Recently the marketing approaches has been undergoing radical changes. More emphasis has been put on the role of the stakeholders in the product exchange. The continuation of increased prosperity has given the marketers different focus for ensuring to 'get it right'.
Ethical behaviour ensures sustainability and creates connection with the consumer that will allow them to be loyal and come back to purchase the products.
New approaches look at customer as an individual and focus on establishing relationships. This marketing methods want to create a life-long connection with the customer. The concept of customer service, quality and marketing comes together to achieve it.
The key is to make the transaction appear with number of different benefits.
Customers have their individual needs and aspirations and it requires genuine care for customer and concern for their well-being.
The relation marketing is characterised by greater focus on customer service, high customer contact, high product quality and product benefits.
Being able to think like a customer is a key. Getting close enough to understand their needs and wants.
The same applies to businesses working together.
The closer they get to each other, the better relationships they can establish. Consequently, create interdependent relationships where cooperation will allow them to achieve things they could never achieve on their own.
These are the reasons why we try to adapt to each other and customers. Businesses therefore need to manage different types of relationships and networks. Choosing the most important would be key to success. Each separate participant of the networks will also have different needs, therefore strategies would also be different.
Additionally, recognising weak relationships could lead to developing tactics to strengthen them. Creating value by cutting prices, increasing quality, providing additional benefits could help with better predictions of buying behaviours. Loyalty can not only be built into the customer relationships, but also suppliers, employees and other influential participants and markets are considered.
Quality
Quality is a relationship between the organisation and the customer in itself. If the product is of poor quality the relationship will be weakened. Customers want to perceive a product as value for money and the focus is not only to provide acceptable quality but delight customer with it.
Previously, quality was perceived as a characteristics of a production department, but it todays concept the quality becomes the integrating concept between production and marketing.
The main goal of the business management system therefore is to ensure that the firm does the right things at every stage of the production process, but problems may arise if customer expectations are not considered. Additionally, quality efforts reduce waste, costs and defects which will play a crucial role within the marketing strategies.
Ethics
Ethics are the principles that define right or wrong. Often marketing relies on moral rules which are dictated by the culture. Although corporate ethics differ from personal ethics the best approach for businesses is to follow a code of ethics.
Products should be honestly made and described. Changes in products to use cheaper materials can result in ethical issues for example.
Promotions should not involve misleading and manipulative methods. It is not acceptable to tell lies. Once we have deceived customer it is extremely difficult to tell the truth later.
Abuse of power and pricing deceiving information can seem unethical to other smaller manufacturers who feel unfair trading practices.
Establishing a code of ethics for an organisation should not be left to chance.
Many organisations this days rethink their policies. Businesses consider what are the right things to do and what they can do to make the product desirable.
Code of conduct also help employees to know what to do and guide the decision making.
Tactically, marketers must take account for ethical thinking and not ignoring the problem until somebody complaints. In recent years more accepting strategies are developed to address sustainability changes as well as proactive marketing strategy to address ethical risks. It involves regularly analysing company activities in the ethical light and addressing issues before someone else will notice it.
Internet has given customers a power and bad reputation travels fast.
Responsible ethical approaches are likely to be directly beneficial to the organisation in a long run and influence the long term prospects. With the growing internet expansion and information flow it has become more important than ever.
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