Marketing environment is made up of all the factors and forces that influence marketing. These forces can be internal like departments (other than marketing such as finance department and human resource department) or external like competitors, suppliers, economic or political situation. To understand them better, marketing personals divide them in two categories namely macro environment and micro-environment. Let's have a look at some of the important factors involved in marketing environment.
Internal factors:
All the departments involved in business management affects the process of marketing as well, for example the finance or research department in large enterprises. Marketing department is bound to keep their expenses under the budget set by the finance managers or to consider recommendations from the research department. Similarly the supplies and collections can have an impact on marketing as well.
Marketing
Customer markets:
Different types of customers markets include consumer markets (B2C), business markets (B2B), government markets (B2G), also a new type of customer market has emerged as a result of globalization i.e. international market. Where most other departments will treat these markets similarly, marketing team has to treat them all in different manner. Though most advertising campaigns are targeted to consumer market, the type of customer market does affect marketing decisions on the whole.
Competition:
Competition is becoming more and more influential in a company's approach towards marketing. Competition stems from the business that is offering the same product as yours. A business has to counter this competition through marketing; some times businesses do try to have a hit at their competitors in advertisements (though not candidly). The level of competition is also a decisive factor when planning on how much to spend on marketing.
Different types of publics:
Another important microenvironment factor is the publics (government, consumer associations, financial or media publics). All of them can have an affect (positive or negative) on company's reputation and marketing.
Demography:
Good marketing managers tend to spend plenty of time in conducting demographic research for their targeted consumers. Demography is the research of gender, age, race or anything else related to consumers. International businesses are concerned about various races (Asians, Hispanics, etc) and their different set of demands. While the terms like "baby boomers" or "generation X" were invented to reflect the specific age groups of consumers.
Economic Factors:
All the variables of economic markets like inflation, rate of exchange, fiscal policies and monetary policies fall under macro environment factors. They affect all businesses, and needless to say their marketing efforts as well.
Other Factors:
Other notable macro and microenvironment factors are marketing intermediaries, political stability (or instability), new technologies or natural forces.
William King is the director of Designer Clothing Wholesale Suppliers and Canada Wholesale Suppliers & Manufacturers. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.