How Marketing Affects Customer Value.
Marketing influences the perception of value by informing consumers of products or services in an appealing manner that was not achievable without proper promotion and advertising strategies. Organizations can benefit from understanding how marketing delivers value to customers through the value chain, in order to successfully reach a target market and improve their overall marketing performance. Monitoring marketing performance can be accomplished when implementing insight gained from effectively sharing value with responsive customers.
An organization’s marketing team must understand the role marketing has in impacting customer value, as marketing is the prime factor in creating and delivering value to an eager consumer base. The value chain can be described by Michael Porter as a “tool for identifying ways to create more customer value”, focuses on the production, improvement, implementation, and delivery of organizational value to potential consumers (Kotler, 2016, pg. 19). Strategic marketing, which consists of segmentation, targeting, and positioning, aids in understanding who the market is and how to effectively engage with them in an attractive way. By incorporating this process, marketing teams have a better comprehension of their audience and how to work around them throughout each stage of a product or service’s life. Techniques stemming from Porter’s value chain suggest that marketing is vital in terms of “gathering and acting upon information about the market” (Kotler, 2016, pg. 19). The value chain model, when all parts of an organization are collaborating appropriately, significantly represents the performance of an organization at a given time.
Effective monitoring techniques that assist in the development of marketing activities reference the core competencies of an organization. “Businesses may need to realign themselves to maximize core competencies…. repositioning the brand’s identity.” (Kotler, 2016, pg. 20). Such competencies allow organizations the ability to gain a competitive advantage, expand their markets, and eliminate the possibility of redundancy by implementing methods of specialization (Kotler, 2016), directing an organization to greater success and consumer satisfaction. When such advantages are implemented, marketing activity performance can be monitored through the responsiveness of the consumer(s).
In conclusion, it is important for organizations to fully grasp the potential marketing has in regard to customer value, as well as how it is created and communicated to consumers. Through the value delivery process derives the ability to make performance improvements, justified by effective monitoring techniques in the value chain explained by Keller and Kotler. Through the implementation of such techniques, marketing strategies can have an effective, or ineffective, reaction represented by consumers and organizational growth.
References
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). A framework for marketing management. Boston: Pearson.
