If you are planning to start a venture, business administration and marketing are two skills that you will require to not only help your business succeed but also to create a comprehensive business plan. With the help of this plan, you will have a clear roadmap and be prepared to attract potential investors.
Many business ventures in the US fail. While there are several reasons for their failure, not having an effective business plan and a thorough understanding of business administration and marketing are contributing factors. Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that around 20% of new businesses tend to fail within the first two years of opening. So, if you are eager to ensure your business start-up takes off and sustains itself, equip yourself with the right knowledge and skills.
The best way to get the expertise you need to run a business successfully is to enroll in a DBA online at a reputable institution such as Marymount University. When you choose an online program, you can continue working on setting up your business. Marymount University’s online Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) in Business Intelligence is designed to help entrepreneurs like you, as well as managers and executives. This program allows you to enhance your understanding of the current and future challenges that your business may face and leverage the power of technology and big data to make data-driven decisions.
If you have a master’s degree in a business-related field or IT, you can easily apply for the program. It will help you use applied research to solve business-related problems and enable you to get a better understanding of how business administration and marketing strategies can help your business succeed in an ever-changing business landscape.
There is no doubt that for any business to succeed, decision-makers need a thorough understanding of marketing and business administration. When you have this knowledge, it will help you create a fail-proof business plan.
What are business administration and marketing?
Business administration refers to the management and coordination of various business activities so a business enjoys smooth operations and achieves its organizational goals. It encompasses strategic planning, resource allocation, decision-making and overseeing day-to-day operations. Business intelligence can help you with all spheres of business administration as it helps you obtain the right data to base your decisions on.
On the other hand, marketing is the process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs and wants through the creation, communication and delivery of products or services. It involves market research, product development, pricing, promotion and distribution strategies. For this, you need to have an understanding of business intelligence and how to leverage it to help your marketing strategy succeed.
You need both business administration and marketing to create a business plan. Your plan outlines the goals and strategies as well as actions required to achieve long-term profitability and sustainability. When you create a comprehensive business plan, it ensures you and other stakeholders have clarity and direction. It helps you make the right decisions for the success of your business, attract investors and allocate resources more prudently.
The role of business administration in the marketing process
As mentioned earlier, business administration helps you set your organizational goals and allocate resources. It also enables you to coordinate between different departments within your organization and implement the right performance measurement systems. By helping you integrate these functions, business administration enhances your organization’s strategic alignment and makes marketing initiatives more effective and efficient. This, in turn, contributes to the overall success of your business.
Here are some more in-depth details on how business administration plays a vital role in your business’ marketing process:
Establishing organizational goals and objectives
Business administration ensures that you can align your marketing objectives with the overall strategic goals of your business. When you work closely with your marketing team, you can define clear and measurable goals that reflect the desired outcomes of your marketing endeavors.
These goals may include:
- Increasing the business’ market share
- Boosting sales revenues
- Improving brand awareness
- Foraying into new markets
As a business administrator, you can establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track how the marketing team is meeting these objectives.
Allocating resources for marketing activities
If you want your organization’s marketing activities to be successful, you need to ensure effective resource allocation. As a business administrator, you are responsible for managing as well as allocating resources efficiently.
These resources may include financial resources, human capital, technology and any other necessary assets. To ensure that your business utilizes these resources to the maximum and produces the desired results, it is necessary to work with the marketing team. This will enable you and the team to determine the budget that is available for marketing initiatives and then allocate resources based on that.
When you optimize resource allocation, you ensure that your business’s marketing activities receive the right support to help meet the objectives.
Coordination between departments
Marketing in an organization does not happen in isolation. Different departments need to work together to ensure that your marketing efforts are a success.
Usually, departments such as marketing and sales, customer service, operations and finance work together. To ensure seamless and effective communication and coordination between these departments, you need to create the right channels. This way, you can ensure that cross-functional teams share information and collaborate when necessary. This helps to maximize the impact of your marketing initiatives.
Set up performance measurement and evaluation systems
When your business engages in marketing activities, how can you determine that these activities are a success? The answer lies in implementing performance measurement systems.
To ensure you measure the performance of your marketing efforts correctly, as a business administrator, you need to define the KPIs that align with your marketing objectives. These performance indicators include important metrics, such as:
- Sales growth
- Customer acquisition
- Customer retention rates
- Brand awareness metrics
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Return on investment (ROI)
When you have the right performance measurement systems, it allows you to make data-driven decisions and improve your marketing strategies continuously. It is necessary to keep evaluating the data to identify your marketing strengths and weaknesses, pinpoint areas of improvement and make strategic adjustments to maximize the effects of your marketing efforts.
Integrating marketing into your business plan
As mentioned earlier, a business plan is your roadmap to success and marketing plays a major role in it. This makes it essential that marketing is an integral part of your business plan. Here is how you can do that:
Conduct market research and analysis
Gathering business intelligence is key to conducting market research and analysis. You will need to collate the relevant data to understand your target market’s dynamics, customer preferences, industry trends and competitive landscape.
