What is Marketing Environment?
The marketing environment can be defined as the combination of external and internal factors/components that have a direct and indirect influence on your company’s abilities to serve, build relationships with clients, and achieve desired marketing goals.
Components of Marketing Environment
Generally, types/components of the marketing environment are two – internal and external environment. Under this, the external environment further has two components that are micro and macro environment.
In this way, the marketing environment has a total of three components. Let’s understand each of these components and how they affect companies’ marketing activities.
Internal Environment
The internal marketing environment is made up of factors that are inside the organization. These factors have a direct impact on your business marketing activities.
They further decide your business abilities to execute the marketing strategies and ability to exploit opportunities if any. They are manageable by the manager and can also be manipulated when required. Some of the factors included in the internal market environment are:
Objectives
Objectives are the desired outcomes any business wants to achieve during a certain period of time. The objectives may include profit maximization, achieving a certain level of customer satisfaction, increasing the level of product quality, meeting competition, etc.
The marketing objectives of any business decide what activities, plans, and procedures should be applied to achieve.
Resources
The resources of any business decide to what extent the company is able to execute its operations and realize its goals. The resources include men, materials, time, information, money, machinery, etc.
Structure
It is the functioning system of your organization that defines how the activities need to be executed in order to achieve your business marketing goals. This includes deciding the roles of each employee, outlining steps to execute tasks, and establishing work relationships in the organization.
Read Also: The Marketing Mix
Mirco Environment
Micro marketing environment means all the external factors that are close to the business which are main players in the market and has direct impacts on the company’s ability to serve its customers.
Task environment is another name for the micro market environment. Although the micro-environment is external in nature, its factors are controllable to some extent by the marketing manager. And, if the manager is competent these factors can also be influenced.
The following are the main components/variables of the micro-marketing environment.
Customer
Customers are the target markets for any business. They are the end users of the products companies sell. Their attitudes, buying patterns, religious values, education, level of employment, etc. affect the marketing activities of businesses.
Related: What is Consumer Product?
Suppliers
Suppliers include the parties that are responsible for providing business materials that can be for reproduction and resell purposes. Choosing the right supplier is essential for your business, so choose one that supplies quality materials at reasonable prices.
Competitors
These are the parties who stand in the similar or even the same nature of the business your company is doing and they often target the same market your business does. It is a fact that no company is alone in satisfying the customer’s needs in today’s market.
Products, strategies, and activities of competitors will largely affect your company’s performance if that is the case. So, it would be better if you study your competitors and launch products and strategies that outperform them.
Retailers and Distributors
These are the entities that allow businesses to distribute their goods to customers. The performance of a company’s marketing efforts is determined by retailers and distributors.
They are in constant contact with clients and can give specifics about what they think and want in terms of goods or services.
Shareholders
Shareholders are the main owners of your organization. They invest in businesses with the aim to increase their wealth. In addition, every business aims at maximizing shareholders’ wealth ultimately. So, it is necessary that your company’s marketing goals should also consider the interests of shareholders.
Read Also: Roles and Responsibilities of a Marketer
Public
These include the parties like a pressure group, the media, etc. who have interests in your business and have the power to influence your firm’s performance.
For instance, if your business does well different public groups will automatically promote your business in the market. And, the result will be negative if your business hurts their sentiments.
Macro Environment
Factors of the macro marketing environment are totally external in nature, they do not affect specific firms or specific parts of the firm, they affect the businesses or industries as a whole.
Mainly, the macro environment has an indirect impact on businesses. They are totally uncontrollable by the marketing manager, and what the manager can do is adapt to these factors. The following are some notable factors of the macro market environment.
Related: PESTLE Analysis
Political Factors
These factors include government policies, rules, and procedures. The government is responsible to change its policies such as tax, trade, import, export, codes, and other market regulation activities. This has an impact on the business performance, and if businesses do not abide by these policies it may lead to high penalties.
Economic Factors
Nations’ economic conditions like GDP, GNP, employment level, living standard of people, inflation rate, income level of public, etc. also affect the performance of the business. Your marketing practice should be changed depending on the different economic situations of the country.
Socio-Cultural Factors
Social values, beliefs, systems, traditions, culture, social norms, etc. are some of the social factors. Your business should construct its marketing initiatives such that they don’t negatively impact society.
Every organization owes a duty to the community in which it conducts business, and it ought to fund initiatives that improve public welfare. The success of commercial enterprises is significantly influenced by society in the long run.
Technological Factors
Technical factors include innovation, alternative technologies, technological research and development, and specific technological obstacles that prevent efficient operation.
It is a very dynamic force that presents business enterprises with both possibilities and risks. Companies must update their technology to best serve clients in the present and coming days.
Demographic Factors
The statistical examination of the human population’s makeup and distribution is known as demography. Since the population is the main demographic that every marketing company should be targeting, marketing managers have a vital responsibility in researching the country’s shifting demographic trends.
Environmental Factors
Marketing companies should also consider natural environmental factors while designing and implementing their marketing strategies. Availability of natural resources, level of pollution, costs of energy, policies about producing environmentally friendly products, etc. also impacts the performance of marketing organizations.
Read Next: What is Marketing Management?