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When most people think of marketing, they usually think of sales and advertising. While sales and advertising are certainly important parts of the marketing process, they are just a couple of small pieces in the large marketing puzzle. And only when all of the pieces are organized and inter-connected, do you have something meaningful to the organization.
For the interview for this paper, I spoke with Barbara Adams, former owner of Sabrat Enterprise, an Illinois based technology company that offered networking and software training to small and medium sized businesses. In addition to technology, Barbara has also owned a manicure business and been a Mary Kay consultant.

First, a definition of Marketing is in order, then, Barbara will offer insight into the importance of marketing, a few challenges she faced, how these challenges impacted the marketing mix, and finally, assess the importance of marketing research in overcoming these challenges.

In the book entitled Marketing, Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz, Rudelius (2006) says that the American Marketing Association defines Marketing as “an organizational function and a set o processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to the customer and for managing customer relationships.” (p. 8). Clearly this definition encompasses and delineates a number of marketing-focused components, and many functional areas of the business may focus on or specialize in one of these items. Now, let’s hear what Barbara Adam’s thoughts are on marketing.

Barbara states that the importance of marketing to the organization is vital. She states that a company’s success or failure depends on how marketing is handled, and that customers can not buy your products or services if they do not know you exist.

The top three marketing challenges that Barbara Adams faced at Sabrat Enterprise was getting awareness for her business, getting new and repeat customers, and staying competitive. To generate awareness, Barbara put an ad in the Yellow Pages like most businesses, relied on word of mouth, newspaper, radio, and referrals. She stated that about 25% of her business came from the Yellow Pages and 35% came from referrals. The biggest challenge for Barbara was trying to sell clients on why they needed her service, so sales skills were extremely important in those situations. Barbara was not a born sales person, so selling was something that was always a challenge for her, even though she realized it was an important skill. The last challenge was staying competitive in a fast-growing technology market. Barbara had to constantly check prices at the local colleges, technical training schools, and what other competitors were charging in order to stay in a good price range to entice new customers.
The three challenges mentioned had a direct impact on Sabrat Enterprise’s marketing. And even though Barbara had no formal marketing training and was unfamiliar with many of the marketing specific terms, like marketing mix, all she knew is that she had to do whatever it took to make her business successful. She soon found out that marketing mix consisted of the following: price, product, placement, and promotion. Barbara originally generated awareness by hitting the market almost simultaneously with advertising in the Yellow Pages, on the radio, in the news paper, and in local technology organizations. She soon found out that referrals were her best source of new customers and that radio was her worst and most expensive performer. She abruptly stopped advertising on the radio and focused more on the other forms of advertising, so this definitely affected the promotion portion of the marketing mix.

As mentioned earlier, selling was not one of her strongest skill, but it was something that she realized was a critical component to a successful company. To improve her selling skills, Barbara joined a local group to improve her public speaking and presentation skills. She rationalized that if someone saw her as articulate, organized, and knowledgeable, they would feel more comfortable in dealing with her, and that this comfort level would lead to them being a customer. As a result, she started getting more customers who wanted software training then networking their office. This self improvement affected not only her image, but the price and product areas of the marketing mix; customers buying more of one service than another, and Barbara charging a higher price for her higher quality training.
Competition and technology, two of the five Environmental Forces (Kerin, 2006) that affect an organization, also played a big part in the way Sabrat marketed. For Barbara, knowing the competitive price range was key, and keeping abreast of what schools and competitors were charging helped her set her prices. These two external factors eventually had a big impact on Sabrat Enterprise. Competition was dramatically increasing as the field of network consultants was getting more and more crowded, and technology schools expanded existing markets. On the same note, networking technology was getting increasingly easier to use and support, so consumers were becoming more self sufficient. As time passed, Barbara recognized a declining revenue trend in her business because of increased competition and easy-to-use networking technology.

Market research was an important aspect in overcoming the challenges that Sabrat Enterprise faced. Barbara did not have any formal marketing knowledge, so her research was very focused and limited to a few areas. Conduction a formal marketing research was beyond the scope of her capabilities and resources at the time. Barbara described her research methodology as “band-aid research.” Whatever problem the Sabrat was experiencing at the time, that is where research was focused to get information on and address the problem. For example, if sales were declining, Barbara would conduct pricing research with various schools and competitors to see how she should adjust her pricing structure to counter the drop. If she had done no research, she would have been arbitrarily changing the prices to see what affect it would have.

In summary, the American Marketing Association provided a definition of Marketing. Barbara Adams, the former owner of Sabrat Enterprise, expressed the importance marketing has in determining the success or failure of a business. She also shared some challenges she faced, such as promotion and getting customers and competition, and how these challenges impacted her marketing objectives. Finally, Barbara shared the importance of gathering valuable business information by conducting marketing research.

In conclusion, every business must satisfy consumer needs to generate business. Sometimes, finding that need to fill with your product or service is extremely challenging. However, following all of the required steps in developing a marketing plan will guide you and help you stay focused on the needs of your target market.

References

Kerin, R., Hartley, S., Berkowitz, E., Rudelius, W. (2006). Marketing (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.