The Concept and Component of Marketing Information System (MKIS)

A marketing information system (MKIS) is defined a set of procedures and methods designed to generate, analyze, disseminate, and store anticipated marketing decision information on a regular, continuous basis. An information system can be used operationally, managerially, and strategically for several aspects of marketing.

A Marketing Information System can also be defined as 'a system in which marketing data is formally gathered, stored, analysed and distributed to managers in accordance with their informational needs on a regular basis'
A marketing information system can be used operationally, managerially, and strategically for several aspects of marketing.

As we all know that no marketing activity can be carried out in isolation, know when we say it doesn’t work in isolation that means there are various forces could be external or internal, controllable or uncontrollable which are working on it. Thus to know which forces are acting on it and its impact the marketer needs to gathering the data through its own resources which in terms of marketing we can say he is trying to gather the market information or form a marketing information system. This collection of information is a continuous process that gathers data from a variety of sources synthesizes it and sends it to those responsible for meeting the market places needs. The effectiveness of marketing decision is proved if it has a strong information system offering the firm a Competitive advantage.

Locating data and developing information
The information needed by marketing managers comes from various sources which includes: - internal company records, marketing intelligence and marketing research. The information analysis system then processes this information to make it more useful for managers.

Internal Records
These are information gathered from sources within the company to evaluate marketing performances and to detect marketing problems and opportunities. Most marketing managers use internal records and reports regularly, especially for making day-to-day planning, implementation and control decisions. Internal records information consists of information gathered from sources within the company to evaluate marketing performance and to detect marketing problems and opportunities.
Information from internal records is usually quicker and cheaper to get than information from other sources, but it also presents some problems. Because internal information was for other purposes, it may be incomplete or in the wrong form for making marketing decisions. For example, accounting department sales and cost data used for preparing financial statements need adapting for use in evaluating product, sales force or channel performance.

Marketing Intelligence
The total information needs of the marketing department can be specified and satisfied via a marketing intelligence network. The marketing intelligence system determines the intelligence needed, collects it by searching the environment and delivers it to marketing managers who need it. Marketing intelligence comes from many sources. Much intelligence is from the company's personnel - executives, engineers and scientists, purchasing agents and the sales force. But company people are often busy and fail to pass on important information. The company must 'sell' its people on their importance as intelligence gatherers, train them to spot new developments and urge them to report intelligence hack to the company.

The company must also persuade suppliers, resellers and customers to pass along important intelligence. Some information on competitor’s conies from what they say about themselves in annual reports, speeches, press releases and advertisements. The company can also learn about competitors from what others say about them in business publications and at trade shows. Or the company can watch what competitors do - buying and analyzing competitors' products, monitoring their sales and checking for new patents. Companies also buy intelligence information from outside suppliers.

Marketing research systems
Marketing research is a proactive search for information. That is, the enterprise which commissions these studies does so to solve a perceived marketing problem. In many cases, data is collected in a purposeful way to address a well-defined problem (or a problem which can be defined and solved within the course of the study). The other form of marketing research centers not on a specific marketing problem but is an attempt to continuously monitor the marketing environment. These monitoring or tracking exercises are continuous marketing research studies, often involving panels of farmers, consumers or distributors from which the same data is collected at regular intervals. Whilst the ad hoc study and continuous marketing research differs in the orientation, yet they are both proactive.

Marketing Information should not be approached in an infrequent manner. If research is done this way, a firm could face these risks:
1.Opportunities may be missed.
2.There may be a lack of awareness of environmental changes and competitors’ actions.
3.Data collection may be difficult to analyze over several time periods.
4.Marketing plans and decisions may not be properly reviewed.
5.Data collection may be disjointed.
6.Previous studies may not be stored in an easy to use format.
7.Time lags may result if a new study is required.
8.Actions may be reactionary rather than anticipatory.

Advantages of Marketing Information System
1. Organized data collection.
2. A broad perspective.
3. The storage of important data.
4. An avoidance of crises.
5. Coordinated marketing plans.
6. Speed in obtaining sufficient information to make decisions.
7. Data amassed and kept over several time periods.
8. The ability to do a cost-benefit analysis.

The disadvantages of a Marketing information system are high initial time and labor costs and the complexity of setting up an information system. Marketers often complain that they lack enough marketing information or the right kind, or have too much of the wrong kind. The solution is an effective marketing information system.

The marketing information systems and its subsystems

Marketing information systems are intended to support management decision making. Management has five distinct functions and each requires support from an MIS. These are: planning, organising, coordinating, decisions and controlling
Information systems have to be designed to meet the way in which managers tend to work. Research suggests that a manager continually addresses a large variety of tasks and is able to spend relatively brief periods on each of these. Given the nature of the work, managers tend to rely upon information that is timely and verbal even if this is likely to be less accurate then more formal and complex information systems.

Managers play at least three separate roles: interpersonal, informational and decisional. MIS, in electronic form or otherwise, can support these roles in varying degrees. MIS has less to contribute in the case of a manager's informational role than for the other two.
Three levels of decision making can be distinguished from one another: strategic, control (or tactical) and operational. Again, MIS has to support each level. Strategic decisions are characteristically one-off situations. Strategic decisions have implications for changing the structure of an organisation and therefore the MIS must provide information which is precise and accurate. Control decisions deal with broad policy issues and operational decisions concern the management of the organisation's marketing mix.

