Marketing Essentials: An Essay on Marketing Functions

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
PART 2............................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
Appendix........................................................................................................................................16
2

Introduction
Marketing is considered as the business process of relationship development with customers and
satisfy their needs. It is regarded as one of the fundamental components of business management
that bridges the gap between internal and external stakeholders. This following essay is going to
explore the importance and role of marketing functions in organizational context. The study will
gradually manifold the context through associating with the other functional departments of an
organization.
PART 1
Marketing functions refer to the process of identifying the potentialities of a business
organization to promote and sell its products successfully and achieve competitive position in
marketplace. These marketing functions mainly consist of product plan, market research,
promotion, sales, development process, financial management, customer services and many more
(Lovelock and Patterson 2015, p.23). (Refer to Appendix 1). The marketing team of a business
organization has the responsibility to promote overall growth of the organization. Some of the
major roles of marketing are as follows:
Firstly, senior managers in marketing department have the responsibilities to set marketing
strategies as per the overall organizational goals and objectives. Secondly, market research is
another responsibility that comes under marketing functions because research assists an
organization to identify its opportunities in current marketplace for further growth and prospects.
Market research allows a company to develop knowledge about consumer needs so that they can
provide better customer service (Kozlenkova et al. 2015, p.586). Thirdly, development of
communications materials and planning for campaigns are integrated parts of marketing
3

functions. Modern organizations mostly prefer digital advertising so they perform email
marketing program, develop websites and follow SEO content development strategy and many
more. Traditional forms of TV advertisement, leaflets, brochures, newsletters are also followed
(Stephen 2016, p.17). Fourthly, running the product development activities is also another
concern of the marketing team. They engage the team in developing new products along with
improving the existing services. Marketing department provides the information regarding the
choice and needs of customers and products are developed based on this information in order to
enhance he customer service. Fifthly, after effective marketing, selling of those products and
services is also an important role played by marketing team. Healthy relationship and
cooperation with marketing managers can lead the sales team in running advertisements properly
and responding to the demands of customers (Blythe and Martin 2019, p.89). For instance, in
modern organizations, reply mechanism is included in advertisement like telephone numbers,
coupons, or encouraging consumers to visit company website and register details.
A wider context of the business organization refers to the management of external business
activities, customer relationship management and analysis of external business environment. In a
business firm, marketing department not only focuses on the product development, customer
satisfaction and revenue generation (Pike 2015, p.88). Simultaneously, the marketing managers
also try to develop a strong brand image of the company to strengthen its customer base and
improve their brand loyalty.
In prior time, only the large scale leading organizations effectively communicate with
customers through hoardings, TV advertisements, leaflets and others. In current age, marketing
departments of the SMEs and entrepreneurs also organize sales conference, hospitality events for
customers or they join seminars and exhibitions to directly communicate with consumers and
4

showcase their products and services respectively. Majority of the modern organizations prefer
to apply social media as advertisement platforms as it allows them to represent their brand name
at a greater arena (Kozlenkova et al. 2015). In this way, marketing functions exhibit an
organization in a wider context where they can connect with huge number of customers within
short time (Refer to Appendix 2).
All the operational activities including marketing needs to be enriched with the half of
considerable skills and organized work structure to cope up with the modern market trends.
Marketing management plays a vital role in such an organizational context, where one party
shares thoughts to objectives and means of getting responses from another party. As per
Malhotra (2015, p.22), as defined by American Marketing Association or AMA, marketing
management in marketing environment contains the process of executing the concepts,
promotion, pricing, distributing products and services and creating exchanges with target groups.
According to Junge et al. (2016, p.724), marketing is interrelated with the other functional
activities of an organization and these individual departments are highly influenced by effective
marketing strategies. For instance, finance department plays an important role for implementing
a marketing plan in successful manner because accounting managers are responsible for proper
allocation of the resources. Throughout the entire process of production, manufacturing,
packaging, advertising and distribution, human resource department, sales team and production
unit get completely involved (Blythe and Martin 2019). In this way, marketing functions are
associated with other operational activities and there is a strong interrelation among all these
functional departments.
The main significance of this interrelation is that, effectiveness of the marketing strategies and
its successful implementation benefits he success of the other departments as well. For instance,
5

