Marketing Essentials: Roles, Responsibilities, and Marketing Mix

This report provides a comprehensive overview of marketing essentials, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within an organization, particularly in the context of West London College. It analyzes the relationship between marketing and other functional units, such as finance, human resources, and research and development. The report also compares different approaches to the marketing mix and evaluates tactics for achieving business objectives. Furthermore, it includes the development and evaluation of a basic marketing plan, demonstrating a coherent, evidence-based approach to marketing strategy. This document contributed by a student is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study tools and resources.

Marketing
Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function....................................1
Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context
................................................................................................................................................4
Analyse the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing
environment............................................................................................................................6
Analyse the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of
an organisation........................................................................................................................7
Critically analyse and evaluate the key elements of the marketing function and how they
interrelate with other functional units of an organisation.......................................................7
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................7
Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives....................................................................7
Evaluate different tactics applied by organisations to demonstrate how business objectives can
be achieved...........................................................................................................................11
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................11
Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organisation along with coherent evidence
based marketing plan............................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Marking today has become an indispensable part of every organisation and it is very crucial
for all aspects of businesses. It ensure the success of product or service offered by a firm in the
severe competitive environment outside. Its a act of communication about firms produce in a
correct way, to right consumers by realising the need of right time and adequate place (Arif,
Faraz and Atika, 2019). This report is about West London college formed in 2002 by merging of
three another educational organisation offering a wide variety of courses from child care, arts to
media, engineering and IT. The report will be in two parts and in the first part it will cover roles
an responsibility of marketing department and how it is related to other marketing functions. In
the second part we will apply marketing mix for different organisation to marketing planning
procedure ands develop a marketing plan.
LO 1
Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
Its the activity performed to attract consumers to the service offered. Marketing function of other
firms helps an educational institution helps to disperse the knowledge about their courses or any
other type of online or offline service to its seekers to benefit organisation to achieve financial
and other goals (Biroscak and et. al.,2019). It comprises of management of product or service
and information, distribution, sales, pricing and promotion. Different roles and responsibilities of
marketing function are elaborated below:
Roles of marketing department:
Promotion: It’s the ways by which the organisation builds awareness about its product or service
among consumers and strengthen its image and to do so following ways are adopted.
 Define and management of brand: Its extremely necessary as it project what the
organisation is and what it stand for along with this it also define the system of
interacting with customers and other partners of organisation is a role B2B and B2C.
 Conduct campaign to marketing initiative: The main goal of sales is accomplished
when product or service are brought in front of customers by means of campaigns is
considered as a key role of marketing as B2C.
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 Social media management: its the most popular way of promotion today for
engagement of organisation to its customers and its management is extremely necessary
to consider by a manager (Cardenas and Fuchs-Tarlovsky, 2018). Content for SEO: Promotion hugely use website and to keep the website update there is
a constant need of developing new content and can be understood as important role to
marketing as B2C.
Product development: The marketing manager at a college need to come up with various new
courses or old courses with new features like online and digital platform and it require dealing
with the university and other colleges is thus a B2B role (Ćwiklicki and Pilch, 2021). The
management of all activities under this role also constitute in this role of marketing.
Customer journey and experience: It is very critical for an educational organisation to make the
experience with them regarding all things during their journey with the institute as its a
considerable time so its a critical role under marketing that manager facilitate by equipping
organisation information and process updated and with advance technologies.
Management:
 Product management: When the courses which is a product in educational sector is
development as per needs then need to manage in such way that it helps to extract enough
money from sales so that college can maintain all its functions (Darren Morris and et.
al.,2017) . Marketing information management: It comprise of targets to admit student, analyse
of competitors, maintain records of student and lecturers and most critical decision
making.
Market positioning: When everything works well within the organisation the marketing
department needs to position the institute in marketplace in such a way that more number of
students can be attracted by use of various strategies as result and job oriented teaching programs
and curiosity fillers (Das, 2021). This helps to stay in stiff competition of market and also helps
to facilitate other roles of marketing.