A marketing information system has four components: the internal reporting system, the marketing research systems, the marketing intelligence system and marketing models. Internal reports include orders received, inventory records and sales invoices. Marketing research takes the form of purposeful studies either ad hoc or continuous. By contrast, marketing intelligence is less specific in its purposes, is chiefly carried out in an informal manner and by managers themselves rather than by professional marketing researchers

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing as it sometimes refer as “SEM” is often used to describe acts associated with researching, submitting and positioning a Web site within search engines to achieve maximum exposure of a particular web site. SEM includes things such as search engine optimization, paid listings and other search-engine related services and functions that will increase exposure and traffic to your Web site.

Search Engine Marketing Guide

There is a lot involved when it comes to search engine marketing. Sometimes, it can be a bit overwhelming, even for those with a great deal of experience. But never the less by taking it one step at a time, it is not hard to learn. And once learned, search engine marketing can provide an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site

Below are the following steps to search engine marketing

•Keywords & Search Terms: - The first step is to learn about the search terms that your target audience is using when using search engines. These search terms are the keywords and key phrase that will be used to market your web site.

Search terms refer to the words and phrases that people type into the search forms of search engines, eg digital camera, Keywords and key phrases on the other hand are the words on you have on your site that match these search terms.

Search engines spiders and search engines users look at the keywords and key phrases on your website in order to index it. Therefore you keywords and key phrase should be well structured to really reflect the information you are sending to your audience, Before you do any type of search engine marketing, you have to understand your target audience and know the search terms they are using. Once you know the search terms being used, these can be included in the content of your Web site as keywords and key phrases. This would be a very terrible mistake if it is otherwise.
•Search engine optimization: - in a simple word, SEO is the process of optimizing one's website to get better results in search engines.

Having a good search engine optimization is very basic. The design and content of a good search engine has to be optimized because the parameters that make a web page or web site friendly for search-engine and for viewers may be different. Therefore, an optimized solution has to be obtained for best results. SEO is more of a process than a single action and it takes time and an intelligent to achieve best result.
A successful search engine optimization campaign will usually contain these essential components:

Content: - This is what drives search engine rankings, content is what brings users to your site, and content, when sprinkled appropriately with keyword phrases, will feed search engine spiders. Rinse, repeat. This is very important search engine optimization.

Simple Site Design. Sites that are successful in the search engine results have this in common-they are all simply designed, with a minimum of bandwidth hogging graphics, slowly loading animations or other such frippery, and are easy to navigate. Simple, clean designs are what search engine spiders and search engine users like, because it enables them to get to what they're looking for; which is - you guessed it - content.

Well-written Meta tags. Meta tags-keyword, description, and title- are important, but they won't make or break your site. Meta tags are merely part of the overall success strategy. They need to be written with compelling, keyword phrase-heavy content that will make the user click through from the search results page.

•Search engine submission: -“SES” is the act of submitting specific URLs to popular search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! to ensure the web page gets spidered and indexed. While Search Engine Submission is often seen as a way to promote a web site, it generally is not necessary. Because the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN use crawlers, bots, and spiders that eventually would find all by themselves most web sites on the Internet.

Ways to submit a website

There are basically three ways to get your site listed in a search engine:
Submit your site directly to the search engine using a free submit form.
Let the search engine find your site through links to your site from other sites such as directories.
Pay the search engine to index your site.

•Link popularity: - refer to the number of incoming links that you have to your site from other sites. These links can be from directories, articles, or web sites. The more links you have pointing to your site, the better.
The number and quality of links that you have pointing to your site are a factor that many search engines consider when determining the rank or your site and individual pages of your site. Also, the more incoming links you have, the greater the traffic to your site

How to get a link popularity

Submit your site to web directories; directory links are great. They'll have your keywords in the link text & description, on a page with a topic relevant to yours. People browsing through the directory can find your site as well.
Sites in your field; when you find a website similar to yours (even a competitor!), or on a related topic, consider asking them for a link. Don't forget informational sites, professional organizations, & forums.
Forums & Emails; put a link to your website in your signature if you participate in online discussions (if it's permitted). Every post you make will give you a link (albeit one that may not carry a lot of weight).
It will happen naturally; Once your site offers something of value, people will begin to link to it because they want to. And, some of these links will be from relevant sites and one other ways is by asking your visitors to link to you by including a "link to us" page that provides link code & some graphics.

Checking Your Link Popularity
After creating link popularity, it is advisable to check your link popularity. This can be done through Marketleap, they provide a tool called the Link Popularity Check. It is a great way to periodically check the number of incoming links to your site.

•Paid inclusion: -A search engine marketing model in which a Web site pays a fee to a search engine that then guarantees that the Web site will be displayed in the returned search results for specifically named search terms. It is also often called PFI (Pay for Inclusion) or PPI (Pay Per Inclusion).

Paid inclusion, for some search engines, also means that the search engine’s spiders will crawl their sites more often than non-paid sites. Different search engines treat paid inclusion results differently; some indicate the paid inclusion results as advertisements while others display them as results alongside non-paid search results. This option is becoming more popular with both site owners and search engines. Site owners that want to get indexed quickly like it because they don't have to wait for the search engines to find their sites naturally through incoming links and listings in directories. Search engines like it because it is a way to increase revenue by charging the site owners for this service. If you have the budget and you don't want to wait, this is a good option.

•Pay Per Click Search Engines: -Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on websites, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked