The industrial world has come a long was from the early days of industrial revolution. As the industrial world has grown tremendously, it has become more complicated and a subject of academic study. Business concepts have evolved and new findings and ideas have been recorded continuously. Different organizations have different business strategies and plans. Marketing management has become an essential part of a business strategy. Marketing management is the proper use of marketing techniques, resources and activities by a company or organization to promote its products (Kotler et al, 2006).
This report aims at explaining the main components of strategic marketing management. For better understanding the report then concentrates on the newspaper industry in particular. It explains how internet has become a key challenge for the newspaper industry. Also the author demonstrates the ability to apply marketing theory by doing a SWOT analysis of the newspaper industry.
Main Components of Marketing Management
Marketing is one of the main aspects of business management. It is also one of the most powerful in that it has the potential to significantly impact the entire business management process that few of the other aspects of business management can match. Marketing and its management is almost as diverse a field as business management itself. The main components of marketing consist of analysis, planning, implementation and control (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007). These are the components no matter what the kind of industry or service the target of marketing might be.
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Situational/Strategic Analysis
Strategic analysis is mainly about analyzing the strengths of organization and the external factors that can influence the business position. It is necessary to understand the current environment before defining specific marketing activities (Lamb et al, 2008). It involves in assessing what a particular organization’s position is with respect to its customers, how the business is functioning within and its competition outside. Various qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection are used for marketing research to be carried out. Sources of data will consist of primary and secondary, with the secondary ones being those that are already available i.e. reports, journals, articles, etc and the primary sources being surveys, questionnaires to the target audience, etc that will reveal product specific or service specific information at the desired time period. Analysis is also required of the external conditions to take account of the changes in technology, changes in governmental policies that could impact the industry, etc. Customer analysis is equally important which includes customer buying trends, continual assessment of the target customers to increase the base of potential customers. Various tools that can be used to carry out the analysis are: PEST analysis, scenario planning, SWOT analysis, market segmentation, etc.
Strategy Planning
The situation following in depth analysis and data gathering leads to one that requires intense planning and simulation. Due to knowledge of the opportunities and risks gathered from the analysis stage the company must now plan its actions based on its objectives that will involve long term strategic decisions, tactical decisions that affect mid term goals and operational decisions that affect daily operations of a company (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007). By rigorous cost and profit estimates on various models of action, the company will be best able to judge which model to choose. The model chosen might require that necessary changes be made in the existing organizational structure or a complete revamp in some cases to help achieve the goals and objectives set. It is also imperative that at this point in time, the company comes out with alternative plans in order to meet its goals and objectives in case the primary plan does not work out.
Strategy Implementation and Control
These are probably the most important phases in the marketing plan since no matter how much effort is put into the analysis and planning phases, the implementation needs to be carried out according to plan with appropriate control. The implementation should be carefully carried out since often times it is found that plans are hardly adhered to. The implementation and control must also allow for adequate flexibility for tackling with unexpected and undesired situations. Strategy implementation directly affects everybody associated in an organization (David, 2006). By frequent monitoring and control of the implemented plans, the company can gauge the effectiveness of a particular plan or change it accordingly based on the effects it is having.
Marketing Management and other Aspects of Business Management
As mentioned above marketing is an important part of the overall business management and plays an important role in the organizations success. An organizations success depends on how it can satisfy its customers through its products and services. This is where marketing plays an important role. It is the marketing plan of an organization that decides how an organization goes by in making its products and services available to its customers. Also marketing plan is what decides in which market the organization is going to compete and what are the steps to be taken to meet and satisfy the customer’s needs. Hence, the success of all other aspects of business management is directly or indirectly dependent on the success of the marketing strategy. For example staffing and production or a part of the business management. So these factors are directly dependent how an organization’s products and services fares in the market. As mentioned marketing strategy plays an important role in the market success of a product or a service. Hence, all the other aspects of business management are closely related and dependent on the marketing strategy.
Key Challenges Affecting Marketing Strategy of the Newspaper Industry
Newspaper industry has been one of oldest and dynamic industry that has enjoyed great success for a very long time. Newspaper industry has played a dominant role in public communication in the past century. It has seen tremendous growth and financial success in the second half of the 20th century. Even though the main purpose of the newspaper industry is to make news available to public, its main source of income has been advertising, especially, retail and classified advertising (Picard, 2008). 75 to 85 percent of income of an average newspaper in the Unites States and European countries is accounted by advertising. Newspaper advertising has witnessed a strong and consistent growth in the 20th century and also a relationship was observed between advertising spending and GDP (Gross Domestic Product). All this was possible as there was literally very little competition in the advertising sector (Picard, 2008).
The impeccable success of the newspaper industry is now on a decline. The debate over the end of the newspaper industry has been doing rounds since the last decade of the 20th century and early 21st century. But now there have been observable effects of this decline around the world. In the US alone, The Rocky Mountain News and the Ann Arbor have completely shut down wherein Seattle Post Intelligencer has stopped printing and has completely adopted web only model. The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News have cut down their publishing to 3 days a week (Barbara, 2009). In the UK, all national newspapers have recorded a year on year fall. Pearson’s financial daily and Independent News & Media’s the Independent have both recorded a 3.17% and 14.02% year on year drop respectively (Busfield, 2009). There also has been a drop in the number of people employed by the newspaper industry. The number of people employed by the newspaper industry has gone down by 18% over a 14 year period from 1990 to 2004 (Barbara, 2009). As per Pew Project findings, 14,000 reporting jobs have been lost during 2001 to 2009 (Entman, 2010). All this is a strong indicator of the demise of the newspaper industry.
