Future of Marketing: Recent Trends, Emerging Issues & Future Outlook Essay

Marketing decisions are an important part of the management practice. Large-scale databases and applications are methods that have increased tremendously over the years. â€Å"In the twenty-first century we expect that marketing managers will increasingly customize products and services and the supporting marketing programs.† (Leeflang & Wittnk, 2000) There have been several areas that have advanced in the future of marketing. Most organizations have customized services and products to customers’ needs and wants. This has become a normal activity in order to stay competitive in today’s market. A guest editorial written by Naresh K. Malhotra explains that â€Å"leading scholars from several different areas of marketing were invited to contribute† to answer such questions as â€Å"What have we learned? What gaps remain? Is marketing as a discipline well positioned to meet the challenges of the next century? What future directions should marketing take?† (Malhotra, 1999) These questions are vital to refine the present theories in order to meet future challenges in marketing. Marketing research is a useful tool in checking how things are going as well as to find out if there are any unanticipated problems that may arise. Finding any gaps in marketing is also found by research and can help in the implementation of new technology of the future. Knowing how to attract more potential cliental is a direction that marketing needs to take in order to stay competitive in the global market. Implementing a gap analysis will help in finding out if there are any gaps in the marketing of any product. This analysis will identify what needs to be addressed and how to address the issue. This will also help in finding the type of market the product should be marketed. The analysis will also help in meeting the challenges of the next century and what direction the company needs to take in marketing their product. â€Å"The 20th century saw considerable advances in both marketing theory and practice.† (Taylor, 2000) At the end of the century, important research developed that has advanced knowledge in several areas that include relationship marketing, international marketing, and marketing services to name a few. But the introduction of cyberspace has been the largest emerging issue in marketing. With the internet becoming very useful to the consumer, these users have increased sales dramatically. â€Å"However, keeping up with the rapid advances in technology will be a challenge for marketing researchers for years to come.† (Taylor, 2002) Notably there are a few areas that have realized that â€Å"In today’s environment, customer share should replace market share, customer managers should replace brand managers, and customer profitability should replace product profitability. With the vast increases in information technology it is now possible to apply these ideas in consumer markets. Financial service and transportation firms appear to be making steady progress in this direction.† (Leeflang & Wittnk, 2000) Take for an example, our public transportation here in Pinellas County. Just recently this organization has placed investigators onboard these busses to ask customers questions on how the service is and what improvements should be done. In the last couple of months there have been a few new bus routes added to accommodate new customers in areas that haven’t had any bus routes before. The future of marketing today has a few bumps to overcome. One is in the academic field, where there is a concern whether academic classes are closing the gap from the past to the future and the other is marketing through the internet. The role of academic marketing helps in the theory and methods in the practice of marketing in the future. â€Å"There is an alarming and growing gap between the interests, standards, and priorities of academic marketers and the needs of marketing executives operating in an ambiguous, uncertain, fast-changing, and complex marketspace.† (Dekimpe & Hanssens, 2000) This growing gap is becoming damaging to the marketing long-term outcome for the future. The future of business schools is to advance the practice of business, practice of marketing which includes its impact on business strategy, the businesses success and society’s ability to address these challenges, and should become a part of the decision in advancement in the marketing field. With the education that business schools provide, the decisions on relevant issues and making a difference in the practice of the marketing student. This is one field that the future of marketing needs to work on in order to have educated personnel. It is unfortunate that the academics field of marketing doesn’t seem to advance quickly in the information provided, but the future can hold new information as the marketing field continues to grow and have more models to give illustrations. The future â€Å"for the whole marketing academic community to work on relevant business problems is an easier path to undertake after tenure has been achieved than before, at least until the structural changes are in place.† (Reibstein, Day & Wind, 2009) This is well said and does show that the future in marketing academics is going to be something to take into consideration for any future business major The future of marketing should provide more emphasis on societal research. â€Å"There are three further issues that merit consideration: (1) intrinsic research characteristics and constraints, (2) research receptivity by the journal reviewers today, and (3) personal motivation and purpose.† (Wilkie & Moore, 2012) All of the above considerations are based on facts, theories, methods and applications learned. Studying marketing in society will offer many opportunities and careers that will invite future marketers to pursue. Online marketing is another form of marketing for the future. This form of strategy allows the organization to â€Å"demonstrate the growing power of online communities in building brand reputations and customer relationships.† (Harris & Rae, 2009) When first introduced, the internet only provided customers to view the organizations web site. Now social networks advertise products for companies worldwide. Social networks such as YouTube and Facebook use company’s advertisements to provide a free service to those networks clients, and to help the companies that advertise to market their product. Social networking is changing the way businesses and their customers relate to one another. Social networking does have a good side and a bad side. On the good side of social networking, a company can offer a means where customers can write a review of the company’s product and other customers are able to read these reviews. This can lead to more customers providing that the reviews are positive. The bad side of social networking is criticism of the customer service provided by the company. If a customer had a bad experience, they would post that experience to the company’s blog or to an online community such as www.getsatisfaction.com. This website provides a forum for customers to raise questions or to complain about a wide range of companies resulting in discussions displayed for other inquirers to search and view. The only thing wrong with this site is if the company doesn’t monitor this site and give input to the complaint, the company may look to the consumer as hiding something. Although this is all new and still in the beginning stages, social networking can be a very useful new tool for organizations in the future. . References Dekimpe, M. G., & Hanssens, D. M. (2000). Time-series models in marketing: Past, present and future. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 17(2-3), 183-193. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8116(00)00014-8 Harris, L., & Rae, A. (2009). Social networks: the future of marketing for small business. Journal of Business Strategy, 30(5), 24-31. doi: 10.1108/02756660910987581 Leeflang, P. S. H., & Wittnk, D. R. (2000). Building models for marketing decisions:: Past, present and future. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 17(2-3), 105-126. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0167-8116(00)00008-2 Malhotra, N. K. (1999). Guest editorial: The past, present, and future of the marketing discipline. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science., 27(2), 116-119. doi: 10.1177/0092070399272001 Reibstein, D. J., Day, G., & Wind, J. (2009). Guest editorial: Is marketing academia losing its way?. American Marketing Association, 73(4), 1-3. doi:10.1509/jmkg.73.4.1 Taylor, C. R. (2000 ). Emerging issues in marketing. (6 ed., Vol. 17, pp. 441-447). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Wilkie, W., & Moore, E. (2012). Expanding our understanding of marketing in society. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(1), 53-73. doi: 10.1007/s11747-011-0277-y