M arketing management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical

application of Mmarketing techniques and the management of a firm's marketing

resources and activities. The marketing manager of a company plays an important
role as far as marketing of the firm’s products and services are concerned. Apart from this,
marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing and composition of
customer demand accepted definition of term. It is worth noting that the roles of a marketing
manager can vary significantly based on a business’ size, corporate culture and industry concept.
However, we will discuss about the general roles that all marketing manager independent of any
business performs. These key roles of a marketing manager will be analysed in depth below:

1. Carrying out of Marketing research

The first and most important role of a marketing manager is to carry out marketing research and
analysis. The marketing manager should do a thorough marketing research and analysis in order
to possess a detailed understanding of their own business and the market in which they are
operating so as to make fact-based decisions regarding, marketing strategy and design effective,
cost-efficient implementation programs. The latter has to know whether his company is operating
in a monopolistic market which is characterise by a large number of buyers and only one seller,
in a perfectly competitive market which is characterise by a large number of buyers and a large
number of sellers selling homogenous or partially differentiated product or in an oligopolistic
market which is characterise by few suppliers for the same product. The marketing manager
should be able to determine the market in which his company is operating in order to adopt
marketing strategies that will prove to be effective and profitable for the company. The
marketing manager should also know the microenvironment and macroenvironment factors that
can influence the company sales. Examples of microenvironment factors are direct and indirect
competition, influence of suppliers and influence of customers; and examples of
macroenvironment factors are economic forces, political forces, natural/physical factors, legal
and regulatory forces, technological forces and socio-cultural factors.

2. Develop marketing strategies and plan

The marketing manager should develop marketing strategies and plan. He needs to identify the
company potential long-run opportunities given its market experience and core competencies.
After the company’s strengths and weaknesses have been analyse in order to determine which
opportunities it can best pursue, that marketing manager should develop a marketing strategy that
will help the company attain its overall strategic objectives. If the product is facing difficulty in
the product life cycle, the marketing manager should be able to design a product with better
features so that the product does not sink on the market but rather regenerate on the market. In
addition to this, a marketing manager can also use the company core competencies to design a

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line of the product. To better explain this, let’s take for example a company making camera, the
marketing manager can use the company core competency in optics to design a line of binoculars
and telescopes. Moreover, a marketing manager can develop a concrete marketing plan that
specifies the marketing strategy and tactics.

3. Capturing marketing insights

A marketing manager is also responsible for capturing marketing insights. To understand what is
happening inside and outside the company, the marketing manager needs a reliable marketing
Information System. The Marketing Information System is a framework for day-to-day
management and structuring of information gathered regularly from sources both inside and
outside an organization. MIS provide a continuous flow of information considered relevant to
marketing managers. An MIS has got three components namely an internal records system,
which includes information on the order-to-payment cycle and sales reporting systems; a
marketing intelligence system, a set of procedures and sources used by managers to obtain
everyday information about pertinent developments in the marketing environment; a marketing
research system that allows for the systematic design, collection, analysis and reporting of data
and findings relevant to a specific marketing situation.

The marketing manager needs to be able to monitor the six major environmental forces:
demographic, economic, social-cultural, natural, technological and political-legal. In the
demographic environment, the marketing manager must be aware of worldwide population
growth; changing mixes of age, ethnic composition and educational levels; the rise of non-
traditional families; large geographic shifts in population and the move to micromarketing and
way from mass marketing.

In the economic environment, marketing managers need to focus on the distribution of income
within the society and the levels of savings, debt and credit availability and finally inflation
within the economy.

In the socio-cultural environment, the marketing manager must understand what people think of
themselves, of others, of the organizations, of the society and of the world. The marketing
manager should market a product that correspond to the society’s core and secondary values and
satisfy the needs of the different subcultures that may exists within the society.

In the natural environment, the marketing manager need to be aware of raw materials shortages,
the rise in energy costs and the pollution levels and the changing role of the governments in
environmental protection.

In the technological environment, the marketing manager should take into consideration the fast
emerging rate of technological change, opportunities for innovation and the rise in governmental
regulation brought about by the technological changes.
Finally, in the political-legal environment, the marketing manager must work according to the
many laws regulating business practices and with various special interests groups.