Responsibilities of marketing department:
Marketing and recruitment strategy: it comprises how to reach to students for filling seats for
different courses and recruitment for teachers by offering the various benefits along with salary
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to attract them or we call it strategies but not the actual recruitment process. for the benefit at
both ends.
Close liaison with senior colleagues: This function comprise indulgence with other senior
colleges while working with other senior colleges to benefit the strategic activity like Events or
campaign is a responsibility as of B2B.
Write and present reports: when everything is done we can say in order to do paper work
regarding all management activities the manager need to present reports regarding management
function in verbal or written form to its senior and this give and take of work documents is a
B2B responsibility.
Manage the sourcing of market intelligence: Here the relevant market intelligence that facilitate
roles are managed most probably by managers is the key responsibility of marketing function
which include workings with inside and outside member of organisation that helps to institution
updated and stable.
Listening to customer’s needs: The most important thing is that the marketing department is
made to facilitate users here students so the one of prime responsibility to consider the voice of
customers and work and plan strategies accordingly (Dileep and Mathew, 2017). It can be done
by conducting surveys within the organisation and doing research in outside environment of
institution that help to develop the organisation effectively.
Communication: There is a hierarchy in management functioning that work toward a common
goal and to facilitate these function the organisations need well established communication
system which helps to survive in severe conditions and work effectively (Eze and Obikeze,
2017).
Track trends and monitor competition: Competition analyses need to record of trends and also
monitors them so that the long run survival techniques can be evolved to save organisation is the
responsibility of marketing function.
Marketing and communications plan: The marketing function also include development of
marketing and communication plan so that the tactics and strategies adopted can be applied
successfully without any mistakes to achieve the common goal.
Function of marketing department:
Gathering and analysing information: To gather the suitable information and identify them is
the essential function of marketing. This function is used by company to know regarding interest
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and needs of people in market. The marketing manager of company tends to collect all the
relevant details and also identify them to introduce the product in market. The marketer of West
London college plays an important role like they visit the market, collect details about customers
and also identify them to perform their business activities. This functions helps in selecting the
company to find out that which product or service can give best opportunity in market for
enhancing the productivity.
Market planning: Effective plans are developed by the manager of company regarding the
purpose of developing goals and achieving them. For this, without planning, it becomes difficult
for company to achieve business objectives. In West London college, the marketing manager
plays an important role as the market planner who leads to make plans and also implement them
for making profits. For example, West London college decided to enhance their business
performance by selling the cosmetic products for students. As per this situation, marketer plays
role of planner and perform suitable duties by making plans that helps in attracting people and
focus them to avail specific good and services.
Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organisational context
Let’s now understand how marketing unit of firms are related to other organisation units:
Marketing and Finance: The following two points determine the interrelationship:
To track sales trend: In educational institution it is of extreme necessity that the seats available
for courses must be filled so that resources can be utilized to its full potential and the goal of
educating the society can be fulfilled and in order to do so marketing helps to attract students
while the finance they give as fees are managed by finance department as per student’s
admission to stable the organisation (Fyall and et. al., 2019). The marketing also focuses to look
for quality of lectures and students as per requirements for the benefit of organisation in long
run.
Making budgets for campaigns: Further before the admission are taken, the fees are decided
and number of seats are decided and all this come under budgeting which help to decide to which
extent and level the marketing department need to perform marketing.
There performance can be improved they do a monthly meeting that aim to share perspective
about which area of growth to consider and develop a plan while looking for profitability by
monitoring spending.
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Marketing and Human Resource: Marketing ensure the promotion, management and
development of products to attract consumers whereas the HR provide the employees that work
to achieve these goals and also look for the well-being of employees but the common line where
they almost merge is when they both try to build perceived image about organisation offering
(Gowreesunkar, Séraphin and Morrison, 2018). In case of educational institution if the human
resource department hire workers that help to maintain peaceful and clam environment and
teachers which can impart in-depth knowledge then only marketing department can do
promotions and management of events of its other function to attract students to institutions.
