Marketing Channel Management Reflection Essay

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Introduction

Marketing channels are a significant part of the product sale and consumption world. As opposed to the traditional focus of marketing on product sales and profit realization, companies today have also realized the importance on focusing on consumer needs. Technological advancement has made the marketing channels more efficient and effective. This essay will give a brief reflection on marketing channels, their evolution, and impact today. It will give a better understanding of the marketing channel details as well as the importance of channel partners.

Key Learnings from Guest Speakers

In B2B branding, it is important to focus on consumer needs. With this in mind, there is great importance in building a brand that is heavily impacting on customers, thus calling for authentic and purposeful product brands (Guest Speaker 4 MCM). This is basically going above and beyond meeting customer needs. The community and social impact is put into consideration too. This helps beat periods of economic crises.

Weighting of the channel flow costs varies from the manufacturer to the retailer and to the end-user. However, the retailer gets the highest weighting (Channel Flow Allocation Template). In light of this, the retailer gets rewarded as a measure to counter the heavier costs that they take on.

Considering that manufacturers do not usually sell their products directly to consumers, partners along marketing channels are required to ensure that product awareness is made possible through promotional activities (Lecture 10, week 11). In the process, the manufacturers and channel partners benefit while products reach the market. it gets easier especially with digital technologies.

With the new blockchain technology in the market, supply chain gets simpler and more affordable. There are multiple partners within the supply chain and the connection needs to be clearly established when goods are being shifted from one partner to the next (Brody, 2017). With this in mind, visibility and cost reduction are realized in the presence of blockchain technology. Losses are reduced to a minimum while greater value is realized in the process.

Middlemen, since time immemorial, have always been a significant part of the marketing channels. Even in the electronic marketing channel age, they still remain significant (Lecture 11, week 12). Technological advancements have resulted in greater efficiency and convenience, but human beings are still required to make these efficiencies possible (Lecture 9, week 10). The electronic channels have been effective in making it possible for consumers to personalize their needs while making decisions at their own pace. Interactions between consumers and sellers/manufacturers are easier, but middlemen remain important in responding to the growing customer needs.

Key Learnings from Course

The course presents various key learnings. A marketing channel directly or indirectly engages the source organization with focus on getting its products into customers’ hands. With increase in competitive advantage and technological advancement, companies ought to focus more on downstream activities, thus engaging customers more for maximum customer value (Lecture 1). The marketing mix directly relates to the marketing channel strategy. The realization of the strategy of each aspect of the marketing mix helps to realize and sustain the company’s competitive advantage.

A marketing channel requires participants for its effectiveness and success. The global and local markets recognize four participants, that is, manufacturer, wholesaler/distributor, retailer, and consumer (Bairstow & Young, 2012). Distribution tasks are focused on getting customer needs met. Technological advancements and modern marketing strategies have led to the birth and embrace of ecommerce, which has taken marketing and product sales a notch higher (Lecture 2). With digital marketing making need personalization possible, meeting customers’ preferences and satisfaction has become easier.

The marketing channel operates within the micro and macro environment, that is, the internal and external aspects. On both of these aspects, it is important to note the opportunities and threats produced in each aspect, thus forcing channel members to be active in identifying the aspects that work in the company’s favor and those that work against it (Lecture 3). The latter would then require coming up with strategies that would make these aspects favorable for the company, in light of the ever-changing environments.

The effectiveness in a marketing channel can only be achieved through positive interactions among channel participants, individually and organizationally. With the complexities presented within the complex channels, conflicts are bound to come up (Lecture 4). They can be positively, negatively, or have no impact at all. Conflict resolution is key to building a working social system, as long as power and roles are put to good use, with effective communication in play, thus leading to trusting relationships.

Summary

To conclude, manufacturers consider the best ways through which competitive advantage will be achieved through the marketing channels. This is an advantage for the consumers who end up purchasing quality products at affordable prices that would otherwise be non-existent in the absence of competitive advantage. With efficiencies resulting from technological advancements, channel partners ought to be highly innovative while ensuring that purposeful and authentic products are made available in the consumer markets. Branding, therefore, has to be done right to stand out, not only in the good economic times, but also during economic crises.

References

24713 Channel Flow Allocation Template24713 Guest Speaker 4 MCM

24713 lecture 1

24713 lecture 10, week 11

24713 lecture 11, week 12

24713 lecture 2

24713 lecture 3

24713 lecture 4

24713 lecture 9, week 10

Bairstow, N., & Young, L. (2012). How channels evolve: A historical explanation. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(3), 385-393.

Brody, P. (2017). How blockchain is revolutionizing supply chain management. Digitalist Magazine, 1-7.