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 4. Connecting with customers
Customers are very important as far as buying of the product and creating its goodwill are
concerned. However, a marketing manager should consider how to best create value, satisfaction
and loyalty for its chosen target markets and develop strong, long-term relationships with
customers. Customers are said to be value-maximizes and they form an expectation of value and
act on it. Marketing manager should be able to know how to satisfy its customers as customers
will prefer to buy from those firms that they perceive to offer the highest customer-delivered
value which is defined as the difference between total customer value and total customer cost.
Moreover, a marketing manager should aim for total consumer satisfaction both as a goal and a
marketing tool as losing profitable customers can drastically affect a firm’s profits. The costs for
attracting new customers are estimated to be five times higher the costs of retaining a customer
and keep the latter happy. Customers rather seek for quality product, therefore a marketing
manager should participate in formulating strategies and policies designed to help the company
succeed by achieving total quality excellence and secondly the marketing manager must deliver
marketing quality together with production quality. In addition to this, since companies are
becoming skilled in Customer Relationship Management(CRM), which rather take into account
how to meet the individual needs of valued customers. The marketing manager should see to it
that a customer database is set up and thus data minding can be done in order to detect trends,
segments and individual needs.

5. Building strong brands

Branding of a product is very important as far as the product displaying characteristics are
concerned. However, great attention should be given as far as branding of the product is
concerned. Yet, the marketing manager bearing this fact in mind, must understand the weakness
and strengths of the product brand with customers. He must pay great attention to its
competitors, anticipating their moves and knowing how to react quickly and decisively and
anticipates how the competitors will react to his moves. The marketing manager should know
how to improve product branding so as to attract customers as branding is the only thing that can
attract customers’ attention. Customers sometimes attach great importance to branding and
therefore a marketing manager should know what strategy to adopt as far as branding of his
product is concerned.

6. Shaping the market offerings

Apart from providing the product quality, design, features and packaging, the marketing manager
can also provide various services, such as delivery repair and training for examples. These
supports can provide competitive advantage in the global market. Customers feel to be on the
safe side when they get to know that the company’s role does not end after the product has been
sold to them but rather has support from the latter. Therefore, marketing manager should see to it
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that his company provides services that customers are seeking and that competitors are not
willing to provide.
Moreover, a critical marketing decision relates to price, the marketing manager has to decide on
wholesale and retail prices and allowances. Prices should be equal with the offer’s perceived
value otherwise, buyers will turn to competitor’s products.

7. Delivering value
The marketing manager must also determine how to properly deliver the value embodied by the
product he is delivering and services to the target market. He must identify, recruit and link
various marketing facilitators to supply its product and services efficiently to the target market.
The marketing manager must understand the various types of retailers, wholesalers and physical-
distribution firms and how they make their decision. The marketing manager should choose the
best marketing channel so as his product reaches customer’s sight.

8. Communicate value
Apart from delivering value, the marketing manager must also adequately communicate the
value embodied by its products and services to the target market. He must do marketing
communications activities in order to inform, persuade and remind consumers directly or
indirectly about the brands they sell.
Moreover, the marketing manager has to develop an integrated marketing communication
program that maximizes the individual and collective contribution programs consisting of
advertising, sales promotion, events and public relations. He has also to set up more personal
communications in the form of direct and interactive marketing and must also hire, train and
motivate sales people.
In order to develop an effective communications, the marketing manger has to identify the target
audience, determine the communications objectives, design the communications, select the
communications channels, establish the total communications budget, decide on the
communication mix, measure the communications result and finally manage the integrated
marketing communications process.

9. Creating long-term growth

Once a company has already segmented the market, chosen its target market and identified their
needs and determined its desired market positioning, it is ready to develop and launch
appropriate new products. The marketing manager should take a long-term view of the
company’s products and brands and how its profits should be grown.

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Based on its product positioning, the marketing manager must initiate new-product development,
testing and launching. However, it is worth noting that he needs to see that the strategy adopted
takes into account changing global opportunities and challenges. The marketing manager needs
also to organize its marketing resources and implement and control the marketing plan. He
should also see to it that the company built a marketing organization that is capable of
implementing the marketing plan.
Due to surprises and disappointments that can occur as marketing plans are implemented, the
marketing manager will need feedback and control in order to monitor the implementation of the
product on the market. Last but not the least, the marketing manager should do marketing
evaluation and control process in order to understand the efficiency and effectiveness of
marketing activities and how both could be improved.

To conclude, one can say that the most important “actor” that exists within a company’s four
walls is the marketing manager as everything lies on his shoulders. The marketing manager has
got lot of responsibilities and if one of these responsibilities is not performed accordingly, it is
the whole company that will be affected. Therefore, a marketing manager needs to work
effectively and efficiently as the company’s product reputation and sales lies between his hands.
If the marketing managers adopt good marketing strategy, the company will earn lots of profits,
but however, if the latter does not take good marketing measures and adopt good marketing
strategies and plans, the company can go bankrupt. On this conclusive note, it can be said that
the marketing manager of a company has got a load of responsibility to do and if someone wants
to become a marketing manager, he needs to know all these before entering this world of high
competition.

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