7 Functions of Marketing for your business
When it comes to marketing your product, you probably do a lot of things to make sure that it reaches the right people. You employ methods to create, communicate and deliver your services to customers.
However, amidst all the marketing madness that you undergo to market your product, you might somewhere forget the very purpose of marketing and keep doing it robotically. Fortunately, there are seven marketing functions that are clear cut and you can accordingly then define strategies to support your business.
It is good for you as a business owner/ marketer to understand the seven marketing functions. The reason being that you can then formulate the best marketing strategies and plans to keep in line with the targets. When you know what you should be delivering, getting the right ROI is also easy.
What then are these functions? This blog is here to help you with that. Before that, how many marketing functions are there? Below we’ve elaborated on the 7 marketing functions you should know in an easy to understand manner with examples. Note that these are not in any particular order.
7 functions of marketing
- Distribution
- Financing
- Marketing information management/ Deep market research
- Pricing
- Product and service management
- Promotion
- Selling to customers
Distribution
The distribution part of marketing is the methods you employ to find the best distribution channels to get your products to the right customers. In simpler terms, distribution is how you plan to distribute your products.
Choosing the right distribution channels is important as it helps you to reach the best clients for you. After all, if you only have a great product but aren’t able to get it across to customers, your efforts are wasted. Your distribution techniques and quality are sure to go a long way in determining your eventual success.
Both physical and digital efforts are counted towards the distribution of your products. Examples of physical distribution would be actually stocking your products in a store and including it in the inventory. The transport methods and continuous quality assurance checks are also factors in this. Digitally, you’d list products on various social media or marketing platforms on specific targeted groups/ websites, or use link-building services to create an organized website content distribution network.
Financing
If you’re familiar with financing, then you know it means to get money to run your business. How then, does it count as a marketing function? Clearly, without marketing, you’d not be able to sell digital products to customers and make profits in return to finance your business.
Used in the correct way, marketing can generate a good amount of profit with minimum investment. This can be used to finance a major component of your company and secure loans and funding if needed.
For example, if you are creating online courses, your website would be the primary way of marketing them and gaining sales and hence finances.. As the saying goes, it takes money to make money and you will overtime be able to see a good return on your investment into the website.
Marketing Information Management
Already we’ve spoken about the ‘right customers’ for your business, but how do you determine who they are? This is where the marketing information management or deep market research function comes into play.
Marketing research means collecting or going through data of your target market, their interests and needs. The marketers can then come up with the best strategies to focus just on these aspects. Almost 76% of B2B businesses have a proper marketing strategy
An example of this is regular marketing research surveys, which are useful in collecting information about changing interests of customers. Not only customers, but to run a successful business, you’d also need to carefully analyze the available data for the competitors, the quality of goods being sold in the market, as well as the industry trends relevant to your product or service.
Additionally, many businesses choose to get help for their marketing information management tasks from business process outsourcing companies in Poland. By partnering with these companies, businesses can leverage their expertise and ultimately enhance their marketing strategies and decision-making processes.
Pricing
Perhaps the most difficult part of marketing is the pricing. You’d have to take into consideration the buying power of your target customers as well as the production cost you incur. Research and keeping a tab on the changing prices is a must here, as you have to ensure that there are profits.
Trial and error can help come up with the correct price. Your brand image would also play a factor here as customers would be willing to pay more for a trusted brand’s product. Plus, knowing the prices your competitors charge can help make sure that the customers would be willing to pay for your product.
As an example, you can consider a store which sells a specialty snack which is available only in that store and none other. For this, customers would be willing to pay a higher price if they like the product simply because there are no other options.
Product and service management
When you gain customers, you also need to keep them and gain customer loyalty. To do so, effectively managing your product or service is a must. Keep your products/ services fresh and updated so that the customers don’t opt for newer options. Also, be empathetic and listen to any queries your customers have and respond to them.
In this phase, you’d be focusing on improving your product, keeping in mind what the competitors offer and what the customers are looking for. As such, the example would be pretty direct. You’d listen to any query your customers come with, analyze the market and if it seems valid, improve on it.
Promotion
Along with the distribution of your products comes their promotion. The aim of this function is to increase the demand for and awareness of your product. This subsequently helps in getting more clients for your product and getting sales.
Advertising your product continuously is probably the most known function of marketing. You can employ various ways of promotion for your product. These could be emails, social media posts, special discounts and offers, anything that attracts the customers to your product. For example, you could have a promotional offer for a limited period of time giving customers a free product on any purchase to ensure that they keep coming back.
Selling to customers
Sales is closely related to advertising, yes, but you can’t get to sales unless you have definite data on your customers needs. Although the sales are your final goal, they shouldn’t be the only thing you do in your marketing campaign. You need to carefully guide your customers through the sales funnel so that they are primed for making a purchase when approached by the sales team.
Your marketing campaign should tell about the particularities of your product in an attractive way and make the customer want to buy it. For example, in a store, a salesman can uptalk your product while being real. In an online business, various brochures would talk about the business and make the customer want to buy it.
Summary - 7 functions of marketing
As seen, the above 7 functions are the core purpose of marketing. So, every time you plan a new strategy to reach your marketing goals, keep these in mind and accordingly formulate your plan. Also make sure you're using the right tools in marketing - here are some suggestions.