Market Orientation
By far the most effective is Market Orientation (sometimes referred to as being ‘Customer Focused’ or ‘Market Driven’); it’s a concept whereby an organisation switches its perspective to see themselves through the eyes of its customers. If anything, this should reinforce the fact that ‘You are not the customer’ – and although you know your customer base well, you should never assume you know everything about them.
In effect, marketing becomes a more powerful and cost-effective tool if it understands what the market wants (what the customer needs), and of course how best to deliver that focused message.
And that’s why we’re great believers in the concept of Market Orientation.
Sales Orientation
For the Sales Orientated business your focus is purely on sales, regardless of what it is you’re selling, or whom you are selling to. It’s all about sales - and the more sales the better. In other words, ‘Revenue is Everything’. In this scenario, marketing is seen as just another sales tool! Nothing wrong with that, you might think?
But by limiting marketing to a sales statistic alone, you neglect the potential marketing holds as a process to gather market intelligence. These findings can be used to not only optimise sales but also offer a better return on your marketing investment.
“The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organisational goals consists of being more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities toward determining and satisfying the needs and wants of target markets”
Professor Philip Kotler
Product Orientation
If you’re Product Orientated, you manufacture or supply excellent products or services; marketing in this sphere is typically used to inform the target market that you are the leader in your field.
It’s a management mindset (or philosophy) that focuses on pushing the quality of the product or services as you see them, rather than understanding what the market actually wants, or needs, to hear (and buy).
Again, marketing – when used properly - can offer so much more.
Advertising Orientation
Advertising Orientation dictates that it’s very likely that most (if not all) marketing activities are seen purely as communications, i.e., there’s no real strategy in pace to ensure an amplified, measurable, and hopefully desired outcome. In this scenario, businesses often waste a large portion of their marketing budget simply because there’s no real groundwork in place.
Making sure you’ve got the right orientation is an important starting point for any marketing strategy. But that’s only the beginning of the process – next we need to do a little research!