Comprehensive Analysis of Modern Marketing Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of modern marketing principles, emphasizing customer-centric approaches and the use of technology. It delves into the marketing mix, evaluating the benefits and weaknesses of the 4Ps and 7Ps, with a focus on product, promotion, place, price, process, people, and physical evidence. The analysis extends to services marketing, discussing the importance of process, people, and physical evidence in delivering quality service and building customer relationships. The report highlights the significance of customer retention and the role of technology in enhancing marketing strategies, using Marks and Spencer as a case study to illustrate these concepts. It underscores the need for businesses to adapt to changing market conditions and customer preferences to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage. The report also includes a discussion of the additional elements of the services marketing mix, emphasizing their importance for customer satisfaction and retention. The report is intended to help students understand the key elements of modern marketing and how they can be applied in the real world.

Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1............................................................................................................................................1
PRINCIPLES OF MODERN MARKETING..................................................................................1
PART 2............................................................................................................................................2
Evaluate the benefits/weakness of the marketing mix.....................................................................2
PART 3............................................................................................................................................4
Discuss the need for the additional elements of the services marketing mix (process, people,
physical evidence)............................................................................................................................4
PART 4............................................................................................................................................6
Evaluate the benefits/weaknesses of services marketing.................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

PART 1
PRINCIPLES OF MODERN MARKETING
Marketing is the practices of the company that derives its functions related to buying and
selling of the products and services. Marketing includes all the functions such as advertising,
selling, and making product reach to its every customer. Modern marketing is the holistic
process that makes sure to provide the brand to its consumers and enhance business outcomes by
analysing market conditions, requirements, developing strategies, through creative ideas to
compete in the market and utilising new and advanced technology. Here are the principles of
modern marketing such as :
Put people first- This principle of the modern marketing is very effective as analysing the
demand of the people and making product according to their requirements and needs. For
example, Marks and Spencer they first analyse the needs and demands of the people their
preference and wants in the competitor market (Bernstein, 2014). They have made a point to
evaluate the needs of the people and consider their choices to deliver the products in the
market. In modern marketing it is essential for the company being a modern marketer to
take a centric viewpoint of their ideas. The people initiated marketing needs to be above
advertising to enhance their sales and services of the company.
Consider everything and analyse every situation- To increase the sales of the company it is
essential for them to understand their customers. Now, they need to analyse the data in
advance and make strategies according to the conditions (Bledsoe, Porter and Cherry,
2016). Modern marketing needs company to be more realistic about the value of the data,
every data is important as it shows the nature and requirements of the customers. Marks and
Spencer have taken every aspect seriously to commit in developing their modern strategies
to consider every aspect of the business and have competitor advantage in the market.
Be friendly with technology- In modern marketing concept it is essential for the companies to be
tech friendly and so Marks and Spencer has been. They have started their online market as
well and their marketers now can easily promote their products online. They have collected
a huge variety of products to enhance their techniques and make it easier for the people to
select their product from one place (Skoog, Holler and Crouch, 2017). It also helps brands
to develop one-to-one relationship with the customer. They are now developing customer
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relationship and enhancing their marketing techniques frequently, as in modern marketing
technology plays an important role to increase productivity.
A key differentiator: As there is always enhancing uniformity in product offerings, the
accompanying services provided are rising which is creating difference in the humans or
consumers in choosing their services. For example: If there are two fast food chains that are
providing the similar product (Pizza Hut and Domino’s), consumers will get more focus on
the service quality that separate the 2-brands from each other (Baker and Saren, 2016).
Hence, marketers can leverage on the service offering to differentiate themselves from the
competition and attract consumers.
Importance of relationships: It is among the key factor when discussion is about the marketing of
services. As the product that are available in the is intangible, customers’ buying decision
will be more focused and will depends on the degree of trusts they receive from the seller
( Datta and van Heerde, 2017). Hence, sellers have to understand the customer perspective
and should provide them appropriate service offering. Moreover, there is need to build a
long lasting relationship that enhances the business and promotes repeated sales and positive
attitude towards the consumers.
Customer Retention: Due to globalization, in today's scenario there is high competition where
multiple providers are vying for a limited pool of customers (Jackson and Ahuja, 2016). It
has also retained customers to get attracted towards the new things. However, as the services
are usually generated and consumed at the same time, so the involvement of customer in
service delivery process by taking into consideration their needs, requirements and
feedback. For the sellers they provide greater scope for customization according to customer
requirements thus offering increased satisfaction leading to higher customer retention.