Further the success of any organisation depend on the culture it possess and it become even more
critical for educational as students are young and cannot sustain in a boring and strict
environment and in order to get flexible environment the human resource department has major
role which directly determine the organisational culture and marketing department helps to give
good customer service and experience with the organisation. The content the marketing
department need to post and publish also comes from the human resources which are hired and
managed by human resources department which linked them again.
Marketing and Research and Development : Research and development act as productive tool
for determining the success of any organisation in competitive scenarios and its relation with
marketing department is intrinsically linked in businesses in old times but now the organisation
shares each and every information about this department through the marketing department and
consumers also look for news by firms regarding any innovation in products or service they offer
which means there relation matter in context to firm growth (Grabowska and Saniuk, 2021).
Marketing also determine whether the innovation of products are productive enough that it can
be benefit the organisation in long run. In context to educational institutions the students prefer
institutions which has there own research and development department as they want there
learning time spend largely on the real world problems and it helps the marketing departments to
attract more students with less effort and minimum use of resources and helps to save some
bucks as well. The steps in research and development are also linked to each other for instance
the R&D need an idea to develop product which is done by market research while testing is done
in consumer usage research and after launching the growth is monitored by market monitoring.
Marketing and Sales department: The whole process starts with marketing like product
development and promotion and ends with sales of products where the main goal is achieved
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(Haapasalmi, 2017). The marketing is a more broad term which focus on large pool of customers
whereas sales has limited focus generally one person. The product design and all that function of
marketing are in line with the sales department including pricing and there interdependence are
crucial after the interrelationship of finance and marketing. Its a B2C relationship that is
evolving with time the organisation are growing as a result of organisation. The product and
brand positioning that marketing does helps to generate revenue by sales by adopting appropriate
tactics of sales in line to the strategies adopted in marketing. It require technical knowledge to
promote on digital platform but sales need more emphasis on execution and there is a shift of
brand perspective to customers perspective when moving from marketing to sales. In context to
educational institutions sales is getting enrolment of more students which means the marketing
unit and managers need on course development that the students may be interested in by
knowing there preferences and needs. To better understand them we can say that marketing is
pull approach that attract customers towards organisation linking many and after giving services
the sales follows a push approach by dealing one to one.
Benefits of marketing department
Marketing widens the market: By performing marketing in an effective manner, the West
London college draws out the hidden wants of customers, create new demand and find the
effective possibilities of selling new products. Hence, it leads to enlarge the market and enable
the producers to enhance the production and earn more profit.
Helps in optimal use of resources: Marketing leads to offer the effective efforts to widen the
area of market as the producers can use their resources otherwise it leads to remain partly used to
the proper enhancement. The effective use of resources leads to eliminate the total cost per unit.
Accelerates other activities: Due to the marketing of West London college, so many other
activities like banking, insurance, transport and so on get boost as they needed to more to help in
the marketing process.
Analyse the roles and responsibilities of marketing in the context of the marketing environment
The marketing environment plays a vital role in the effectively fulfilling of roles and
responsibility of marketing function. The product development which are courses in this case has
direct impact from the political decisions by change in eduction policy is the external factor of
marketing environment whereas the management has impact from inside politics and outside
socio-cultural environment as they need to consider thee perceptive of society and social
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influencers. Marketing and communication plan are influenced by the economic conditions and
competitive environment of markets.
Analyse the significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units of an
organisation
The marketing functions and functions of various other department are often studied and
analysed independently but in real world they are closely linked to each other and any minor
change has the capacity to bring a major change in another or vice versa (Intyas and
Primyastanto, 2020). Is the financial department is not organised the marketing department will
never be able to decide the cost of promotional activities. Any imbalance between human
resource allocation for instance teacher is more in organisation and corresponding to that the
number of students are less which means when it come in market the students can easily realise
that the there is weakness in either system, quality or culture even if there is no such thing.
Critically analyse and evaluate the key elements of the marketing function and how they
interrelate with other functional units of an organisation.
