Contents
- What is a Marketing Information System (MIS)?
- Why does a business need MIS?
- Tasks of the Marketing Information System
- Structure of MIS
- Elements of the Marketing Information System
- Main Principles of Building MIS
What is a Marketing Information System (MIS)?
A Marketing Information System (MIS) is a comprehensive solution for collecting, processing, and analyzing marketing information. It includes various methods, personnel, equipment, and software that are used together to acquire, evaluate, and interpret data. MIS plays a key role in transforming information obtained from the marketing environment into useful data that can be used to make informed business decisions.
In practice, individual software solutions that could be called MIS are quite rare, as they are usually expensive and complex. More often, the functions of MIS are integrated into CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and MRM (Marketing Resource Management) systems. CRM systems are focused on managing customer and order data, providing the ability to track interactions, log calls, and monitor key performance indicators (KPI) of sales managers. Meanwhile, MRM systems allow for managing marketing resources, including budget planning, content creation and approval, as well as project and placement management.
Why does a business need MIS?
A Marketing Information System provides a business with complete, reliable, and up-to-date information, which in turn allows for informed and effective decision-making. The results of MIS can be used for:
- developing a marketing strategy;
- identifying problems and weaknesses in the company's operations;
- finding opportunities for growth and development;
- evaluating the effectiveness of current activities and decisions;
- managing relationships with clients and partners;
- increasing profits and optimizing employee working time.
Tasks of the Marketing Information System
MIS encompasses not only the work of advertising and marketing departments but also other divisions such as sales, finance, and logistics. Therefore, the information system faces the following tasks:
- Identifying needs: determining which departments need data, for what purposes, and in what form.
- Selecting sources: considering the reliability, availability, and relevance of information.
- Developing methods for data collection and analysis: choosing tools based on the specifics of the industry and tasks.
- Continuous data collection and registration: involving employees from different departments.
- Systematizing and analyzing data: searching for cause-and-effect relationships and patterns.
- Presenting results: adapting data to the requests of various departments.
Structure of MIS
There are several approaches to describing the structure of a marketing information system. One of the most well-known models is F. Kotler's concept, according to which MIS consists of four key subsystems:
- External information system;
- Internal information system;
- Marketing research system;
- Marketing analysis system.
Elements of the Marketing Information System
The main elements of MIS include three key blocks: data, analysis methods, and software tools. The information block is a collection of all databases that the company gathers, while the statistical block includes methods for data processing. The software block consists of software tools for data processing. These can be either off-the-shelf solutions or custom-developed programs that fit the specificities of the business.
Main Principles of Building MIS
When creating a marketing information system, it is important to follow a number of principles that will ensure its effectiveness:
- Regularity: constant updating of data to enhance competitiveness.
- Completeness and reliability: gathering meaningful and relevant information from reliable sources.
- Integration: uniting data from various departments to address multifaceted tasks.
- Systematic approach: automating and standardizing data management processes.
- Process-based approach: integrating all stages of data management into a single interconnected process.