Introduction
Marketing does not occur in a vacuum. The marketing environment consists of external forces that directly and/or indirectly impact the organization.
Changes in the environment create opportunities and threats for the organizations.
Definition: ▪ A company’s marketing environment consists of the actors and forces outside marketing that affect the marketing management’s ability to develop and maintain successful relationship with its target markets. ▪ The marketing environment offers both opportunities and threats and therefore it is important for marketers to take the responsibility of identifying significant changes in the environment. ▪ Marketing managers must be trend trackers and opportunity seekers. This, they must they must do by ensuring a lot of market intelligence and market research. They also must spend more time in the customer and the competitor environment. ▪ By conducting systematic environmental scanning, marketers are able to revise and adopt marketing strategies to meet the new challenges and opportunities in the market place. ▪ The marketing environment is made up of a macro environment and a microenvironment.
MICROENVIRONMENT
▪ Consist of the forces close to the company that affects its ability to serve its customers. ▪ They include the company, the suppliers, marketing channel firms, customer markets, competitors and publics.
MACRO ENVIRONMENT
▪ Macro environment on the other hand consists of the larger societal forces that affect the whole microenvironment. ▪ They include Demographic developments, economic forces, Natural, technological, political and cultural forces
THE COMPANY’S MICROENVIRONMENT
▪ Consists of all processes, functional relationships, departments and structures within the company, all of which affects the way it attracts and builds relationships with its clients. ▪ Marketers’ success depends on other