PART 2
Evaluate the benefits/weakness of the marketing mix
Marketing mix is referred to be an integral tool of marketing that largely assists the
organisations like M&S to build effective strategies of marketing for continual growth in the
market. It together assists in acknowledging the current state of the competition in the market
where M&S being into the retail sector of UK is already going through an intense state of rivalry
in the market. Some of its strong contenders are ALDI, ASDA, TESCO and CENTRA, etc.,
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where marketing mix is undoubtedly proven to be an effective tool for a sustainable business.
Marketing mix is referred to be a vital tool to assist the marketers in understanding the latest
needs and demands of the consumers representing a contemporary outlook of serving them. It is
through a successful application of marketing mix, organisations like M&S can initiate planning
fort further business opportunities with a greatest opportunity of assessing the position of the
currently offered products and services (Månsson and Björling, 2017). Marketing mix usually
represents a tool for formulating effective marketing plans in entities like M&S where it is
mainly of two types, i.e., 4 P’s and 7 P’s. A major difference among both is their nature of
existence where the 4 P’s is mostly used for product based industries comprising companies like
M&S, whereas, 7 P’s consists of some additional P’s and is specially meant for those firms that
are operating in the service based industry.
Considering the same, the 4 P’s of marketing as the most fundamental base of marketing mix for
M&S has several advantages, as specified below-
· Offering- It is one of the foremost aspect to be considered at the time of
applying he 4P’s of marketing mix where this intends to convey the customers about the offers
that are being made by M&S to them (Blau, Ferber and Winkler, 2013). This in turn specifies the
product element of the 4P’s framework of marketing mix. However, the distribution aspect and
the pricing criteria is also referred to be the two main directional sources supported by this
beneficial prospect of marketing mix.
· The target- This is specified to be yet another step of marketing mix where it
assists the organisations like M&S to strategize the audiences along with the messages that are
required to be communicated to them (Armstrong, Adam and Kotler 2014). This also allow the
entities to choose right set of audiences for their marketing campaign.
However, there together exists certain limitations of this framework that are as referred below-
· Marketing mix with a special context of its 7P’s framework is known to exist
with some major productivity related issues in both the aspects of quality and quantity while
delivering services to the consumers.
· Management of core capabilities is referred to be yet another concerning
aspect of marketing mix where services are mostly immaterial in nature and thus its procedures
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shows very minute efforts made by the organisation despite of the fact where they are making
adequate exertions (Owomoyela, Oyeniyi and Ola, 2013).
· Lastly, this framework is also uncertain in terms of providing a consistent
mapping among the strategies of pricing that is needed to be followed.
4 ps of marketing mix adopted by Marks and Spencer is as follows:
Product: A product is an item which is built in order to satisfy the needs and wants of
customers. As it can be stated that product can be tangible or intangible and it can be in form of
services. The Marks and Spencer product good which are tangible in nature. It is important for
the firm to make product as per the needs and wants of customers. So that sales and profit can be
increases, for example, Marks and Spencer focus on providing quality product for its customer
so that they do not switch to other brand.
Promotion: Promotional strategy play significant role in grabbing the attention of large
number of customers (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). Marks and Spencer use social networking
sites for promoting the product and services.
Place: Placement and distribution is important for selling the product. Marks and Spencer
sale its product online and it also have its store in different country which make easy for
customer to purchase its products
Price: Marks and Spencer used penetration pricing strategy for selling its product as it is
effective in order to make huge profit
PART 3
Discuss the need for the additional elements of the services marketing mix
(process, people, physical evidence).
There are three additional elements of marketing mix that are process, physical evidence
and people. All of these three are very important when the venture is dealing in any services.
When the organisation is dealing in the production at that time four P's are important that are
product, price, place and promotion (Datta and van Heerde, 2017). But in services industry, there
is no product by which company can cater needs and wants of the customers, they need to
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implement another 3 P so that they satisfy and retain customers. Addition three P with their
importance are as follows:
Process: This element of marketing mix is based on system the venture is using in order to
deliver services to the customers. Delivering plays very key role when the customers is taking
services, if there is any delay in delivering, then he or she will not be happy and satisfy, other
than that he or she will never to buy services from that venture (Jackson and Ahuja, 2016). Such
as customer is entering in Burger king in order to have Whopper Meal and if he finds that mean
within 2 minutes after he places the order, he will always try to go in Berger king, because
delivery time is very much attractive. This is how it shows that process is very much important
in service industry.
