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What is Holistic Marketing?
Holistic marketing is a marketing philosophy that believes all the business components are important in achieving defined objectives and says all components should work together as one single to achieve a common goal.
The holistic marketing concept is based on the holism philosophy, which believes the whole is greater than one, and which says business is just like our human body, our body has different parts so the business has, our body function properly when all parts work together so the business achieves its objectives when it’s all parts work unitedly as a single unit realizing common goals.
As per this, all the departments of the organization such as human resources, finance, labor, accounting, marketing, and others should work together to realize the common goal. This marketing philosophy has significantly gained its popularity because of the competitive marketplace and where businesses are eagerly involved in creating brand images.
Holistic marketing is the latest development in marketing thought. This concept emerged mainly due to the need for marketing to have a broad and integrated perspective in the 21st century.
By Philip Kotler, “the holistic marketing concept is based on the development, design, and implementation of a marketing program, process, and activities, that recognizes their breadth and interdependencies.”
It acknowledges that everything matters with marketing and that a broad, integrated, perspective is necessary to attain the best solution. It considers business as a single unit and not an entity with different elements.
Principles of Holistic Marketing Concept
The holistic marketing concept is based on its four fundamental principles or themes: relationship marketing, integrated marketing, internal marketing, and social responsibility marketing.
Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing aims at building long-lasting relationships with all the business components that directly or indirectly affect the marketing activities of the firm.
Relationship marketing focus is not only on immediate sales, rather it is directed at building a large group of satisfied and loyal customers. Customer retention and winning back lots of customers are the key strategy in relationship marketing. It uses sustained long-term efforts in delivering value to the customer and profit to the firm.
Thus focus should be on developing a long-term relationship with customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, investors, and shareholders.
Integrated Marketing
The holistic marketing concept believes that there must be an integration of marketing programs to create, communicate and deliver superior goods to customers. The integration should be at the level of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion) and communication mix (advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing).
The main focus of this principle is the effective and efficient utilization of all the available resources. So the organization creates, communicates, and delivers excellent value to customers. Under this principle, there must be a focus on,
- Development of quality products and services.
- Effective communication with customers.
- Efficient delivery of products through selecting a proper distribution channel.
Internal Marketing
Internal marketing is based on the notion that every part of the organization is a marketer. It mainly involves hiring, training, and motivating staff to serve the customers well.
The concept strongly recommends that the top executive should be trained in the customer-oriented philosophy. The Internal marketing should be implemented as the following:
Marketing Department. All marketing activities such as sales force management, advertising, customer service, product management, marketing research, etc. must be coordinated from the customer’s point of view.
Other Departments. The customer-oriented philosophy must be embraced by all other departments of the organization. Every departmental head, supervisor, and other operatives must understand that the organization can prosper and make profits only by meeting customers’ expectations.
Social Responsibility Marketing
The holistic marketing concept is based on the societal marketing concept that calls for socially responsible marketing by taking seriously the ethical, legal, environmental, customer equity, and social concerns of people and society. It calls for marketers to balance the interests of organizations, customers, and society in performing activities. It also works towards social welfare by sponsoring social and philanthropic events.