The elements of marketing function consist of price, product, place, promotion, physical
evidence, people and process. When these are implemented effectively they facilitate the
functioning of firm and achieve goals on time by allocation of resources and responsibilities and
ease the communication within organisation. Deciding the place to distribution of product helps
to work effectively and relates to sales functions while pricing strategies help to growth of
company relates to finance department. The elements like promotion, physical evidence and
people improve work culture and environment related to HR department so this help us to realise
that this intermingling is necessary for decision making and good will of company.
LO 2
Compare the ways in which different organisations apply the marketing mix to the marketing
planning process to achieve business objectives
Marketing mix is set of strategies that could be utilized to promote product by business
organisations. The following is the marketing mix of West London College and Regent's
college :
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Marketing
mix
Definition West London College Regent's college
Product Product refers to service that is
being offered to customers by
companies. It must be the centre
of each factor in marketing mix.
A product must satisfy needs and
demands of consumers or could
create a new demand in the
market. The product that is being
offered in market must be
compelling to buyers. Marketing
team of companies and their
business executives must have a
knowledge about how products
should be placed, prized,
promoted and packed in the
market in order to make it
profitable for them (Jussani,
Vasconcellos and Wright, 2018) .
As the usage of
digitalization is increasing
each day in every field
including educational
sector. And the trend for
online education has
increased recently due to
COVID-19 because of
which many colleges have
launched distance or online
courses for students. West
London College also
introduced online courses
for its students. These
courses include subjects
such as Accountancy, Web
designing, project
management and many
more.
The college is
offering digital
courses for its
students from
long time but has
recently added
more courses to it
after the outbreak
of pandemic.
Price It is value of specific product that
buyers have to pay at the of
purchasing item. Marketing
team should link price to the real
and detected value of product and
must also examine price of other
competitors, supply cost and
discounts. Business executives
might increase the price when
The price of these courses
is affordable for students.
The college implements
market penetration pricing
method to increase its
student base who will buy
courses.
The college use
competitive
pricing strategy
in order to gain
competitive
advantage in the
educational
industry.
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they launch exclusive or unique
product in the market. Whereas,
they could also reduce the cost of
their products so that their
customers base would increase.
Place At this stage of marketing mix
business executives try to identify
marketplace where they should
sell their services and what
delivery methods they must
implement. The main aim of
marketing team of a company is
to present their products or
services in front of potential
buyers who are more likely to
purchase their items. Placement
of products could be on physical
or digital platforms.
These coursers are available
for students on college
website which they can
study anywhere with the
help of internet and smart
devices.
All courses are
available on its
website and for
students facility
of virtual
classrooms has
also been
provided by the
college.
Promotion It involves strategies used by
business executive to attract more
customers towards product or
services(Kautish and Rai, 2019).
The main aim of the company is
to make people understand why
they need certain products or
services and what is the reason
behind its certain cost that they
have to pay. Marketing teams use
several platforms for advertising
their items such as TV,
College promoted this
courses through social
media platform and print
media. They are also
providing free course
advice which is also a part
of promotional strategies of
college.
The promotion of
online courses are
done by utilizing
various physical
and online
platforms such as
print media and
social media.
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newspaper, radio channels, social
media and many more. Marketing
executives link promotion and
placement factors together in
order to reach potential
customers.
People It refers to the targeted audience
that love companies product or
services and are willing to pay for
it (Krisjanous and Carruthers,
2018). This element of marketing
mix also involves employees,
sales executives, customer
relationship mangers, service
teams and all other members who
is a part of marketing and sales
activities. The employees must be
effective in the company than
only they will be able to sell their
products or services to consumers
efficiently.
The target for these online
courses is students and
potential professors have
been hired by the institute
who are expert in their
subjects.
College has hired
expertise for
subject teachings
and target
audience for
these courses are
its students.
Process It explains how a products must
be packed and delivered to the
customers. The process factor of
marketing mix is very important
for companies to implement
effectively as it helps enhancing
consumer base because buyers
like to receive their product or
services on time and in good
The college has organised
its website in such manner
that every course details
could be seen by student
easily. The details such as
topics, pricing and many
more factors related to
course has been provided
on its official website.
The website of
college is well
organised and
college also
provide e-book
facility for its
students.
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