successful application of the marketing plan results in greater revenue generation of the company
that ultimately helps in financial profitability (Malhotra 2015). Furthermore, this enhanced
profitability allows the company to expand market, increase productivity and improves logistics
department for a better management of supply chain.
As per the viewpoint of Moorman and Day (2016, p.6), the marketing mix, which is followed
at the time of developing a marketing plan, contains almost all the key elements of marketing
function. In this context, there are seven key elements of marketing function – price, product,
place, people, promotion, physical evidence and process.
The above essay has nicely portrayed the primary concept of marketing management along
with highlighting its roles and responsibilities in a business organization. It has been identified
from the study that, marketing plays an important role to develop customer base, proper market
research and satisfy the customers through offering them products according to their choice and
needs.
PART 2
Key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function
With the help of proper marketing function the company can get proper success. There are some
responsibilities and roles of the marketing function which are given below
 Marketing strategies: The company can effectively develop proper marketing strategies
for attracting their customers. The managers of the organization needs to recognize the
needs and requirements of target consumers and provide their products and services
accordingly.
6

 Monitoring of the marketing environment: The marketing managers also need to
identify the new developments in the business and market environment. This can help
them to make some changes in their services.
 Market research: Marketing research is considered to be the major role of marketing.
The research involves specific knowledge of product, price and consumers in order to
communicate the best products and services of company in the market.
 Market segmentation: The company needs to identify their target markets and they
divide their customers in some categories such as age, sex, location, income and so on.
This helps them to provide proper products to the right people.
 Brand equity: The company provide some effective services to their customers and they
also develop the value of their products with proper development which help them to
develop their brand equity. This increases the market reputation of the company and this
is how the sales of the company get developed.
How roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational context
The roles and responsibilities of marketing can help the company to handle their business in the
competitive market with the B2B and B2C context. B2B marketing refers to the techniques and
best practices used by companies with products and services sold to other businesses. Business-
to-consumer marketing, or B2C marketing, refers to the tactics and strategies in which a
company promotes its products and services to individual people with proper marketing. Thus
the sales of the company can be increased properly.
Significance of interrelationships between marketing and other functional units
7

Marketing has some relationships with other functions of the company which help the
organization to get benefits in their business effectively.
Sales: the sales of the company can increase with proper marketing.
HRM: with effective activities the staffs can help the business to achieve their marketing goals.
Finance: to conduct the marketing plans effective financial planning is important.
Thus, these relationships can help the business Beauty Giant to gain competitive advantages.
Comparing the ways in which different organizations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives.
There are 4Ps marketing mix and 7Ps marketing mix as well. In the market some of the
companies use the 4Ps as per their demands and some companies like Beauty Giant uses 7Ps.
Different tactics applied by organizations
Beauty Giant has their 7Ps marketing mix which helps them to achieve their objectives and this
is the tactics of company to meet their goals. 7Ps marketing mix of Beauty Giant is given below
 Product: Beauty Giant is going to bring new anti aging product in the market called
Forever Young.
 Price: They will sell the product in affordable price to attract the customers.
 Place: They will sell the products in their stores of UK.
 Promotion: They will keep focus on the digital media process.
 Process: The sales men will sell the products to the customers with proper interaction.
 People: The staffs are the main people of Beauty Giant.
8

