What Are Environmental Factors in Marketing?
The environmental factors in marketing include political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors (PESTEL). This PESTEL analysis is a framework that marketers use to analyze and monitor these factors in the external environment, according to the Professional Academy.
Environmental factors affect the strategies businesses use to market their products and services to customers. The external environment, or macro environment, is made of forces that organizations can’t control. A PESTEL analysis is a useful tool for determining the impact of political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors on the marketing strategies adopted by the business, notes the Professional Academy.
The political factors include government policy, political stability or instability in overseas markets, foreign trade policy, tax policy, labor law, environmental law and trade restrictions. The economic factors in a PESTEL analysis determine how an organization does business, and also how profitable it is. Social factors are the areas that involve the shared beliefs and attitudes of the population. Technological factors include how fast the technological landscape changes, and how this impacts the way an organization markets its products. Environmental factors relate to the use of raw materials, pollution targets and carbon footprint targets set by governments. Finally, legal factors are the laws a company must abide by to be considered a legal entity by a country’s local authorities.