People: People are the important element in the service industry, venture need to recruit and
train their employees so that they can create competitive advantage over the rivals. Customers
make judgements about service provision and delivery based on the people representing your
organisation. This is due to interaction between customers and people who are working in the
venture. Customer judge organisation on the behalf of employees interaction because they have
direct contact with them. If people are able to serve different services with effective customer
relation, obviously they will able to retain them for future purchase. Thus, employees plays very
significant role when the venture is delivering any services (Mintz and Lenk, 2016). Such as if
the venture is dealing in hospitality, if the staff of organisation will serve best services and
interact in proper way, then customers will automatically will be attracted towards the firm. In
order to do these activities, staff need effective interpersonal skills, aptitude, and service
knowledge in order to deliver a quality service. The organisation must have skilled employees
who can deliver quality services to their customers. As it lead to increase in the satisfaction level
of customers. For instance, in hospitality sector if employees are not skilled or failed to deliver
quality services to customer then impact the profitability of the firm.
Physical evidence: Other than that, physical evidence is about where the service is being
delivered from. It is for the retailers who are directly connected to the customers (Mintz and
Lenk, 2016). This element helps the venture to differentiate it from their different competitors.
Company can charge more prices when they are good in their retailing and efficient in delivering
services on time. Such as if a customer is entering into restaurant, he thinks that it should be
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clean and have friendly environment and when he enters and find that it is smelly or dirty, he
will obviously walk out from the restaurant (Baker and Saren, 2016). Thus, appearance and other
services also plays very important role when the venture is marketing their brand. Physical
evidence is important to have as because it is important in service industry for delivering the
products and services. Physical evidence assist a business and its sales its product in the market
place. It is important for the firm to have its physical store effective in order to grab the attention
of large customers.
PART 4
Evaluate the benefits/weaknesses of services marketing
There are various changes that can be overviewed service marketing. There are various
activities that are included in the service marketing it can be related to the air travel, car rental,
health treatment, financial, hospitality, professional services and selling telecommunications. It
started in the year 1980's (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). The topic over discussion was whether
marketing of services was significantly different from that of products.
Most of the owners tries to run service by offering products. Though it can be a
challenge, and you might be tempted to transform your company into a product-oriented
business. However, these benefits/weaknesses of services marketing can help you to evaluate
more about the areas (Helm and Gritsch, 2014).
No Inventory: If a business owner is selling the service, they hardly have such inventory. For
them buying and selling products that are most likely to convince customers provides more
advantage to use their ability to make life more easier. There is no requirements of
manufacturing there is only needs to sell the products. So if a person has no production facility,
so there is no requirements of getting those products to get finished. Service industry also sells
the products that does not belong to the person. For example, in the tourism industry, people
provide the services that are once build but they are contiguously used ( Owomoyela, Oyeniyi
and Ola, 2013). This also helps people to gain knowledge that inventory or manufacturing can be
easily done in the service industries.
You're an Expert: If the services are developed as per the skill based, and if you have adequate
expert in your field. Then service industry is the areas where you can increase the size of your
business by enacting your skills and talent. However, the person must not duplicate themselves
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eventually. That means you have to hire people who can replicate the level of service you
provide. For such activities there is requirements of monitoring, evaluation and retraining of
employees (Armstrong, Adam, Denize and Kotler, 2014). For example, as manufacturing
companies must work to improve productivity, there is requirements of changing or enhancing
quality of service, that is more harder to measure than productivity.
Difficult Valuation: For any service business there is something greater than manufacturing or
retail company. For such organization there are various inventory, equipment and other hard
assets that have a value ( Blau, Ferber and Winkler, 2013). It can also started over simple phone
or over little equipment. While this makes for a simple start-up it can make for difficult
valuation. However, there is need to track record of sales and some dependable sales prediction
to convert bestow of the value of your company.
Demand Cutback: At the time of difficult situation, it is the consumers that gets affected from
the services. More focus is provided on the products that are required for survive and prosper.
However, in case of services there are very often looked upon as extras (Månsson and Björling,
2017,Skoog, Hollerand Crouch, 2017, Bledsoe, Porter and Cherry, 2016, Bernstein, 2014). For
illustration, Customers that are paying for oil changes might adopt certain changes so that they
can too can sell and earn money from that. Service industries are all dependent on the customers
aspects and the way seller use their perspective and perception to sell those products.
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Månsson, S. and Björling, G., 2017. Implementation and Perception of Modern Marketing: A
qualitative study on Storytelling, Brand Identification, and Content Marketing used and
perceived in a marketing perspective.
Mintz, O. and Lenk, P., 2016. Metric Effectiveness and Use in Marketing-Mix Decisions:
Correcting for Endogenous Selection Effects and Ex-Ante Expectations. Working paper.
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Owomoyela, S. K., Oyeniyi, K. O. and Ola, O. S., 2013. Investigating the impact of marketing
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Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business. 4(11). pp.485-496.
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