 Physical evidence: The company will take care of their product quality so the customers
will not get any harm from the products (Pike, 2015, p.89).
Basic marketing plan of Beauty Giant
As per Hair et al. (2008, p.89), the detail marketing plan of the company Beauty Giant is as
follows
Situation analysis
Proper situation analysis can help the company to identify their strengths and weaknesses easily
depending on their competitor and this can also help them to develop a proper marketing plan for
growing in this market easily.
Strengths are any competitive advantages that can help the company to sustain in this market
easily. Here the company Beauty Giant sells unique product named Forever Young in the market
and this helps them to attract their customers towards the company easily. Apart from this the
price of the product will be very low and therefore this can also helps them to attract the
customers towards the company successfully. The company is available in more than 50 places
of UK and this can also help them to target many customers easily (Blythe and Martin, 2019,
p.89).
Weaknesses are the factors that reduces company’s ability to achieve its objectives successfully.
In this case the company Beauty Giant is going to launch a new product and already many
competitors are available in the market. Since this is a new product and therefore it will become
very difficult for the company to gain customer attraction easily. However the promotional
strategy of the company is not up to the market and therefore this can be a weakness of this
company as well.
9

Opportunities are the ways that can help the company to grow and be more profitable in this
market successfully. In this case the company Beauty Giant sells unique products in the market
and this can a opportunity for them to attract the customer easily. As stated by Proctor, (2005,
p.77), the company is going to launch a new product and therefore this can also help them to
attract new customers easily. Attracting more customers can definitely help them to increase
their sales and increasing sales can help them to increase their profits easily.
Threats are the barriers that creates negative impact towards the business. Many new companies
are arriving in the market and they are also offering unique products in the market as well.
Therefore this can be a major threat for the company Beauty Giant and this can also create
negative impact towards the business process of the company.
Develop a target market profile
Demographic segmentation- in the case of demographic segmentation the company Beauty
Giant needs to segment the market according to the age, race, gender, income, education and
others. Segmenting the market in this way can definitely help the company to target different
customers easily. Targeting different customers can help the company to increase their sales
successfully. The company Beauty Giant sells product in low prices and therefore they are
targeting mainly middle class people of UK. Targeting the right way can help them to sustain in
this market easily.
Estimated demand- the company Beauty Giant is going to launch anti-ageing in the product in
the market. It is a new product and therefore the company needs to analyze the estimating
demand in the market for sustaining easily (Berkowitz, 2010, p.90). Depending on the demand
10

the company needs to produce products and also depending on the demand the company needs to
set price of their new product successfully.
Purchase motivation- it is very important for this company to understand exactly what
motivates customers to buy. However in the UK customers want innovative products in attractive
prices and therefore offering this can help the company to attract customers easily. This can help
them to sustain and increase their profits easily in this competitive market.
Setting a marketing objective
According to Malhotra et al. (2013, p.67), setting marketing objectives are very important and
this can definitely help the company to implement marketing plan successfully in this
competitive market. Some of the marketing objectives are as follows
 To attract the customers with the help of new anti-ageing products
 To gain competitive advantages over other competitors easily
 To increase the market share in the UK market
 To increase the profit by 20%
 To increase the retention rate of the customers by 10%
The company Beauty Giant needs to fulfill these objectives for gaining success with the help of
their new product easily and fulfilling these objectives can also help them to sustain in this
market easily.
Determine the marketing strategy
11

After determine the objectives the company needs to use the marketing mix strategies to promote
their business successfully in this market. The company can use Four P’s of marketing to
develop their product successfully in this tough market of UK.
Product-The company is going to launch an unique product called anti-ageing product in the
market and therefore they need to make quality products for attracting the customers easily. UK
people want high quality products in competitive prices and therefore focusing on this can help
the company to develop their business successfully in this UK market.
Price- UK people want innovative products in low prices and therefore offering these can help
the company to gain customer attraction easily. This company going to launch a new product and
therefore they need to adapt proper pricing strategies for sustaining in this market easily.
Place- The company available in many places in UK. Still the company Beauty Giant needs to
expand their business for increasing their market share easily. Increasing market share can also
help them to increase their profit successfully (Blythe and Martin, 2019, p.89).
Promotion- competition level is very high in the UK market and therefore the company Beauty
Giant needs to adapt different promotional strategies for marketing their product successfully.
Proper marketing of their product can help them to increase their sales successfully.
Apart from this the company can use 7 P’s of marketing such as people, process and physical
evidence for expanding their business successfully in this competitive UK market and using 7P’s
can also help them to attract more customers easily.
Creating the overall financial plan
12