Today we learnt about an element that influences the marketing environment that is based on making and maintaining a good relationship with customers .
How well a relationship is between the actors of the mircoenvironment and the marketing department can determine the overall success of a marketing campaign. These relationships can be either indirectly (a supplier deals with the company’s buyers and therefore do not directly deal with the marketing department, but should the suppliers stop supplying due to a buyer’s mistake, marketing will still be affected as they now need to change their marketing approach) or directly (customers boycott products because of crude marketing) sustained. By categorizing the relationship type under these 6 titles (The Company, Suppliers, Marketing Intermediaries, Competitors, Public, and Customer), marketing can analyze the company’s opportunities and threats.
This type of categorization and analysis is similar to Porter’s 5 Forces Model. The purpose of this model is to identify the levels of influence the 5 components have on a company. This is where the two methods of categorization and analysis becomes similar. Both the actors and the 5 forces are used to determine the influence to success, actors influence the progression of a marketing event and the 5 forces identifies elements that have the potential to hinder the company . Asides from the fact that they both use the same concepts of Suppliers, Competitors, and Customer or Buyers in their identification, both look for threats and are capable of determining areas that need more focus.
Though they are similar, it seems that the actor idea is an upgraded version of the 5 forces that is more concerned with its own product at present time and is aimed to size up marketing ideas. It also touches on internal, ” public” and “intermediary” issues not indicated by the forces. Overall, actors seems like a good classification method.