Marketing Essentials: Roles, Responsibilities, Plan and Evaluation

This report provides an overview of marketing essentials, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within an organization, particularly in relation to the wider organizational context. It examines how different organizations apply the marketing mix to the marketing planning process to achieve business objectives, using McDonald's UK as a case study. The report also evaluates a basic marketing plan, considering the key concepts such as production, product, selling, market, and societal marketing. It further explains how marketing strategies, information systems, environmental monitoring, research, segmentation, and brand equity contribute to the overall marketing effectiveness and organizational success, highlighting the importance of coordinating various marketing functions to meet business goals and customer demands.

Marketing Essentials

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
P1. Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function....................................4
P2. Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context..........................................................................................................................................8
Task 2.............................................................................................................................................11
P3. Compare the ways in which different organizations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives......................................................11
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................14
P4. Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organization.......................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
Business is the focused on creating awareness about their services and production. This
assignment is based on the study of McDonald as a food industry in UK. The company started
as small enterprise and focused on the customer interest across the entire UK. The company is
now one of the largest food industries in UK with branches all over and it has gone international.
This study will look at the main role of the marketing and how the marketing relates with other
business organizational functions. And finally it will compare the ways under which business
organizations are using marketing mix to achieve their set goals for their companies (Dibb &
Simkin, 2013). Finally the study is aimed at evaluating the marking plans of the McDonald
Company in relation to their objectives.

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LO 1
P1. Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
The marketing functions are those roles of the business organization that helps the business to
realize and source for potential successful products that can be easily purchased in the market.
The functions are vital in the marketing plans and marketing research, development process,
planning for the products, sales promotions and services to potential clients (Lamb, et. al.,
2012).The marketing functions are responsible for seeing business organization realizing their
objectives and goals of the company. Marketing functions are combinations of sales support
system, research on the marketing activities, finance team, distribution of the goods and services,
developing of the products and above all the HRM services for the business organization. Every
function of these marketing plays a role of meeting the organizational goals. Marketing functions
are good if the business goals are met based on the marketing functions?
The marketing functions and organizational functions are both working together in support of
organizational goals. Therefore, the marketing functions are connected to each other. The
business organizational plans begin with funds of which depending on the status of the financial
position are when an organization can make a step forwards to have a marketing plans, the
human resource department will as well helps in the recruiting of the competent markers who
can sensitize the business products more widely. Sales department will also be in the task of

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giving the organizational products while the production department will ensure that goods that
are produced are those that the market needs. In case where the marketing team is willing to offer
discounts to the customers so that they can get more sales, then it will force the team to contact
the finance and the production manager (Sachs, 2016). Every department of the marketing
function of the business is regarded as the separate entity but for the purpose of achieving the
business objectives then the entities have to work together. Marketing department is meant for
the increase of the sales of an organization so that an organization can make more profit
therefore in achieving this, organization must involve all the functions so that they work in
coordination to each other. Business organization always captures the larger market share if
marketing is appropriately done. Therefore, financial department provides sufficient budget to
the marketing department for the planning ad for the implementation of the marketing plans that
will see an organization meeting their objectives successfully. Production department will
succeed if sufficient communication is laid down that ensure the right products are produced in
the market. Human resource policies requires knowing the sales and targeted consumers, the
trend of the market in order to generate a good HRM policies. Every functional unit of the
company needs the other units for the betterment and the success of organizational objectives.
No organizational function stand alone and therefore they are regarded to be correlated in an
organization (Larson & Draper, 2017).
Other marketing functional that contributes to essential in marketing is transportation
department. Here the department deals with the movements of goods from the production
department to where the customers can easily access the products. The transportation department
is also concerned about moving the markers to the market where they can easily reach out to the
customers and explains for them the benefits that they can achieve from consuming their goods
and not for their competitors. After the goods have been produced, they need to be placed
somewhere waiting for the customers to access them or waiting for transportation to the market.
The store is therefore essential at this point (Larson & Draper, 2017). Marketing essentials helps
to know the standardization and grading of the goods that can be easily purchased by customers.
Not everyone in the market for an example can manage to purchase cooking oil off 20 liters. Not
all are also interested in purchasing cooking oil of 250ml. that means that standardizing the
products in different sizes that can accommodate every buyer in the market is quite essential and
the information regarding that can only be obtained by the marketing department. Lastly is risk