Market research enables your business to identify opportunities and potential challenges. This, in turn, allows you to make informed decisions.
By examining market size, growth rates, consumer behavior and market segmentation, your business gains valuable insights that become a part of your marketing strategies and overall business plan.
Identify target customers and segments
Your business needs to know your target customers and segments. You should understand your ideal customers, their needs and their buying behaviors. This is the reason many businesses create different buyer personas. It enables them to tailor their marketing efforts to suit the needs of their customer base.
By engaging in marketing activities and creating marketing messages that resonate with your target audience, you can not only ensure that your marketing activities are a success, but you can also boost customer engagement.
Develop a competitive advantage
Your business has unique strengths and differentiators that set it apart from the competition. Your competitive advantage may include one or all of the following:
- Product features
- Pricing
- Quality
- Innovation
- Brand reputation
- Customer service
When you work to strategically position your business in the market, it becomes easier to communicate your value proposition and target the right customers. However, it is essential to remember that when you establish your competitive advantage, it should align with your business objectives and be part of your business plan. This will help guide your marketing efforts.
Create a marketing mix
For the uninitiated, marketing mix refers to the 4Ps – product, price, place and promotion. You need to consider each component of the marketing mix with the utmost care so that you can align it with your overall business strategy.
Product
You need to define your products or services. Make sure they meet customer needs and expectations. This involves product development, branding, packaging and ensuring product quality.
Price
You also need to determine the pricing. For this, consider factors such as cost analysis, competitor pricing and perceived value. Make sure that your pricing is competitive and, at the same time, it should be profitable. So, carefully assess the market demand and your target audience’s willingness to pay.
Place
This refers to your distribution channels and locations where customers can get your products or services. You can choose direct sales, eCommerce platforms, retail partnerships or other distribution channels, depending on what is appropriate for your business.
Promotion
Lastly, you need the right promotion strategy to make your target customer base aware of your products or services, to generate interest and to drive sales. In a digitally connected world, the best way to reach your target market is through web-based marketing, such as social media marketing, pay-per-click, content marketing and other forms of online advertising.
Once you have these things in place, you will have your marketing objectives and strategies that help you meet those goals. Make them a part of your business plan. Ensure that you outline your marketing budget, resource allocation and the timeframe to implement your marketing initiatives.
When you do this, it ensures that your business’s marketing efforts are aligned with the overall objectives of your business, and you know exactly how to allocate resources for each activity.
Your business plan is a strategic document
A business plan is a strategic document. It outlines your business’ vision, mission, goals and strategies. It functions as a guide to keep your business on track so that it achieves the desired success. Above all, a business plan guides you in your decision-making process.
Make sure that you align your marketing objectives with your overall business objectives. For instance, if your overall business goal is to boost your market share, then your marketing goals should have strategies on how to target new customer segments, launch creative marketing campaigns and strengthen your brand’s position in your target markets. When your marketing activities support your business goals, you get the desired results. This, in turn, contributes to the success of your entire business.
Every business plan has an operational plan within it. This helps you execute your marketing activities and achieve your marketing goals. The operational plan usually outlines the day-to-day activities, processes and resources that you need to implement business strategies. Your operation plan should have your marketing strategies included in it so that you know the resources that your marketing activities will require. Also, this will ensure you are aware of the timelines, responsibilities and performance indicators for each marketing activity.
When your business engages in marketing activities, it requires financial resources, so your business plan should have a detailed section on budget allocation for your marketing initiatives. The plan should highlight an approximation of costs for each marketing activity along with projected revenue. To justify the budget, include a section on return on investment analysis.
Best practices to create an effective business plan
Collaboration between business administration and marketing teams is fundamental to creating an effective business plan. By bringing together the expertise and perspectives of both teams, your business can develop a comprehensive and cohesive plan that aligns marketing strategies with broader business objectives.
Make sure that the two departments communicate regularly, have cross-functional meetings and employ collaborative decision-making. This will allow them to work seamlessly. By getting the two departments to collaborate, you can integrate your marketing goals, strategies and resource allocation with your overall business plan. This results in a more effective, efficient and unified approach.
However, it does not stop there. It is essential to have a continuous monitoring and evaluation system in place. For this, you need to establish KPIs that support your marketing objectives. Make sure you track and analyze the relevant metrics.
When you evaluate your marketing activities constantly, it allows you to identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions. You can also pinpoint emerging trends, customer preferences and market dynamics. This makes your business more agile and lets you adjust your marketing strategies to the changing business environment.
A business plan is not a static document, so you need to keep revisiting it to ensure that it is relevant and effective and can help your business adapt to the changing market trends and customer needs. For this, you need both business administration and marketing acumen. This enables you to develop a flexible and effective roadmap to guide the success of your business. By leveraging the expertise and insights of business administration and marketing into your business plan, you can achieve sustainable growth, seize opportunities and navigate the complexities of the business landscape.