Marketing Mix: Strategic Planning, Innovation, and Customer Relations

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of marketing mix strategies, emphasizing the importance of strategic market planning and adapting to environmental uncertainty. It discusses how innovation drives competitive advantage and the critical role of implementing well-defined marketing strategies. The essay also explores a customer-oriented approach to service marketing, highlighting the significance of superior customer service and dynamic relationships in achieving organizational success. Ultimately, it underscores that a combination of various marketing skills is essential for increasing returns and ensuring the overall success of an organization.

Running head: MARKETING MIX 1
Marketing mix
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MARKETING MIX 2
Introduction
To stay in business, every business needs to ensure prospects are converted to sales. How
a business chooses to market their services or products is important. A company at any given
time can employ different marketing strategies to ensure success. A combination of different
marketing mixes can help in improving success while leaving those which are least successful.
Contemporary perspectives on strategic market planning
For a business to be successful, a business plan has to be made. The business plan puts
into perspective how the company resources are going to be used, how the company will be
engaging in production and even sometimes how the clients will be handled. A business which
makes sense has to also have a marketing plan. Having a plan to be used in marketing is
considered a strategic marketing plan. It involves its own creative process where the teams and
management crate and implement a plan which brings revenue and ensures that there is
continuity of the business. A strategic plan for marketing revolves around the needs to make
sales depending on what the client wants. Panning therefore, involves different factors; including
demographics, market segmentation and geographical area. A good strategic marketing plan will
have the positioning of the company, in regards to financial returns while considering previous
strategies and the SWOT analysis. The strategies of the company will also be put in place.
Thirdly, the plan should assess the opportunities sin the market, untapped market and looking for
opportunities. Also, the plan should include the marketing budget and define the targeted market.
Jyrämä, A., & Äyväri, A. (2010). Marketing contemporary visual art. Marketing Intelligence &
Planning, 28(6), 723-735.

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Environmental uncertainty on the marketing
Environmental uncertainty is the lack of factual information by an organization regarding
the external and internal operating environment. External environmental factors determine how
an organization operates their business. The alignment of organizational structure with the
uncertainties in the market determines the effectiveness of marketing strategies. Such
environmental factors include competition, availability of product, customer demand, availability
of resources and political factors. Environmental factors are sometimes general, while others are
unique to specific fields. Construction companies deal with environmental audit agencies before
they start their construction; this is not applicable to e-commerce business. Environmental
uncertainity can be addressed by simplifying the mode of operations. A higher degree of
uncertainity comes from complex operations by an organization. Uncertainity can also be
addressed through diversifying risks and increasing the cost of managing uncertainity. However,
there is no prescribed single way of managing environmental uncertainity but information can
always be used to avoid dire outcomes.
Cadeaux, J., & Ng, A. (2012). Environmental uncertainty and forward integration in marketing:
Theory and meta-analysis. European Journal of Marketing, 46(1/2), 5-30.
Innovation based competitive advantage
Competition is becoming present in the business environment, and is also reliant on how
the business decisions are made. The globalization of the business market has changed how
companies compete to survive. There is a frequent need for new things in the industry which
changes how companies handle their affairs to ensure they are competitive. Great ideas of the

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past face a lot of contests today and most likely they will not be competitive in future. Therefore,
the capacity to show an innovative product also affects the market dynamics of any company.
Innovation distinguishes the services and products which in turn create new or additional value
to customers. Sometimes practices in an organization create knowledge which becomes
beneficial to an organization; bringing innovation through new knowledge. Innovation is also
created through research and market study of customers. In the competitiveness of a business,
innovation is becoming crucial, and looking retrospectively studies shows that in developed
countries, 80% to 90% of productivity growth was as a result of innovation.
Heywood, C., & Kenley, R. (2008). The sustainable competitive advantage model for corporate
real estate. Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 10(2), 85-109.
Implementing marketing strategies
Having a good vision an only be beneficial to an organization when combined with a
good marketing strategy. Implementing a purposeful strategic plan requires a marketing plan
which is tactful and aligned with the growth of the business. implementation requires a
perspective which is broad. The first step of implementation is analysis where there is a market
study on competition and a strategy is used to build the company’s brand. The next step is
gathering information on customers; including their financial resources, goals and buying
preferences. With this information, a marketing strategy can be put in place targeting the
potential customers. The management needs to monitor results to ensure that a marketing
strategy is successful. They also need to ensure that the strategy is aligned with the customer
needs. There should also be focus on customers, to ensure customers are maintained. Excellent

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businesses ensure retention of customers, by providing new services and experience. Lastly, for
marketing strategies to be successful, there should be constant monitoring of advertising to see
which ones bring more customers and traffic, while eliminating the ineffective strategies.
Chandler, A. D. (1990). Strategy and structure: Chapters in the history of the industrial
enterprise (Vol. 120). MIT press.
Oriented approach to Marketing of Services
Oriented approach to marketing services is where the business is focused on identifying
the needs and wants of customers’ and meeting them. Oriented marketing focuses on what the
customer needs, then selling services and goods according to the demand to gain profits. A
successful company with a good orientation discovers the needs of customers and meet their
needs through the marketing mix. This approach does not bring a service or product to the
market first, then tries to get customers to like or know a product. This approach starts with
knowing the needs of customers and bringing services and products which one already knows are
in demand and will be beneficial to the customers. Gurus define oriented approach as
coordinated approach between supplier and the buyers. This approach can be beneficial to a
business; however, it has the disadvantage that it lacks innovation. Most ideas are based on the
existing needs, hence only requires providing services and products which meets such needs,
thus lacking innovation.
Groonroos, C. (1978). A Service Oriented Approach to Marketing of Service. Eur. J. Mark, 5,
588-601.

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Customer relationship and superior service
Giving customers superior services is essential to a company making it more unique than
their competitors. Superior customer service gives something unique to the customers which
other competitors do not give. To give superior customer services, certain standards are met. One
is exceeding the expectations of customers; this is done against the competitors, making the
customers have a lasting impression. Also, the company can keep track with the changes of
customer expectations over time, and implement changes, while also keeping track of customer
satisfaction. First impressions are helpful, hence a company should make a strong first
impression, as it determines the future relationship with the customer. Also improving employee
satisfaction is crucial because it will also impact on customer satisfaction. Lastly, the company
can carry out surveys to determine the satisfaction of customers. Every contact with a customer
is important, it means one either retains the customer or lose them.
Buttle, F. (2004). Customer relationship management. Routledge.
Dynamic relationship
Creating positive dynamics can lead to the success of an organization. Dynamic
relationships require informed appreciative action and continuous awareness. Dynamic relations
ensure that positive change is sustained successfully and the organization does not let the great
start fade away. To know the competitive position of a firm, it is important to analyze the

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marketing strategic groups. It is important to determine the strategic analysis of a specific group
and not just doing random events in the industry. Dynamic relationships allow for all parties,
above and below to come closer thus reaching full potential
José Más Ruíz, F. (1999). Dynamic analysis of competition in marketing: strategic groups in
Spanish banking. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 17(5), 233-250.
Conclusion
To sum up, marketing is bout tactical plans and implementation. Using different mix of
marketing skills can ensure the success of an organization while increasing returns.