One of the key challenges or reasons for the decline of the news paper industry has been the internet. The situation is best summed up by Will Manley (2008), when he states “Thanks to the Internet, the entire newspaper industry is fighting for its life”. The internet has hit the core of the industry. It has diverted both the advertisers and the readers away from the newspaper industry. The development of internet and its advertising abilities are now substituting the traditional newspaper classified advertising (Picard, 2008). Internet advertising model has taken away a major chunk of the newspapers primary source of income which is the classified and display advertising and also it has led to a decrease in the readership as well (Gardner, 2009). The newspaper share in the total advertising expenditure has decreased by one third. Clearly the newspaper industry is losing its dominance over the advertising world.
First, let’s consider the effect of the internet on the readership. Internet has achieved great penetrability today on a global stage and has connected the world like no other communication means in the past. The internet, growing mobility and dropping costs have lead the access of global multimedia networks which link individuals, groups and news organizations (Entman, 2010). This has given the readers access to world news at absolutely no cost. It gives them an opportunity to refine the news topics as per their individual interests and also to search news articles from previous issues if required. These advantages have started diverting readers from the traditional print newspapers to digital news websites on the internet. There is a drastic increase in the number of prole going online or using wireless devices to get news and information (Gardner, 2009). According to research news sites and digital newspapers are among the most widely demanded and visited web sites among the Internet community worldwide (Flavian & Gurrea, 2008). News portals like Google News and Yahoo! News have contributed immensely to this drastic diversion in readership. They don’t just offer aggregated news content but also are available 24/7 to anyone who has access to internet from anywhere in the world (Barbara, 2009). Internet news portals and websites have an added advantage. They allow an interaction between the readers and also with the journalist who reports and edits the stories which is not possible in the traditional news papers (Entman, 2010). This is in sync with the trend that a great number of investigative stories about the government wrong doing have appeared on various news and opinion bloggers than in the newspapers (Manley, 2008). This indicates the trend that readers are looking for online resources for news and information. Internet is now being accessed by mobile phones and wireless devices which are not helping the newspaper industry’s cause. All these reasons combined, have lead to a decrease in the readership of newspapers.
Let’s now consider the threat posed by internet on the newspaper advertising which is the financial back bone of the newspaper industry. Internet has come out with a dynamic advertising model which has proved to be more effective for classified advertising than in the newspapers. This has made a damaging impact on the newspaper industry as classified advertising has been the primary category of advertising sales and growth (Picard, 2008). The decline in readership and the advantages that internet advertising offers has made advertisers reconsider their overall advertising spending patterns. Concerns over the effectiveness of advertising took more momentum due to the economic downturn and recessions. This made advertisers explore new media for advertising and internet was a great substitute (Picard, 2008). Internet had great advertising models which attracted traffic and also advertisers could target their customers which were not possible through newspapers. Models like Google AdSense are a great example of this business model where people were paid for displaying ads on their personal websites and for increasing the traffic. Also there are agencies that pay people for viewing ads which means the advertisements have maximum reach. Huge revenues generated by Google, Yahoo, MSN are an indicator where the advertisers are channeling their dollars (Barbara, 2009). The newspaper industry is no more interesting to the advertisers as it was a couple of decades ago.
“Newspaper publishers seem to have taken the hardest hit from the technological and economic challenges of publishing” (Barbara, 2009). The decline in readership and newspaper advertising has made the newspaper industry less financially interesting for investors as they are looking for profits and assets growth (Picard, 2008).
Strategic Analysis of the Newspaper Industry
As mentioned above, strategic analysis is the main and foremost component of marketing management. A strategic analysis must analyze all the factors that influence the marketing strategy of an organization. Below is the SWOT analysis of the newspaper industry.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT (Strength, Weakness. Opportunities, Threats) analysis helps an organization to determine where it is doing well and where it needs improvement. SWOT analysis must be made relative to the market needs and competition (Ferrell & Hartline, 2007). Following is the SWOT analysis of the newspaper industry:
Strengths: The strength of the newspaper industry is that it targets a wide range of customers across the globe. Newspaper industry has penetration remote parts of the globe where there are no other sources of world news. This is great strength as this gives the newspaper industry a large customer base.
Weakness: The cutting of trees for paper has become a global issue under the global warming context. The dependence of newspaper industry on paper has become its biggest weakness as there is huge support from world wide for e-books and papers. The newspaper industry must come up with an alternative to paper.
Opportunities: There is a huge opportunity for the newspaper industry to venture into other markets and use advanced technologies to reach the customers or readers. Newspaper industry can join hands with electronic media to come up new business strategies and plans. But this is an opportunity which has to be used.
Threats: As mentioned above electronic media is an opportunity if used but right now it is a threat to the newspaper industry especially in developed countries. Electronic media have gained popularity in the last couple of decades and have become a serious threat to the newspaper industry.
Conclusion
Strategic marketing management is very important for the success of any organization. The marketers must understand the importance of this and use the various tools and ideas at their disposal to come up with ideas and strategies that will help the organization to beat the competition and succeed. Being innovative in formulating strategies is the need of the hour for every organization in order to survive in today’s highly competitive industrial world. In particular, newspaper industry has to adopt new ways and methods to overcome the challenges posed by the technological advancements, particularly ineternet. The importance of marketing management can not be stressed any further and it’s high time that the organizations world wide realizes and implements marketing management in their business model.
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