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taking. Business organizations are meant to take risks in the market. Before the business is set to
produce goods in the market there are research being done, there are a lot of planning regarding
what the business perceive can do well in the market. In doing so the business takes a lot of risk
in order to understand the nature and the flow of the market. The dynamic market have got a lot
of challenges that that requires marketing functions to cheap in and collaborate in the success of
an organization.
McDonald company took time to implement marketing functions such that they manage to learn
what the other businesses that are food related were doing right and what they missed which they
could dwell on to beat the other opponents in the market. The business organization strategized
in terms giving the society their desired meals at very affordable costs, providing sufficient
services that could let any of the customers who have visited them to come back again and
coordinating all the business functions such that every department could see itself as a
contributing factor for their achievable success of the organization. in doing so, the company
managed to dominate the market in UK and opened varieties of the branches to avoid distance
travelling by the customers to access their products (LARSON, J., & DRAPER, S. (2013).
There are five marketing concepts which explain the marketing functions. These are:
 McDonald have pegged their marketing plans on the following concepts products,
production, marketing, selling, societal respectively. The concepts are vital for both the
current and the future trend for the success of McDonald.
 Production concept- the concept is focused on what the consumer needs in the market.
The consumers are in need of the products which are less expensive, available in market
at all the time and the product quantities are their concern as well. Therefore, the
organization must work on their production rates to meet market demand (Dutta, 2014).
 Product concept- consumers are interested on the satisfactions which they can achieve on
the product. This satisfaction is determined by the product quality, the money value of the
product, quality and innovative nature of the product. The benefits that are derived from
the product have got massive influence on the consumer retention.

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 Selling concept- promotion of the product will tells consumer the benefits that they can
derive from a given product. It then means that promotion of the product in the market
will lure the interest of the consumer to purchase the product that is sold in the market.
 Market concept- the marketing concept is a blue print of what is required from the market
and the concept is focus on the targeted consumers and the delivery of their products and
services so that the business can meet the demands of the competing market. The
marketing concept is looking at some of the uniqueness of the organization that can sell
them to consumers more than their competitors. The concept will then enhance the brand
of the products such that it can look more attractive in the market in order to get the
attention of everyone in the market.
 Societal marketing concept- the concept will be taken into consideration since the product
that is produced by the organization should consider the interest of the people in that
given society (Davis & Zutz, 2013). The brand of the products should comply with what
the market requires or what the society consumes most.
McDonald is basing their services on the interest of the consumers as first priorities. The
environments under which the organizations are situated have got their preferred food taste and
therefore the company has a social responsibility of ensuring that other than employment
opportunities, they offer the services that relates to the interest of the people that surrounds the
organization. Prefer ability of food is different based on the ethnical background and a good
food company have to know that as the first step of setting the organizational strategies.

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P2. Explain how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider organizational
context.
The major roles and responsibilities of the marketing in relation to organizational context can be
explained as shown below.
Marketing management is a process that requires a good planning and execution of different
concepts that are involved in the marketing process. The market concepts that are regarded by
the consumers in the market involve the pricing, sales, promotion, distribution which are the
most things that consumer are looking at in the marketing of the product and services the market.
Roles of the marketing in an organization
Marketing strategies- an organization that needs to remain relevant in the market should have
their targeted market in mind. In addition to that the organization must go out to know what their
targeted market need most. By doing that, the organization can easily strategize a good
marketing strategy that can help business to meet their objectives
Marketing information system- the marketing department needs to seek the information from the
market that can be used to advise the organization on the best way that they can make their
products in order to satisfy the customers need. The information will help to in factors such as
planning, controlling the production and implementation of the marketing strategies.
Monitoring of marketing environment- organization exists in an environment which is full of
the dynamic changes (Lamb, et. al., 2012). Due changes of the environment, the marketing
department will be having a role of identifying the market need and changes so that organization
can develop a constructive response for changes and provide the products and services that the
environment needs. The new changes could involve the internal and external changes of the
market, legal and political changes, etc.
Marketing research- marketing is involving because there is always a change in the economy.
The changes do affect the products, the prices and the consumer wants. Due to that, the

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marketing department has got a role of doing regular research to know the trending products,
prices and what the consumer needs at the moment.
Market segmentation- market tends to be volatile in the modern error and that makes business
organizations to do market segmentation. That will help business to identify the real market
where the business can serve with products and services at a profitable way. Business should ten
know their customers, serve them to their satisfaction.
Brand equity- the brand of the products that are being produced by the organization is the key
thing that consumers of the products do consider most. The brand will show the added value of
the product regarding on how the product can meet customer needs or not. Therefore, businesses
should build a strong brand values to their products and services. Brand value will increase the
quality of the product which then will lure consumers and that will increase sales volume and the
profit to an organization.
Marketing functions and how they relate to functional units of an organization.
Marketing functions involves the finance, advertisement, distribution, sales etc in achieving
marketing functions, below are the activities that comes under the marketing functions;
Research- The most crucial marketing functions because it encompasses all the activities that
will lead an organization to understand its business environment. Research will help the business
in getting the businesses information such as the trending prices of goods and services, logistics,
the availability of raw materials that can be used in production of goods (Lamb, et. al., 2012).
Strategy- After the research, now the organization will be set to have its products in the market.
Before that, the market is so competitive and all the research outcomes cannot be applied in the
market and therefore, organization will have to set the strategies that will help them compete
with their competitors in the market. Setting of the strategies will be guided by the data that was
obtained during the research process. Setting strategies will tell an organization to know their
weakness and their strength so that they can build their effort for success on that.
Planning-In planning the marketing department will incorporate the factors of the business such
as communication, distribution, forecasting of sales and financial planning. The planning process

