Marketing And Its 4 Pillars
What is Marketing?
The very definition of marketing, in my experience, has changed quite a lot of times. I was introduced to the marketing domain quite early in life and never had a formal education in that space. It’s only after I got into IIM Kozhikode that I understood the importance of the fundamentals and frameworks that govern the marketing world.
Today, people confuse marketing with digital marketing just because of the digitalisation of everything around us. We are constantly interacting with the digital world from dawn to dusk, and it’s quite impossible to imagine our lives without digital devices and the internet. But, no, marketing is not just digital marketing.
Brand Management
I was also very much surprised when I learned that Sales is also a part of Marketing. Traditionally, which is always the best point of reference, marketing controlled the sales part and gradually, over the years, as companies started to ignore the core ideas and started chasing the numbers, a distinction started to appear between the sales and the marketing.
It was Neil McElroy, in 1931 who created the discipline called Brand Management.
In this memo, McElroy said that in addition to having a person in charge of the advertising of each brand, there should be a substantial team of people devoted to thinking about every aspect of marketing it. This dedicated group should attend to only one brand. The new unit should include a brand assistant, several “check-up people,” and others with very specific tasks.
Neil wanted that each brand must function as a business unit, and the brand managers must take care of all the activities and numbers needed for the brand to thrive.
So, now it’s clear that Marketing is not just Digital Marketing. Now that we have set the premise, we can delve deeper into what marketing is and what exactly does it entail?
Marketing in the simplest form is delivering value. Yes, it’s that simple.
Now, here is an interesting story that can help you understand the term marketing in a way that you can never forget.
$1000 bricks for sale!
It so happened that one day a premier Indian institute sent out emails to a set of alumni. The contents of the mail were quite odd. They were selling bricks for $1000 each. Well, absurd isn’t it. Trust me, it won’t be as absurd when you get to know the whole story.
So, the institute had recently demolished an old hostel building which was built in 1956, and to raise funds for the construction of the new building, they came up with an interesting idea to sell the bricks from the demolished building for $1000 each.
Now, they sent these emails to a very targeted audience. They were all the ex-students who once lived in that hostel. I am sure you are smiling now. Who else would buy $1000 bricks if not the people who once resided in the building of which the bricks were once a part? All of the 8000 bricks were sold and the institute collected a lot of money indeed.
Now, what the institute marketed was the sentimental value associated with that particular building and it targeted that to the perfect audience.
This story is a simple example of how a simple understanding of the fundamentals of marketing can aid in achieving the goal. Do you think they would’ve succeeded if they tried selling the bricks online or had sent the emails to the wrong set of audience?
This is what I want to convey to you all that marketing is not just about the promotion of a product or service. It is a deeper concept to understand and a complex one to implement.
Now, to get straight to the title of the article, I would like to introduce the concept of Holistic Marketing.
How to start preparing a marketing plan?
Holistic Marketing
Holistic marketing acknowledges that everything matters in marketing!
Now, read that again.
Yes, the idea of holistic marketing is that a broad and integrated perspective is often necessary.
To understand this better, let’s think about an organisation that is planning its marketing roadmap. Now, what are the elements and stakeholders that the organisation needs to consider to prepare the marketing plan?
Where would the focus be? Who would the target be? These questions are common and hence, it is imperative to understand the concept of Holistic Marketing.
Now, there are 4 main constituents of Holistic Marketing namely, Relationship Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Internal Marketing, and lastly, Performance Marketing.
Let’s understand each of the pillars in a little detail.
1. Relationship Marketing
The aim of relationship marketing is to build mutually satisfying long-term relationships with key stakeholders in order to earn and retain their business.
So, an organisation should first shortlist its key stakeholders like the customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, retail vendors etc. The goal of relationship marketing is to create a Marketing Network consisting of its supporting stakeholders.
This type of marketing is simple- build a strong network and try to earn their respective loyalty.
It’s important that an organisation focusses on relationship building with all its stakeholders in order to thrive and expand.
Today, more and more companies are realising the importance of this element of marketing and hence roll out various kinds of loyalty programs for their regular customers and at the same time incentivise their partners who in turn provide a better customer experience thus creating a positive brand image.
2. Integrated Marketing
The second pillar is called Integrated Marketing which occurs when a marketer creates, communicates, delivers value to the consumer. Now, what this means is that the marketer aligns all the marketing communications and activities with the value proposition or the positioning of the brand.
For example, a company might be using social media, Newspaper, TV and many other mediums to communicate their value to the consumers but it won’t be of any use if each medium communicates something else. It’s necessary that all company communication are integrated so that they all complement each other.
This is a very important concept to understand as it can make or break a brand image.
If a company wants to sell Air Conditioners and they communicate via different mediums. Suppose on social media they focus more on the AC’s design and testimonials of its efficiency and on Radio, they communicate about the service, warranty and other features, it will lead to the failure of the campaign as none of the mediums are aligned. This results in the failure of marketing campaigns as they all communicate different value propositions to the consumers.
3. Internal Marketing
Internal marketing is the task of hiring, training, and motivating able employees who want to serve customers well.
It’s important to understand the weight of this concept. The attitude of employees of an organisation plays a crucial role in brand image building. The employees need to be properly motivated and certainly can’t be neglected or taken for granted.
An organisation that often is plagued by high attrition levels tends to have a poor brand image.
Bad employee behaviour can lead to poor reviews and ratings thus killing your brand gradually.
Hence, focus on keeping your employees happy and skilled in order to serve your customers better.
4. Performance Marketing
Now, we get to the last pillar of holistic marketing and that is Performance Marketing.
Performance marketing takes into account the financial and non-financial returns to business and society from marketing activities.
Here, the focus is not just on sales revenue but on market share, customer loss rate, customer satisfaction, product reviews and other metrics.
In addition to the above metrics, they also look at the impact on society and the environment by considering legal, ethical and other social effects of the marketing activities.
For example, the recent backlash against the fairness cream ads. They failed to realise the negative social impact the ads were causing and hence eventually their brand image went for a toss. They had to finally rename the brand and also change their communication and value proposition from fairness to glowing skin.
Hence, ignoring this constituent of marketing can play havoc for your brand someday.
Conclusion
Now, we understand the importance of various dimensions of Holistic Marketing and realise that Digital Marketing is just a part of Integrated Marketing.
Hence, I would like to conclude that prior to designing any marketing plan, do consider each of the above pillars and include it in your marketing campaign planning. This will help you devise a successful campaign and achieve the marketing goal.
Stay tuned for more articles…
