Marketing Manager Interview Questions & Answers

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When an organisation conducts its marketing activities particularly sale of goods to its customers directly it is called direct marketing. The final products are sold to the final consumer directly by the company , and immediate or early response from the consumer is expected. This type of marketing is also known as B2C marketing. Direct door to door sales made by the salesman. This type of marketing involves direct communication with the customer and is found to be time saving and a cost effective method of selling.

In today's fast moving world of glitz and glamour, products have become the face of the company. The brand image of a company that it carries with it depends largely upon the kind of product or service the company is dealing with. A good enough product with the best distribution channels and affordable prices may still fail to capture the market if it has not been well or clearly communicated to the target customers. Promotion is communicating about our products or service to the masses. It is one of the essential elements of the marketing mix without which gives that face or impression to the people at large about that company brand.

The promotion mix is a combination of advertising, sales promotion, public relation, personal selling and direct marketing which a company uses to promote its products. So it becomes an important task for the marketer to properly list out the promotion mix strategies and its benefits. It is like the ingredients that go into the making of any particular dish. The quality of the dish depends upon the way in which the ingredients have been used and mixed. Similarly, an organization must have an ideal promotion mix by which it should be able to promote its products to the masses.

Objectives of promotion:
☛ Awareness
☛ Knowledge
☛ Liking and desire
☛ Purchase

There is enormous accountability for marketing managers to ensure that the marketing operation is efficient and cost-effective and to show how marketing spend translates into growth and profitability for the company. In such a highly competitive market standing out from other organizations is an ongoing challenge.
Additionally there is the pressure to keep up with technology and how to use it optimally for marketing activity. Relate your personal experience of the challenges you have encountered and discuss how you handled them.

In your marketing manager interview answer show how cultural factors, social factors, personal and psychological factors all impact on consumer behavior. Provide an example of a marketing campaign or project you developed and how you utilized these four key factors to develop and optimize your project.

Your ability to evaluate a situation, problem or opportunity and understand the action that needs to be taken is key to success as a marketing manager. Gaining a clear perspective is necessary before deciding on the focus of your innovation.

Key marketing manager competencies that this question explores include accurate research and analytical skills, the ability to develop realistic and workable objectives and the ability to initiate and monitor strategies and activities that support these objectives.
Efficient utilization of resources reflects sound judgment, planning and organizational skills. Use this question as an opportunity to highlight your strengths as a marketing manager.

It is important that you are able to recognize why a plan went wrong and to learn from the experience.
Your analytical and problem solving skills are under scrutiny. Campaigns often fail due to poor research and groundwork, inappropriate objectives or ineffective communication.

In answering this marketing manager interview question, focus on your skills in online marketing including search engine tactics and optimization, click-through advertising, writing for the Web using keywords, designing for customer usability, utilization of social media and tracking success of the online campaign.

Focus on your planning and organizing skills to get the best return on the marketing budget. Detail what controls were put in place to track and stay on top of expenditure and how plans were adjusted when necessary. Discuss your ability to react quickly and accurately to meet new demands and constraints.

Focus on your ability to co-ordinate and delegate activities in an efficient and practical way. Detail how you defined and divided project roles and responsibilities, kept personality clashes and conflict to a minimum and monitored and fed back to the project team.

Methods of direct marketing:
☛ Direct mail: This is the most common means of direct marketing.Under this direct postal mails are sent to the consumers' address.
☛ Telephone marketing: Via call centers products are also sold over telephone. It is also known as telemarketing.
☛ Catalog marketing: Print,video or electronic catalogs maybe sent to customers.
☛ Online marketing: The organization's products are marketed on the virtual medium through company websites and emails.

Benefits of direct marketing:
☛ Cost effectiveness - The costs of paying to the intermediaries is eliminated due to their absence.
☛ Alternative uses: apart from selling, direct marketing can be used to test new markets, offer rewards to customers, or even for market segmentation.
☛ The results of direct marketing are easier to measure as we know how many people have been directly contacted in the first place.
☛ Relationship building: it helps in building a rapport with the customers as a direct relationship is established with them and they can avail authentic information about a product or service without any manipulations.

Sometimes poor quality leads or poorly communicated messages may pose problems for marketers as well as consumers as some of such consumers may not be actually interested in the product. So much time and money may be wasted on communicating with such consumers. Sending out direct mails to the addresses to the customers may also irritate some customers. The customers may also have a feeling that their privacy is being invaded and they may not want to disclose any personal information about themselves while being asked to answer questionnaires in direct marketing. Direct marketing has to be convincing enough to win over the trust and belief of the consumers in order to overcome such challenges.

First of all I would identify the target market for the product. If at all the target market exists then identify if any other prospective target market could be there apart from the existing one. I would approach a celebrity to endorse it. I would also organize roadshows to publicize the product and approach the media as well. As they say 'Charity begins at Home' , so I would spread the word about the company product (name the product) to my family and friends and recommend them to use it. That would be a simple 'word of mouth' promotion.

IMC or integrated marketing communication is the buzzword these days. Under this concept, all the elements of marketing communication are made to work together in order to achieve sales maximization as well as cost effectiveness of a product. All the elements including advertising, sales promotion,public relation, personal selling and direct marketing are integrated in such a way that they do not work at all in isolation, thereby contributing to a common goal. With the advent of specialized media vehicles, internet marketing and retailer dominated market, IMC has gained immense popularity among the corporate.

Difference between publicity and promotion:
Publicity is about getting others to know more about your organization and its business. Its objective is to gain more name and fame in the public.
Promotion is much more vast in scope as compared to publicity which is just one aspect of promotion. There are other areas in promotion apart from publicity, which includes advertising, sales promotion,public relation, personal selling and direct marketing as well.

Publicity is about getting others to know more about your organization and its business. Its objective is to gain more name and fame in the public.

It may be extensive training, but you may also mention any instruction of personnel regarding your strategies, research, possible changes, new production polices, etc. Such instruction often involves presentations. Presentations are also often used when reporting to senior management.

Once goods are manufactured, they must be transferred from their place of manufacturing (factory) to the end consumer otherwise the goods would remain idle. Marketing channels give movement to such goods and help them in reaching the right consumer at the right time and place.They can also be called the media or vehicle through which goods reach the target market and to the end consumer.

☛ Promotes communication
☛ Information provider
☛ Physical distribution
☛ Fosters relationship management

Not necessarily all companies use marketing channels.There are some that directly market their products to consumers.

Talk about coordinating actions and information with the development department at every stage. Give examples of how your marketing management influences product development and vice versa.