The macro-environment includes concepts such as demography, economy, natural forces, technology, politics, and culture.
Demography refers to studying human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race, and occupation. This helps to divide the population into market segments which can be beneficial to a marketer in deciding how to tailor their marketing plan to attract that demographic.
The economic environment refers to the purchasing power of potential customers and the ways in which people spend their money. Within this area are subsistence economies and industrialized economies. Subsistence economies are based on agriculture and consume their own industrial output. Industrial economies have markets that are diverse and carry many different types of goods. Each is important to the marketer because each has a highly different spending pattern as well as a different distribution of wealth.
The natural environment includes the natural resources that a company uses as inputs. As raw materials become increasingly scarcer, the ability to create a company’s product gets much harder.
Technology includes all developments from antibiotics and surgery to nuclear missiles and chemical weapons to automobiles and credit cards. As these markets develop, it can create new markets and new uses for products. It also requires a company to stay ahead of others and update their own technology.
The political environment includes all the laws, government agencies, and groups that influence or limit organizations and individuals within a society. It is important for marketers to be aware of these restrictions as they can be complex and can change often.
The cultural environmentconsists of institutions and the basic values and beliefs of a group of people. The values can also be further categorized into core beliefs, which are passed on from generation to generation and are very difficult to change, and secondary beliefs,