Essay: Reputation Marketing Management: Importance, Technology, and Alternatives

REPUTATION MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Abstract
Reputation refers to beliefs that are believed to be in existence about something or someone. From the definition of reputation, we get a clue of what reputation marketing means. Reputation marketing refers to a marketing strategy where a company or an organization chooses what should be put on the known to the public about itself (Armstrong, 2015, 71). Reputation marketing refers to the use of positive aspects of a company to get customers to use and buy their products (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1800). Marketing firms always have the choice of putting something good about the product or service they are marketing. For consumer interest, it is important for marketers to include only what is good about the product in their marketing platforms.
However, there has been an increase in the number of cases through which reputation marketing has not proved effective. This is because of technology and the consumers finding out that what is displayed in the marketing platforms is not the actual case. Therefore, there has been a need to develop a management strategy to help in the management of the content displayed in marketing platforms by the various marketing firms available.
It is important to note that taking reputation marketing as the sole marketing option for a company and business is a risk. Therefore, there need to be risk management practices applied to the associated business or organization or company. In place of this notion, it is vital for an organization to consider some of the risk management and assessment processes that need to be taken into concern for the whole process to be complete. This aspect will be looked into later in this paper.
Introduction
For all manufacturing companies, organizations, small businesses, and large business enterprises, it is important for the company to come up with a marketing plan. There are several marketing plans to choose from depending on the organization’s preferences. Moreover, a company will choose to have a specific marketing option depending on how big or how small it might be (Armstrong, 2015, 4). Marketing is the only known way through which the consumer is made aware of the existence of products and services from certain organizations, small and large business enterprises, and companies. From the many known marketing strategies, reputation marketing is a well-known marketing strategy which has been in constant use by many companies to market their products to the public over time. This paper seeks to explain the importance of Reputation Marketing Management, which has influenced the process of marketing and various ways through which technology has enhanced reputation marketing. It will also look one alternative to reputation marketing. Moreover, there will be a research section based on an interview to check out the credibility and usability of reputation for marketing purposes.
What Brands want to be Kept Open?
Brands in the global and local markets often have specific things they would like for the consumer to be made aware of. Most often, marketers tend to identify the positive aspects and work on their words to deliver convincing contents about the positives of the products and services. This is a recipe to consumer attention though it often leads to later failure in the functionalism of the organization or business involved especially when social media is involved (Tuten & Solomon, 2017, 12). Only allowing factors that are considered the positives is considered positive reputation marketing.
In positive reputation marketing, only the positive aspects of a particular organization, company or business will be outlined (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1797). It does not take into account some of the negative aspects of the same. In this case, marketers will focus on mentioning aspects of a product such as how effective it has been to the consumers who have tried it earlier, the improvement process the product has undergone over time to make it suitable for a consumer who wishes to try it for the first time among many other reputable aspects displayed in the marketing posts. Moreover, it is important to mention that consumers are often manipulated to make interesting posts about the product or service being marketed (Van Noor et al., 2015, 84).
Negative reputation marketing is a marketing strategy where marketers pick on the negative reviews from clients or any other person and polish their ideas to come up with positive statements that will recommend their products and services (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1799). On the other hand, negative reputation marketing is not in common practice in the modern day world. This is because people tend to focus on providing information about the positives while ignoring the negatives. Moreover, interested consumers will only need a positive reputation to decide on whether they should try working with the products or going with the services where positive aspects have been explained in depth. This makes marketing an unfair means for positive competition among brands in the global market.
Factors Leading to Reputation Marketing Management
Environmental Factors
There are several environmental factors which have influenced the need for marketing management. These factors include the globalization of businesses, customer expectations, and internal pressure (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1804).
How has internal pressure pushed for reputation marketing? Trying to achieve profitability performance goals and cost-saving productivity is attributed to the internal pressures an organization, company and any other business faces. Such has led to negative employee work rate since managers tend to push the subordinates to achieve more aggressive performances rather than what the company or organization is capable of. As a result, this leads to employee underperformance because of low employee morale. Therefore, there is a need for the development of marketing management which will see to it that all employees are treated equally right and there is no overstretch in the performance of a person to meet the company’s internal pressure.
Customer expectations will always be raised depending on the information they obtain and receive concerning a specific service or product. As already mentioned, reputation marketing has led to positive information only about a product or service, being displayed about a product or service offered being marketed. Such increases the anticipation of the customer leading to pressure on the company to provide exactly what is displayed in the marketing platforms (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1804). However, in most cases, the companies or organizations are not often capable of providing what has been portrayed of them. This has led to the development of reputation marketing management practices which will help in solving and reducing the issues of under delivery to the consumer at large.
As businesses venture into the global market, there is a need for increased market stability. Moreover, businesses struggle to deal with emerging market competition for consumer attention. Such has led to the development of reputation marketing to sell the name rather than the product and services offered by the organization or business (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1809). Therefore, there occurs an urgent need for the development of a reputation marketing management system which helps to deal with name marketing as compared to the desired product and services marketing.
Organizational factors
In addition to environmental factors, several other organizational factors lead to an urgent desire for the development of reputation marketing. Such factors include rebranding, change of employees, change of employees, business merging any many more factors. These factors are looked into in this section of the paper,
Rebranding changes the reputation of an organization, business or company. At most times, rebranding happens to change the reputation of the organizations. Every organization tends to change its brand names for a better consumer experience. In most cases, marketers will seize the opportunity and use reputation marketing to change what individuals think and feel about their products and services (Schnackenberg, 2016, 1837). After rebranding, reputation marketing happens to be the preferred marketing option.
At times, organizations will change their employees to improve their services and product delivery. A change in the working staff means there will be a change in the reputation of the organization. Managing employee changes is inevitable. Reputation will be changed, and it is likely that marketers will definitely show this in their marketing platforms. Therefore, it is essential to establish reputation marketing management.
Effect of Technology on Reputation Marketing
Social Media and Reputation Marketing