phases of planning, forming, regulating, and executing the
marketing strategies, policies and programs that are constructed for customer demands and to
generate profit is known as the discipline of marketing management. The purpose of this
paper is to reflect upon the concept and theories learned during the discussion on marketing
management. The paper will determine the personal identity development in the profession of
a marketer by the influence and contribution of the course. The paper will reflect upon the
prior knowledge about the role of a marketer and how its evolution during and after the
course.
Body
Understanding before the course:
Before joining the course on marketing management, I had a very basic knowledge
about its contribution and involvement in shaping the business of an organization. For me,
marketing management was strictly directed towards the function of advertising and
promoting products and services. I had the understanding that outsourcing agencies or
managers facilitate marketing management for fulfilling the objectives of the business or
brand. Before joining the marketing management course, I had the understanding that the role
of a marketer is to promote or advertise something, which was very restrictive and demanded
detailed knowledge for my future interest in the role. I have had the understanding that a
marketer is responsible for functions through various physical networks of people and their
inputs. My understanding was limited for the role of a marketer because the understanding
could not link to the intricacies of the discipline marketing management. Thus, learning about
the functions and features of marketing management allowed my sense of understanding to
associate the contribution with the responsibilities of a marketer.
Re-constructed understanding of a marketer after joining the course:

2REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Assessing the role of a marketer needed my sound knowledge about marketing
management. In my initial period of learning about marketing, we were exposed to the base
of the course, where I identified the gap between my prior knowledge and actual intricate
details. A marketer is not only responsible for promoting a product but a marketer also builds
products, from the concept of understanding the marketing opportunities, learning about the
available and sourced resources to mold the product or service design. A marketer is also
responsible for delivering customer value based on the need or wants of the target customer
groups. The prime role of the marketer is to incorporate utility to a product designed by the
R&D division. The marketing strategies that are primarily facilitated by the role of a marketer
are segmenting a market and designing a strategic marketing mix for allocating the offerings
to the identified need, want or demand. A marketer is responsible for assessing the external
and internal environment before offering the value proposition to the customer groups. I have
learned that the responsibility of a marketer is not limited to planning or executing the value
offerings but also focuses on the strategic planning for the growth of the overall organization.
The growth is accompanied by the understanding of the position of the company in the
market through the model of PLC (Product Life Cycle) and by categorizing the offerings in
the four quadrants of the BCG matrix. The potential growth strategies adopted by the
marketers were explained through organizational cases such as Coca-Cola, Apple iPhone and
McDonald's. A marketer is responsible for identifying new customer groups and newer
variations in the offerings.
The marketer assesses the external environment by considering the macro-
environmental factors using the PESTEL framework. Similarly, the role of identifying the
strengths and weaknesses of a marketer encircles the responsibility of identifying gaps
between expectations and current offerings of an organization. One of the prime
responsibilities of a marketer is to choose marketing mix strategies that will depict the
success and failure of an organization. Then we learned about the role of marketers in

3REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
designing the promotional decisions, which is much more than my prior understanding as it
includes several techniques and platform selection decisions for efficiently reaching out to the
target customer group.
A marketer invests her or his expertise in influencing the consumer decision-making
process of the customers. Due to the involvement in the market research functionalities such
as primary and secondary researches, a marketer becomes an expert in identifying and
learning about the different priorities and personality traits for a different form of offerings.
In the five-step decision-making process of consumers, the role of a marketer can be evident
in the stage of post-purchase behavior and offering a valuable alternative. A marketer is also
accountable for building the values of a brand by engaging the stakeholders such as
customers, employees, government, shareholders and functional managers. The direct
relation of the consumers with the marketer’s strategies can be witnessed in the platform of
personal selling.
Key marketing learnings from the course:
 Marketing management can be evident from the initial process of marketing research
for building or recognizing the demand in the market, designing the value of a brand,
segmentation of the market for planning on the market mix strategies to the
development of the organization aligned with the values.
 A marketer is responsible for building a brand by co-creating strategies with the
stakeholders.
 A marketer plays a key role in reaching out to the customers through both physical
and online (digital) distribution and promotional channels.
These key learnings will help in building strong career opportunities by being a
marketer. Marketing management will allow a wide range of opportunities for my future as it

4REFLECTION ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT
includes a multi-stream task that designs the values and communicates to the target
customers.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded from the paper that marketing management learned
during the course has influenced my urge for proceeding towards the different career
opportunities deriving from the various functionalities of the discipline. The role of a
marketer is very significant for the success of a business as it is the only role that has a direct
relationship with customers and develops organizational strategies and values based on the
demand and needs of the key stakeholders, target customer groups.