Unlock Business Potential With Marketing Information System

Find out what is marketing information system. Explore its four components and see how each are essential for making the best marketing decisions.

“The company’s marketing information system should represent a cross between what managers think they need, what managers really need, and what is economically feasible.”

• Philip Kotler, Marketing Management

A marketing information system contains all updated data required for making the right decisions. It is used only for marketing purposes. In contrast, a management information system (MIS) is used for decision-making in the overall managerial process – across all levels of management. 

Today, the blog will take you through the definition of a marketing information system, its role in marketing management, and its components. 

What is a Marketing Information System?

A marketing information system is intended for collecting, storing, analysing, and distributing relevant marketing data.  This data is used by marketing managers to develop a unique marketing strategy. 

This system supports all the stages of the decision-making process of the marketing manager. 

• Looking into where the marketing efforts are headed from detailed reports based on set KPIs (key performance indicators).
• Creating the best possible solutions for challenges that arise when meeting targets. 
• Calculating outcomes of different solutions
• Implementing the best solution that fits the market

Philip Kotler, in his book, Marketing Management (2001), defines a marketing information system as 

“A marketing information system consists of people, equipment, and procedures to gather, sort, analyze, evaluate, and distribute needed, timely, and accurate information to marketing decision makers.”

Components of Marketing Information System

A marketing management system is needed to understand the marketing environment as well. The changes in the industry, cultural shifts, as well as internal records of transactions through marketing efforts, etc., are included in this system. 

Internal Records System

From sales to warehouse management, this system ensures that it records any aspect that provides instant value to marketing activities and future decisions. 

For any business nowadays, it is important to ensure the order-to-payment cycle is fast. 

Look into the example below. 

When orders are made online, businesses choose Shopify or similar eCommerce sites that provide an order management system. 

This system instantly notifies the sales team that the order is placed. 

Then comes the aspect of inventory management where the item is prepared for dispatch and if the product is out of stock, the inventory management system immediately notifies the sales team in real-time. 

The package is prepared for dispatch, a customer invoice is generated, and payment is automatically collected. 

There should be no challenges in this cycle, otherwise, the customer will not be satisfied. For that, you can take the help of customer satisfaction surveys.

The key is to be quick and accurate, and this should be made known to the marketing manager. They also need immediate feedback from customers after the order is placed or received. 

Apart from that, data of profit and loss reports, cost of personnel in the marketing team, etc., are to be made available to the marketing manager. 

Marketing Intelligence System

This system is required to find out what is the current state of the dynamic marketing environment. Knowing this helps the business stay ahead of its competition. 

Kotler suggests various ways to gather such intelligence. Some are mentioned below. 

• Sales team can keep an eye on new developments of customers’ choices
• Distributors and vendors (the external microenvironment) can be asked to provide insights on various aspects that they deal with in their respective domains
• Companies can purchase the competitors’ products to know their pricing strategy

One of the best modern-day methods to extract what is happening in the market is social media. There you can gauge the potential of your market growth, find trends promoted by influencers, etc. 

A marketing intelligence system also looks broadly into consumer behaviour so that marketing managers can know the consumer’s preferences, demographics, etc. 

Also check: Customer Segmentation

Marketing Research System

Marketing research is all about looking into primary and secondary data that further helps determine the solutions. Surveys are common in this system. 

Marketing Decision Support System

A Marketing Decision Support System (MDSS) comprises statistical tools, test marketing tools for simulating environments, sales-response models, etc. The better the tools are, the more the chances to win over competitors. 

Parting Thoughts

Marketing information system is scientific and looks into both internal and external information. Check out marketing courses to learn more about such important concepts.