Nature and Scope of Marketing Management

Question - What do you mean by marketing management? Explain nature and scope of marketing management.

Answer

Definition and Meaning

According to American Marketing Association, "Marketing is an organisational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organisation and its stakeholders."

According to Philip Kotler, "Marketing Management is the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programmes designed to bring about desired exchanges with target audiences for the purpose of personal and of mutual gain. It relies heavily on the adoption and coordination of product, price, promotion and place for achieving responses.".

Marketing management is a business process, to manage marketing activities in profit seeking and non profit organisations at different levels of management. Marketing management decisions are based on strong knowledge of marketing functions and clear understanding and application of supervisory and managerial techniques.

Nature of Marketing Management

It Combines the Fields of Marketing and Management

As the name implies, marketing management combines the fields of marketing and management. Marketing consists of discovering consumer needs and wants, creating the goods and services that meet those needs and wants; and pricing, promoting, and delivering those goods and services. Doing so requires attention to six major areas - markets, products, prices, places, promotion, and people.

Management is getting things done through other people. Managers engage in five key activities - planning, organising, staffing, directing, and controlling. Marketing management implies the integration of these concepts.

Marketing Management is a Business Process

Marketing management is a business process, to manage marketing activities in profit seeking and non profit organisations at different levels of management, i.e. supervisory, middle-management, and executive levels. Marketing management decisions are based on strong knowledge of marketing functions and clear understanding and application of supervisory and managerial techniques. Marketing managers and product managers are there to execute the processes of marketing management. We, as customers, see the results of such process in the form of products, prices, advertisements, promotions, etc.

Marketing Management is Both Science and Art

“Marketing management is art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value.” (Kotler, 2006). Marketing management is a science because it follows general principles that guides the marketing managers in decision making. The Art of Marketing management consists in tackling every situation in an creative and effective manner. Marketing Management is thus a science as well as an art.