Marketing Foundation 2: Professional Identity Reflection Essay

This essay provides a comprehensive reflection on a marketing foundation course, examining the student's prior knowledge of marketing, the evolution of their understanding of a marketer's roles and responsibilities, and the key learnings derived from the course. The essay details how the course c...Read More

Running head: MARKETING FOUNDATION 1
Marketing Foundation
Name
Institution

MARKETING FOUNDATION 2
MARKETING FOUNDATION
Introduction
In this course, we learned that marketing is the process of attracting potential consumers
and clients to buy certain goods and services. Marketing is important to a business since it is the
key process of promoting, researching, and selling goods and services. Without marketing, many
businesses would not thrive. Marketing increases sales since consumers have the information
that they need regarding a particular product. Moreover, it increases awareness by developing
potential customers. In this paper, I will reflect on the knowledge I had prior to this course,
discuss how the activities and course content has assisted me in understanding the role and
responsibilities of a marketer, and explain the main marketing learnings from completion of this
course.
Prior Knowledge
Before learning this course, I had little knowledge about the roles of a marketer. I had
interacted with several marketers both on streets and on social media and this assisted me to
possess little understanding on the roles of a marketer. Before, I understood that a marketer is an
implementer (Lee, 2013). In essence, this means that a marketer creates a coalition and persuades
customers using insight, functional expertise and teamwork to sensitize customers to buy goods
and services. Moreover, I had an idea that a marketer is an integrator, indicating that a marketer
is responsible for constructing bridges across many organizational silos and function to bring
together consumers on a single path. Nonetheless, the marketer has the mandate of translating
and clarifying any doubts that the consumers might have on the products and services been
marketed. I also knew that a marketer is an innovator. A marketer expands beyond the features of

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goods and services and functionality to pricing, customer engagement, delivery, and reward
sharing. Further, I understood that a marketer informs the public of changes in price, design,
branding, and packaging of the product.
Understanding the role and Responsibilities of a Marketer
The course content, as well as assessment activities, have helped me further understand
the roles and responsibilities of a marketer. Prior to this course as indicated in the previous
section, I had little knowledge regarding marketing, including the roles and responsibilities of a
marketer (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2013). However, I have come to understand that effective
marketers are required to have exceptional communication and analytical skills. Marketers are
responsible for handling an organization’s marketing activities. Hence, they are required to
handle the formulation, directing as well as coordinating marketing activities with the aim of
influencing customers to select the company’s products over products of rival companies.
Through the course content, I have come to learn that a marketer conducts market
research on behalf of an organization. The marketing research is crucial in gaining knowledge of
what the consumers really want. The research assists the marketers to identify new marketing
opportunities, thus assisting the firm to develop a market niche for its goods (Gummesson,
Kuusela & Närvänen, 2014). Nonetheless, the research also entails studying the company’s rivals
aimed at assisting develop superior goods as well as make use of efficient marketing techniques.
Furthermore, the assessment activities have assisted me to understand that marketers are
responsible for identifying new business opportunities. Marketers achieve this by analyzing
market trends with the objective of identifying markets that are either new or which are yet to be
exploited for the company’s products and services(Akdeniz, Calantone & Voorhees, 2013). By

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studying the consumers’ purchasing patterns, marketers can successfully the peak as well as the
off-peak demand periods for a firm’s products. Nonetheless, I have also come to learn that
marketers are also responsible for championing customer relationship within a company. They
achieve this by collecting information from the company’s customer database to assist them to
develop a customer satisfaction survey which is used to build lasting relationships with
customers.
Key Learnings
There are three key marketing learnings that result from my completion of the course.
First, I have learned that the marketing mix is an important factor when creating the best
marketing strategy for an organization including the implementation of this strategy by use of
effective tactics (Gordon, 2012). Accessing the roles of a company’s product, place, and
promotion along with the price is a vital part of a marketer’s overall marketing approach. The
mix is helpful in establishing which marketing strategy is the best for a company. The marketing
mix affects a firm’s positioning, segmentation, as well as targeting decisions.
The second key learning that I acquired after completing this course is that a marketer
should have a clear understanding of the organization and its target customers. Before an
organization decides to market itself or the product, it should have a precise understanding of its
missions and develop a plan (Mintz & Currim, 2013). However, before an organization develops
a plan, it should be aware of its audience and the tastes and preferences of the target customers.
This will assist the marketing agents to devise the marketing strategy to suit the target audience
and attract new customers. A marketing plan will assist the marketers to schedule its marketing
time in order for the audience to access the message at the right time (Ascarza, et al., 2017).

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Example, airing advertisements on television late in the evening may be suitable since people
would have left their work stations.
Another key learning is that marketers should look for the right advertising partners and
platforms. A marketer should market products on platforms that are often used such as social
media sites (Kim & Ko, 2012). Most people will have access to the advertisement hence creating
high chances of them buying the products. On the other hand, social media sites are less
expensive hence relieving organizations the cost of marketing.
Conclusion
The course content and assessment activities have effectively added to my knowledge of
the roles and responsibilities of a marketer. Before taking this course, I knew very little regarding
the duties of a marketer. However, through my course, I have come to appreciate the role that
marketers play in an organization. A marketer is responsible for identifying new and untapped
markets for an organization’s products and services. Nonetheless, they are also responsible for
conducting market research to determine what is really needed in the market place. Furthermore,
through the completion of my course, the key marketing learnings include understanding the
important role of a marketing mix to an organization.

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References
Akdeniz, B., Calantone, R. J., & Voorhees, C. M. (2013). Effectiveness of marketing cues on
consumer perceptions of quality: The moderating roles of brand reputation and third‐
party information. Psychology & Marketing, 30(1), 76-89.
Ascarza, E., Ebbes, P., Netzer, O., & Danielson, M. (2017). Beyond the target customer: Social
effects of customer relationship management campaigns. Journal of Marketing
Research, 54(3), 347-363.
Gordon, R. (2012). Re-thinking and re-tooling the social marketing mix. Australasian Marketing
Journal (AMJ), 20(2), 122-126.
Gummesson, E., Kuusela, H., & Närvänen, E. (2014). Reinventing marketing strategy by
recasting supplier/customer roles. Journal of Service Management, 25(2), 228-240.
Kim, A. J., & Ko, E. (2012). Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An
empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business research, 65(10), 1480-
1486.
Lee, D. (2013). What is marketing?. Public services quarterly, 9(2), 169-171.
Mintz, O., & Currim, I. S. (2013). What drives managerial use of marketing and financial metrics
and does metric use affect performance of marketing-mix activities?. Journal of
Marketing, 77(2), 17-40.
Zarantonello, L., & Schmitt, B. H. (2013). The impact of event marketing on brand equity: The
mediating roles of brand experience and brand attitude. International Journal of
Advertising, 32(2), 255-280.