What are the functions of marketing in a business The Marketing is imperative to your business’s success, but it entails more than advertising your product or service. You’ll find seven functions of marketing that inform your team’s operations: marketing information management, financing, product and service management, pricing, promotion, selling, and distribution.
What is marketing
Marketing refers to activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. Marketing includes advertising, selling, and delivering products to consumers or other businesses. Some marketing is done by affiliates on behalf of a company.
What are the functions of marketing?
The seven functions of marketing are marketing information management, financing, product and service management, pricing, promotion, selling, and distribution. To help your business grow, you need each area to come together and build a productive marketing approach.
7 functions of marketing
Ready to dive deeper into the functions of marketing and how you can implement them into your strategy? Keep reading for an overview of each!
1. Marketing information management
Functional marketing relies on robust data. Marketing information management systematically gathers and reports on data relevant to your marketing processes. This information includes:
- Determining your target market: To succeed, you must target your strategies to a specific customer group that aligns with your offering and goals.
- Understanding your target market: Once you’ve determined your target market, you’ll need to thoroughly understand their wants, needs, and goals to craft a marketing strategy that resonates with them.
- Conducting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis: You’ll need to understand your business’s strengths and weaknesses and your external You should also gather information about regulations that could affect your business and cultural trends.
- Analyzing your competitors: Another aspect of your SWOT analysis that requires careful consideration is your competitive landscape. Know what your competitors do well and not so well, so you can respond strategically and set yourself apart.
2. Financing
All business endeavors must secure financing to operate. While your company needs funds to get off the ground, you and your marketing team will also need continual funding to support your marketing strategies.
The data you collected in the marketing information management stage will help you secure these funds. You should also look at data from past campaigns, particularly the metrics that tie into your overall business goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
For instance, if a campaign focused on increasing brand awareness, you might analyze metrics like impressions, reach, and social media shares.
You’ll want to communicate the value your marketing efforts have created for the company. Focus on the most relevant metrics and how they impacted your bottom line. If you can show that your marketing campaigns brought a high return on investment (ROI), you’ll likely have an easier time securing financing.
3. Product and service management
Your product or service stands at the center of all marketing strategies. After all, you need an excellent product for your marketing efforts to mean anything.
While research and development teams might be responsible for creating new products, this stage is a vital marketing function, too.
As a marketing leader, you should work closely with your research and development team to ensure your business creates an offering that will resonate with your target audience — and continue learning from your target audience post-launch.
4. Pricing
Pricing is one of the most critical functions of marketing because the price you set determines your audience’s willingness to buy. However, setting your price is a complex process influenced by psychology and customer perceptions.
For instance, designer purse brands can price their products much higher than generic brands.
5. Promotion
Promotion is the function of marketing most people probably think of first. After all, a large part of marketing involves getting your offering seen by your target audience and communicating its value to them.
The promotion stage involves all communications you use to help your target audience discover and learn more about your offering.
6. Selling
Once you’ve communicated your offering’s value, you need to close the sale. While your sales team might ultimately accomplish this goal, selling remains a critical marketing function.
Your marketing strategy should communicate with customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey, nurturing them down the funnel towards a sale. You can do so by using a robust mix of communication channels and targeting your content to each stage.
7. Distribution
Now that you’ve created an effective product, communications strategy, and sales funnel, you need to get your offering to the buyers. Your distribution strategy consists of where you sell your product and deliver it to your customers. Distribution channels might include: