Customer Experience: The importance of having a Marketing Manager
One of my subjects studying MSC Marketing at Solent was “Customer Experience”. As part of the assessment, we had to produce an individual business report synthesising the material covered in the unit.
I based my project on “Mettricks”, a local coffee shop based in Southampton and I talked about the importance of having a Marketing Manager.
Mettricks is a small coffee shop located in Southampton city centre. It started its activity in 2013, and it was originally a family business owned by Spencer Bowman, who has recently sold the company to Coffee Lab.
The new owners wrote the following statement on Facebook: “We are absolutely thrilled to announce we have just acquired Southampton’s original coffee indie, Mettricks”.
Mettricks offers a wide variety of teas, coffees and other refreshments, plus an excellent selection of food and pastries.
Picture Credit: Eliska Peskova
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At the moment, Mettricks lacks a clear and defined customer strategy, and this is affecting their revenues and how their customers perceive the company.
Most aspects of a successful business rely on a good marketing strategy, which involves several areas such as advertising, public relations, promotions and sales.
Mettricks has lots of potential as a business. However, their lack of a marketing strategy is affecting and damaging the image of the brand and the company.
Eddine (2015) observes that “Without marketing, your business may offer the best products or services in your industry, but none of your potential customers would know about it. Without marketing, sales may crash, and companies may have to close.”
Therefore, we can conclude that two key points or recommendations for Mettricks should be the following:
· Hire a Marketing Manager
The Marketing Manager should be someone who is familiar with the organisation, and also with their vision and mission, which would help the company reach those goals and attain business growth.
According to Philip Kotler, “Marketing management is the analysis, planning, implementation and control of programs designed to bring about desired exchanges with target markets to achieve organisational objectives.”
Marketing Management is nowadays the most important role for a business, and therefore companies should be aware of the importance of hiring a good marketing manager.
Picture Credit: Eliska Peskova
McDonald and Christopher (2003), in their book about Marketing, say that a Marketing Manager “must have an appreciation of such areas as resource availability, cost generation and organisational capability, as well as an in-depth knowledge of customer wants and behaviour. Without the former, it becomes difficult to gauge the attractiveness of different marketing opportunities; and without the latter, the business is unfocused.” (P. 531).
Since Mettricks is experiencing many changes, it is important to highlight the importance of having a Marketing manager, because this person can define the objectives and strategies for the organisation, develop marketing strategies and tracking the efficiency of the programme. These are some of his duties also noted by Dowling (2005).
Picture Credit: Eliska Peskova
