The major responsibility for identifying significant marketplace changes falls to the company’s marketers. Marketers have two advantages for the task: disciplined methods for collecting information and time spent interacting with customers and observing competitors and other outside groups. Markets may be assisted by companies such as Nielsen Company, which specialise in developing marketing information concerning buyer behaviour, market trends, brand and corporate image information and so on to business mangers. Some firms have themselves developed marketing information systems that provide rich detail about buyer wants, preferences, and behaviour.
Marketing information system consists of people, procedure and equipment for accessing information needs, developing the needed information and helping decision makers to use the information to generate validate actionable customers and market insights.
Marketing information system begins and ends with information users– marketing managers, internal and external partners and other who need marketing information. First, it interacts with these information users to access information needs. Next, it interacts with the marketing environment to develop needed information through internal database, marketing intelligence and marketing research. Finally, the marketing information system helps users to analyze and use the information to develop customer insights, make marketing decision and manage customers relationships.
Every firm must organize and distribute a continuous flow of information to its marketing managers. It relies on internal company records, marketing intelligence activities, and marketing research.
Internal Records and Damtabase Systes
To spot important opportunities and potential threats, marketing managers rely on internal reports of orders, sales, prices, costs, inventory levels, receivables, and payables. Internal record system is one of the components of marketing information system. It is considered as a sub system of marketing information system. It collects various information which are scattered within the organization. Most of the information provided by the internal records are historical in nature. It includes:
1. The order-to-payment cycle:
The heart of the internal records system is the order-to-payment cycle. Sales representatives, dealers, and customers send orders to the firm. The sales department prepares invoices, transmits copies to various departments, and back-orders out-of-stock items. Shipped items generate shipping and billing documents. Because customers favour firms that can promise timely delivery, companies need to perform these steps quickly and accurately.
2. Sales information systems:
Marketing managers need timely and accurate reports on current sales. Nowadays, many companies operate a sales and inventory data warehouse that captures data on all the items purchased by every customer around all the stores on daily basis. Marketers must carefully interpret sales data, in order to, to avoid drawing wrong conclusions.
3. Databases, data warehousing, and data mining:
A customer database is an organized collection of comprehensive information about individual customers or prospects that is current, accessible, and actionable for lead generation, lead qualification, sales, or customer relationship management. Database marketing is the process of building, maintaining, and using customer databases and other databases such as products, suppliers, resellers to contact, transact with, and build relationships with customers. Information captured by the company is organized into a data warehouse where marketers can capture, query, and analyze data to draw inferences about individual customers’ needs and responses. Marketing analysts use data mining to extract from the mass of data useful insights about customer behaviour, trends, and segments.
The explosion of data brought by the maturation of the Internet and mobile technology gives companies unprecedented opportunities to engage customers. It also threatens to over- whelm decision makers. On the other hand, some customers may not want a relationship with the company and may resent having personal data collected and stored. The use of behavioural targeting to track customers’ online behaviour for marketing purposes allows advertisers to better target online advertisements but some consumers object to the practice. It is also relevant to use database marketing in the context of direct marketing.
Marketing Intelligence System
Another element of marketing information system is marketing intelligence system. A marketing intelligence system is a set of procedures and sources that managers use to obtain everyday information about developments in the marketing environment. The internal records system supplies results data, but the marketing intelligence system supplies happenings data. Marketing managers collect marketing intelligence by reading books, newspapers, and trade publications; talking to customers, suppliers, distributors, and other company managers; and monitoring online social media.
Companies that make good use of “cookies," records of Web site usage stored on personal browsers, are smart users of targeted marketing. Many consumers are happy to cooperate: Not only do they not delete cookies, but they also expect customized marketing appeals and deals once they accept them. Marketers can improve their marketing intelligence by providing training and motivation to sales force.
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