Marketing is the many ways that a product is sold. It includes advertising, selling and delivering products to people.
Marketers try to get the attention of target audiences by using slogans, packaging design and general exposure in the media world.
Marketing requires listening to customer needs, assessing the competitive landscape and then designing and creating products and services accompanied by messages that shape audience perceptions, leading to opportunities for revenue.
The primary objective of marketing is to deliver products and services to the right audience at the right price and right time, thereby increasing brand loyalty.
In Iran, the US and Europe professional authors and university professors have tried to expand marketing sciences in recent years. However, traditional marketing techniques are still employed in Iran as well as in many other countries.
Jamshid Asghari teaches marketing and international commerce at Tehran Technical Complex. He has organized several specialized marketing courses in the country.
Following are excerpts of his interview with the Persian daily Hayat-e Nau Eqtesadi.
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The best advertising technique is to keep customers increasingly satisfied with the products.
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Please brief us on marketing techniques?
First of all, target markets have to be identified and studied thoroughly. Marketing would obviously end up in sales. The more marketing is technical and extensive, the higher sales and revenues.
Some marketing companies do not employ professional agents. They do not pay attention to the fact that a marketer needs to have certain personal skills. A good marketing strategy would need specialized marketers.
Yet we do not have to employ well-educated marketers for promoting all kinds of goods. But there are certain commodities, for instance medical equipment, which need to be marketed by specialists. In other words, marketers must know what they are promoting.
Who is a good marketer?
A good marketer is one with good communication skills who can follow up things properly and has programming ability.
It is important to note that most of the programming is undertaken by marketing agencies and agents are responsible for putting them into practice.
Providing after-sale services is also the job of the marketing manager and not the agent.
Marketing has turned into a very important subject in the world.
People get their PhD in marketing in other countries. But in Iran not many marketing students graduate from universities each year. We have not yet reached the level where our marketers would hold university degrees in relevant fields.
Hence, my recommendation is that Iranian marketing and sales managers attend short-term training courses.
We are moving towards globalization and have to join the global trade. This has some requirements and employing modern marketing techniques is amongst the most prominent of all.
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Iran enjoys high status in global production of saffron, pistachios and Persian carpets.
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How can Iran modernize its traditional marketing system?
Well, if we want to establish our presence in electronic marketing, we must first of all learn about the principles of modern marketing. To this end, we must forget about traditional marketing and learn about how, when and with what means to promote a certain product.
Fortunately, at present there are specialized marketing sections in leading economic institutions in Iran. Major companies have also created close interaction with their customers. The situation has changed in the market and the producers conduct extensive feasibility studies prior to embarking on a project.
State companies are moving towards privatization and need to improve their marketing systems in order to survive the intensive competition.
Many production units are now making use of marketing consultancy services to assess market situation more appropriately.
However, marketing faces a serious problem in Iran and that is the lack of specialized workforce in this sector. Fortunately, there are some students studying marketing at Iranian universities.
What is the role of advertising in marketing activities?
I think advertising is the main part of the job because it helps introduce the products to customers.
Producers have to spend a lot of money on advertisements but this expenditure has to be one of precise calculations. This is mainly because a satisfied customer could encourage five more people to buy the same product, whereas, a dissatisfied customer could discourage more than 15. Dissatisfied customers always think the producer has violated their rights and, therefore, they will mislead others about the product.
The best advertising technique is to keep the customers increasingly satisfied with the products.
The most important thing is to improve the quality of the products. The customers’ preferences have to be taken into full account, modern manufacturing technologies must be employed and production diversity given a top priority if a product were to sell well on the market for a long time.
Does good advertising mean that the product being promoted is of high quality?
It must be said that good advertising could help a low-quality product sell well for a short-period of time, but the quality would have the final say, if it were to sell for longer periods of time.
The producers should not think only of their initial sales. It would be more important to continue to sell the same product over a longer period. A substandard product could sell well for a short time before the customers realize that it is of inferior quality.
For instance, Iran Standard and Industrial Research Institute’s logo printed on a product’s package does not necessarily mean that this product is of high quality. It only indicates that the product has the minimum quality norms required.
How far has the marketing system managed to modernize in Iran?
Very little! The reality is that Iran is moving towards globalization but it would not be able to sell its goods even to the neighboring countries, if it fails to improve quality of its products.
Iran-made goods would not be distributed within the country’s territories in the process of globalization.
We can capture the Persian Gulf markets through modern marketing.
It is worth mentioning that marketing has to be a continuous process. For instance, Coca Cola is a well-known company worldwide. However, it continues to advertise its products around the world to institutionalize the trademark in the minds of the people.
We have performed poorly as far as international marketing is concerned.
Iran enjoys high status in global production of saffron, pistachios and Persian carpets. But the country’s international rivals have managed to capture these markets due to our poor marketing performance.
Hence, what we need the most is to train marketers in order to find a foothold in international markets.
