Model of Marketing Performance Outcome Chain. Free Essay

Marketing has faced critics on its importance to the performance of an organization as it is difficult for its accountability and credibility. Rust et al., (2014 pg 30) said due to this; marketing officials have been challenged to show the importance of marketing to the success of an organization to justify their costs. Marketing managers require a comprehensive model to assess the productivity of marketing activities to validate their importance. The inability of marketing professionals to demonstrate their impact on the performance in the firm has weakened its standing in organizations (Rust, 2014 pg 35). To save the superiority in marketing, researchers have been encouraged to conduct research on marketing performance.

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The literature review has shown that interchangeably uses fundamental concepts and also sometimes is conflicting. The thoughts are market effectiveness, market metrics and marketing efficiency, marketing productivity and marketing performance. The unorganized use of the basic concepts has confused the concepts used. According to Clark (2002 pg 195) Market productivity concept to be related with effectiveness and contradicts with Rust et al. (2004 pg45) who consider the concepts of market productivity as related to marketing efficiency. Katsikeas et al. (2016, pg 3) stated that market effectiveness and market efficiency should be used interchangeably. For clarity in marketing performance research, there should be an everyday use of essential concepts.

Despite a lot of operational and connectional explanations of marketing productivity being suggested, there is no consensus arrived. There have been various perspectives of marketing productivity (Rust, 2014, pg 40). However, the only agreement that has been reached in strategic and marketing literature is that marketing performances involve various variables; hence it's multidimensional. What constitutes the model of marketing performance may differ between multiple businesses. Marketing performance should inform the connection between the inputs which the strategies and the outputs. Contributions of marketing should have a link with the production, meaning marketing strategies should have an impact in the performance of the business (Katsikeas et al., 2016 pg 6). he model of marketing performance, should consider the time space between the marketing inputs and the produced effects to the output. The outputs of marketing inputs can be assessed both economically and accurately over some time.

The conceptualization of marketing has recently widened. For instance, marketing productivity is perceived from a customer-centered perspective and hence defined as useful and efficient by including both dimensions. Marketing department in any given organization should generate loyalty and satisfaction of a customer at a low cost. Unfortunately, the case is different as customer satisfaction is being provided at very high prices.

Rust et al. (2004 pg45) introduced an advanced perspective evaluation of marketing performance which involves a chain of marketing productivity. Thus based on their conceptual frameworks, a model of marketing performance can be drawn by considering the steps in the creation of operational and organizational marketing performance outcomes. According to Rust et al. (2014 pg 47), the chain starts with marketing resources of the firm, strategies and actions, which shows the impact on the product marketplace through the marketing programs realized. The approach adopted range from product strategy, and promotion strategy to a firm's policies.

The strategies will determine which tactical marketing actions to be taken, such as advertising, branding, improving services and loyalty programs. Gama (2011 pg 3) said that the tactical operations would lead to the influence of customer satisfaction, attitudes towards the brand and any customer-centered aspect. In the business, these measures can be combined and produce market assets that are assessed by indicators such as loyalty, brand reputation or satisfaction of the customer.

Buyer behavior will influence the market share of the company and the sales levels. Hence the firm's position in the market is determined by the marketing assets of the business. The financial consequences of the marketing actions can be measured by specific ways like economic value-added or the return on investment. Firms listed in stock exchanges, seek to increase their market value and shareholders' wealth (Katsikeas et al., 2016 pg 14) The marketing productivity model extends the firms marketing activity to have an impact to the overall business. Generally, marketing in a firm influences intermediate outcomes (feelings, thoughts, knowledge and behavior of consumers), which eventually will influence the financial performance. By use of the framework, it's possible to quantify the importance of marketing activities to any firm.

There has been a trend in the attempt of developing a means of measuring marketing performance from studies. There are three shifts of the patterns begins with financial measures, through nonfinancial actions. Finally, a combination of economic and nonfinancial measures as stipulated by(Morgan et al., 2002 pg 365) First shift was of movement to non-financial from financial measures of outputs as a result of marketing. Earlier, marketing productivity measures concentrated on financial measures such as profits and sales revenue. It was criticized for not considering long-term factors. The non-financial assessors such as purchaser satisfaction and customer retention have now attracted researchers in the attempt to find a way of assessing the marketing performance. (Morgan et al., 2002 pg.367). Non-financial are considered essential since intangible assets, Such as the brand, customer loyalty, and technology have become measures of corporate performance.

Second is the extension from not only measuring the output of marketing to measuring of the marketing inputs. The marketing actions, for example, marketing implementation of strategies and orientation causes intermediate products which include customer retention and brand stand, which eventually results in financial outputs like high revenues. The transitional outcomes can thus be valued as marketing resources that produce impressive economic performance.

The third shift is characterized by a change from emphasizing on multidimensional measures of performance of marketing but not one-dimensional step. Gama (2011 pg. 4) states that when assessing marketing performance, one should involve the consideration of both marketing effectiveness and also marketing efficiency. Hence should include various dimensions across the chain.

Gama (2011 pg 15), a better performance model will be the one that provides a linkage between non-financial results and financial performance. Five dimensions used to measure marketing productivity to a business are market position; customer fulfillment, customer retention, brand fairness and invention form the nonfinancial aspects of the marketing role (Katsikeas et al., 2016 pg 10). By then linking the five nonfinancial measures with financial performance, it creates a synthesized model to be used in measuring the performance of marketing. Therefore I suggest an integrated model of the prevailing means of marketing importance (customer-centered) and the standards of commercial production as a result of marking, e.g. profit, sales revenue, and others. The model will enable marketing participants to demonstrate their importance to the firm's performance, and more attention is given to the marketing department.

References

Clark, B.H., Abela, A.V. and Ambler, T., 2006. An information processing model of marketing performance measurement. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 14(3), pp.191-208. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/MTP1069-6679140302

Gama, A.P.D., 2011. An expanded model of marketing performance. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 29(7), pp.1-26 https://www.ijeba.com/dmdocuments/2018/2018_VI_2_1.pdf

Katsikeas, C.S., Morgan, N.A., Leonidou, L.C. and Hult, G.T.M., 2016. Assessing performance outcomes in marketing. Journal of Marketing, 80(2), pp.1-20. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1509/jm.15.0287

Morgan, N.A., Clark, B.H. and Gooner, R., 2002. Marketing productivity, marketing audits, and systems for marketing performance assessment: integrating multiple perspectives. Journal of Business Research, 55(5), pp.363-375. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233625165_Measuring_marketing_performance_a_review_and_a_framework.

Rust, J. and Golombok, S., 2014. Modern psychometrics: The science of psychological assessment pp 20-50. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315787527