Uncover 7 Core Marketing Functions (Something that Every Business Should Know)
For a business, marketing isn’t just about creating and promoting eye-catching advertisements and appealing slogans. It involves a whole range of strategic approaches. If you are running a business regardless of its size, you have to understand the importance of marketing. Marketing plays an integral role in every phase of the lifecycle of a brand’s products/services.
Whether starting a startup, struggling with a stuck business, or needing to manage a large company, there are some core marketing functions to be considered. These functions are not just luxury to any business, they set up the foundation for sustainable growth and profitable outcomes. In this blog post, we are going to unveil the 7 core functions of marketing and their impact on a business’s decision-making, customer relationships, and lasting development.
Understanding the Key Functions of Marketing in a Business
As we have mentioned earlier, there are mainly 7 key functions of business marketing. It includes product and service management, marketing information management, financing, promotion, pricing, selling, and distribution. If you want your business to run successfully, you have to improve each of these areas. Let us dig deeper into each function:
1. Product and Service Management
For any business, their offerings to the target audience matter the most. Your products and services should be of the highest value. Through the product and service management marketing function, your business can design, develop, and improve products/services.
There is no doubt that research and development of your solutions are essential. But, this marketing function matters as well. Your marketing managers should prioritize working closely with the R&D teams to make sure that the offerings align with the audience perfectly. Also, post-launch of the products/services, they should continue understanding the potential customer’s behavior.
2. Marketing Information Management
Well-planned approach is considered for any business to keep its marketing practices up to par. In this marketing function, businesses systematically gather and report all the crucial information associated with their marketing department.
The thing is that one can not make effective decisions based on unreliable information. For your marketing team to conduct smart marketing practices, business-aligned data is necessary. The information may involve the customer behavior and purchase history, web analytics, etc. Depending upon these insights, your marketers can plan personalized marketing strategies for better results.
3. Financing
The financial status of the company is one integral factor for sustainable growth. Just like other aspects of business require funds, so does marketing as well. The marketing team heavily depends on funds for the execution of marketing campaigns, conducting research, and investing in digital tools.
The insights gained from marketing information management can help you utilize the funds efficiently. This can be done through proper analysis of previous campaigns. Also, you may want to convey the results of investing in any marketing practice. Accurate budget allocation becomes easier through this marketing function. Ultimately, it leads to delivering the desired results. In addition, you may want to invest in the best digital marketing agency in India for advanced targeting and higher ROI. In this case, properly allocated financing helps a lot, without any shortage of funds.
4. Promotion
Promotion is one of the most prioritized functions of marketing. Through promotion activities, your brand gets more reach and more people will notice your product/service. If your target audience doesn't even know your existence, how would they become your customers? Therefore, promotion is done through various mediums to inform, persuade, and remind your audience about your offerings.
The first thing you can consider is having a well-established business website. This work can be easily done through reliable web development services offered by a trusted provider like Digital Inning. They can handle the load of building and optimizing the website for you. This site can work as a platform for you to showcase the product/services.
Other significant areas include SEO services in India and social media marketing services. Through these, your business can enjoy increased online traffic via increased search engine rankings and active content on the socials.
5. Pricing
Here comes the 5th function of marketing, which is pricing. Just like financing, pricing is also a critical aspect of a business. The price of your product/service can affect your ideal audiences’ purchasing decisions. Also, pricing can have a direct impact on the market positioning and overall profit margin. So, it is important for the offerings to be priced accurately—no less no more.
The pricing factor for marketing depends upon the product quality, benefits it offers, exclusivity, audience experience, competitive landscape, and your business’s branding as well. All of these aspects can help you decide on the pricing of your offerings and focus on marketing at the same rates. This approach enhances marketing effectiveness, leading to more audience engagement and conversion rates.
6. Selling
Once your marketing teams have reached the right audience and have communicated the offerings, the final step is to close the deal. The selling of your solutions can directly affect the profitability of your business and long-term growth.
Your marketing team can follow up with the strategy that interacts with the potential customers throughout their purchasing journey. They ensure that everyone is successfully converting the prospective audience into satisfied customers through lead nurturing.
7. Distribution
Distribution is a great function of the marketing approach of a business. It is simply a process of distributing your products/services to the right audience. There could be multiple ways to distribute the offerings that a business can consider. The distribution function strategy involves where you would want your solutions. The distribution channels could be offline stores, wholesalers, E-commerce stores, and warehouses.
Distribution could be one of the final functions of marketing. It holds great importance as you have created a marketing funnel and communicated with your audiences. Now, the finishing work is to ensure that the delivery is done without any hassle.
How Digital Marketing Can Boost Your Marketing Approach
Once you get a clear idea about the different functions of marketing, it is time to put them into action. But, let us tell you the best part of it. The marketing becomes much more effective and efficient through a digital marketing approach. Through digital marketing, your marketing team can gain information regarding the target audience's behavior, competition status, market trends, and overall campaign performance. Detailed and accurate insights can enable more data-driven and efficient decision-making, leading to a better lead-to-conversion ratio and customer satisfaction.
You can collaborate with Digital Inning, the most trusted and best digital marketing company in India, to cover the whole digital marketing spectrum. Our talented team is ready to work with your internal marketing team and take your offline and online marketing to the next level and achieve long-term business goals. Contact us today for further discussion, any inquiries, or collaboration for a better change!