Marketing Process

The strategic marketing process can be defined as the process by which an organization assigns its marketing mix resources so as to get to its target market. On the other hand, the strategic planning process has been defined as the process of developing and maintaining a feasible balance between the organization’s targets and resources and its environment.

The strategic marketing process relates to the strategic planning process in the sense that the management of marketing plays a vital role in the strategic planning process as it helps in the understanding and management of the connection that exists between the business and the environment. The strategic marketing process therefore is the bridge between the objectives and targets of the business and its dynamic environment (Tutor2u, n. d. ). The marketing strategy should be linked to the corporate strategy because it is a vital part in it.

It is necessary that marketing strategy be in line with the corporate strategy for it to be successful because it focuses on the measures that are necessary for meeting the set targets and objectives of an organization. 2. Read the two articles on social media and visit the Socialmedia. biz Web site. Do you think social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and blogs can be used to enhance an organization’s image and create competitive advantage? Why or why not?

In my opinion, social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and blogs can be used to enhance an organization’s image as well as creating a competitive advantage. To begin with, an organization can use social media tools to get ideas on how to develop a product that fits consumer demand as well as getting a response on the brand from consumers so as to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors (Lasica, 2010). Secondly, the social media tools provide an avenue for an organization to increase its exposure to the consumers which enhances the image of an organization.

Finally, the social media tools help an organization to build a strong relationship with consumers hence promoting consumer loyalty and creating a competitive advantage (Lasica, 2010). 3. Why has the productivity of marketing been difficult to measure in the past? How has this lack of accountability undermined the credibility of the marketing function? To begin with, there existed a belief that marketing did not create value in a material sense but instead performs functions around goods and services and as such should be allocated minimum resources.

Secondly, the productivity measures that were used were crude and disjointed rather than holistic. This was due to the fact that they distinguished marketing activities from other actions and measured the impact of different marketing instruments independently. Thirdly, the focus was on marketing costs as they were more readily measurable but was marred by many hidden inefficiencies as compared to the marketing effects.

In addition, the accounting procedure that was in use supplied marketing with invalid and imprecise information which made it difficult to measure its productivity. Finally, there were a number of inefficiencies that were concealed in the system used for measuring the value of marketing productivity. The marketing measures included the use of various kinds of elasticity’s such as advertising and price elasticity which were measured at the aggregate market level which sometimes gave erroneous justifications (Sheth & Sosidia, n.d. ).

This lack of accountability has undermined the credibility of the marketing function in the sense that the belief that marketing does not create value in a tangible sense led to decreased allocation of resources towards the marketing function. Marketing is said to perform functions around goods and services and there exists a concern that many of the functions that are performed by marketing may be engrossed into other functional areas making the marketing function obsolete (Sheth & Sosidia, n. d. ).

References Lasica, J.D. (2010, July 19). Change the world with social networking. Retrieved from http://www. socialmedia. biz Sheth, N. J. , & Sisodia, S. R. (n. d. ). Improving marketing productivity. Retrieved July 30, 2010 from http://www. jagsheth. net/docs/Marketing%20Productivity-JBR. pdf Tutor2u. net (n. d. ). Strategic planning- the link with marketing. Retrieved July 30, 2010 from http://www. tutor2u. net Lasica, J. D. (2010, July 26). United breaks guitars’: social media tips the scales. Retrieved from http://www. socialmedia. biz