Marketing Essentials

Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 The key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function................................................1
P2 Role and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 The ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business to objectives.....................................................................5
P4. Development of marketing plan............................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to a process in which the organisation promotes it products to the target
market. Marketing involves researching, advertising, selling and distribution of products and
services. This process is very essentials for every business because their aim is to seek the
attention from potential audience. Business performs these marketing processes through many
methods and approaches. Marketing is important as it educates the customers about the product
availability and its features with price (Baines, Fill, and Page, 2013). For reference this report
has taken an example of a company, Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer is a British
multinational retailer which specialises in offering high quality of clothing, home products and
food products. The company was founded in the year 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas
Spencer. It has around 959 stores in UK which includes 615 stores which sells food products
only. By 2019, the company successfully established its stores over 1463 locations.
This report will talk about the essentials and functions of marketing and how marketing
function benefits the organisation in wider terms. The report also covers the application of
marketing mix to the marketing planning process and at last a basic marketing plan for an
organisation is also presented.
TASK 1
P1 The key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
The roles of marketing function are as follows-
Understanding the economic and competitive features of a sector- The role of marketing
function is to understand the economic condition of its target market. It is the role of a marketer
to does the research work regarding the economic conditions prevailing at a region. Along with it
the level of competition prevailing in that country or region also get analysed before making any
marketing plan (Baker and Magnini, 2016). As in case with Marks and Spencer, they did an
whole understanding of economic situation and competition prevailing into the market, then sets
its marketing plans and programmes accordingly.
Identifying target markets- Target markets are the selected market which an organisation will
position its products or services. The role of marketing function is to search for the markets, and
segments it into groups according to many factors such as demographic factor, social factor,
technological factor, economical factor and so on. Then after these segments, the company dos

the analysis and selects the segments which they think will best to serve. The segment that is
selected by the company for catering is refers to as target market. Marks and Spencer, before
establishing or opening its store identifies its target market to whom they can serve or cater. The
target market should matches with their mission, vision and values and also yields them with
profits.
Identification of appropriate strategies- The role of marketing function also to search for
alternatives available for marketing strategies and choose an appropriate strategy which is best
for the company (Brennan, 2014). As in case with Marks and Spencer, the company finds the
alternatives available for the strategies and then the analysis is done of available alternatives.
After performing analysis, the appropriate strategy is chosen. The strategy which was chosen
must satisfies the organisational marketing purpose. It should advantage the business through
properly educate the target market about the new product or services.
Auditing customer's brand experience- The marketing function also has a role to gather the
customers feedbacks and remarks which they has with their product or service. From these feed
back and remarks a company gets to know the area for improvements and tries to resolve it for
better servicing. Marks and Spencer, takes this feedback from their customers while billing time,
they make them to fill a form in which the customer rate his experience while shopping and write
any suggestions if necessary. From this the company gets to know about his customers wants and
need and then accordingly they bring the changes (Brooks and Simkin, 2012).
The responsibilities of marketing function are as follow-
Listening to customer needs- To establish a strong strategy, it is necessary for the company to
get close to their customers as much as possible and get to know them better. Any company can
get closer with their customers through surveys, digital media platforms that help to understand
the market better and etc. Marks and Spencer, keeps monitoring on customers needs, wants, taste
and preference of them. By monitoring on such, they get a close view of the demand of
customers and provide them with same. This helps the company in not only making their
customers satisfied but also converting new people their customers.
Track trends and monitor competition- Knowing about the competition and their offering to
the customer is major task to perform by any business. Analysing and monitoring the
competition will help the company to know their next step. Through the former information of
competition plans, the company can take the advantage of first movers or can make its future