Marketing activities differ widely between different types of business. Some entities rely heavily on direct selling by sales representatives. Others rely more heavily on advertising. All entities should be trying to find out as much information as they can about what potential customers are buying, and what they would like to buy. However, marketing is much more than just selling and advertising and obtaining market research information. It is useful to think of marketing activities in terms of the ‘four Ps’.
The main risks in marketing operations are as follows:
- Market research is inadequate, and the entity fails to obtain enough information about what its customers want and what its competitors are doing.
- Marketing activities are ineffective because the four Ps of marketing are not planned in a coordinated way.
- Too much marketing spending achieves too few positive results.
- Marketing initiatives are not properly coordinated with other operations of the entity. For example, there is a risk that marketing campaigns to sell a particular product may fail because there is insufficient production capacity and inventory to meet the anticipated increase in demand.
- In some cases, there may be the risk of adverse publicity, which could affect the reputation of the company and customer demand for its products.