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will help in converting the strategies of an organization into organizational success (Datta, et. al.,
2017).
Tactics- The tactics are the short term plans which help the organization to achieve the long term
goals. They involves things such as marketing promotions where by the organization is trying to
beat their competitors by using a short term tactics such as giving one product free for everyone
who buys three of the same or pricing method of promotion to lure customers into organizational
products.
The marketing functions and the units of the organizational departments are closely linked in the
sense that they do operate for the interest of ensuring that business organizational achieves their
objectives. The whole process relates in this manner, marketing department is related to finance
department (Kraak, et. al., 2017). Marketing department needs economic resource to help in the
implementation and planning, it needs to do research and to do evaluation of the strategies of
marketing applied and planning in the business organization, which to means that everything is
determined based on the finance provided by the financial department of the organization.
Marketing department cannot carry out any organizational task and achieve it without the
involvement of the finance department and therefore communication channel for all these
activities has to be channelled properly. Other than financial department, marketing department
still needs other functional business departments in an organization. The production department
has to issue the marking department with a clear description of the product so that the marketing
department can draw a strategy that they are going to use in order to get their consumers on track
(Leonidou, et. al., 2017). Marketing department needs human resource department to provide
them with their policies that will help them to increase sales.

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LO 2
P3. Compare the ways in which different organizations apply the marketing mix to the
marketing planning process to achieve business objectives.
Marketing mix is use by organizations to achieve their business goals. Business organizations
uses different kinds of marketing mix that can help them achieve their organizational goals.
Marketing mix of an organization is mostly determined by the size of the company, market size,
demographic and product and services of an organization. Marketing mix is used by markers to
enable tem understand the types of the products that they offer in the market. Marketing mix
was 4ps which included the products, the prices, the place and promotion of the products. Later
on the 4ps developed to 7ps whereby in addition to initial 4ps, the three which are the process,
people and physical evidence of the product was included (Hansen, et. al., 2017).
McDonald Company being a food company is widely organized with varieties of the branches in
UK and the company has made a massive impression in the UK market and other areas across
the world. The company has won hears of many consumers due to an extended marketing mix
and genuine approach that the company shows towards the customers. Business organizations
that set foot in the UK market based with similar products like those being offered by the
McDonald company have been using money to embrace their marketing processes such as
advertisement and promotion processes, research and development, marketing processes but the
response of the clients have not been impressing as compared to McDonald company. The
reasons as to why the McDonald restaurant company have achieved a massive success is because
the company understands their customers, the company understands the market and they use
marketing essential tools and the organizational goals and objectives are build based on the needs
of the customers that enables them achieve full satisfaction (Paley, 2017). The company applies
the marketing mix which focuses on the marketing plans such as product dimensions, prices
structures, promotional of the products, etc. the new marketing mix therefore considers how the
products are being delivered, physical evidence of the products to the consumers and the people
who are clients/ customers and are expected to purchase the products of an organization.
Tactics for achieving business objectives

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Achieving business objective is a long term process that begins from the time that business
enters the market. McDonald Company therefore, are implementing the marketing mix such as
7ps marketing mix in their marketing mix in order to achieve their business planning processes
so that they can realize their long term objectives. As McDonald Company is majorly focused in
7ps for the success of the organization, there are other food companies such as Marshfield Ice
cream in UK and the company is focuses their achievements on market segmentation processes
(Farese, et. al., 2012).
Here is how the market segmentation works:
 The company begins by defining the market where the organization will operate.
 Then after definition of the market the company creates the market segmentation of an
organization.
 Then these segments are evaluated with different products expected.
 Construction of the segment begins
 Then they check how the segments can lure customers
 Then the markets that are targeted are picked
 The positions strategies of the segments of an organization is developed and implemented
 The final state of segmentation is the evaluation to get the feedback if the process is
successful.
McDonald organization is convinced that, using the marketing mix in the organization will help
achieve the business goals and objectives in the process as follows.
Products- products of the organization must be in line with what the consumers perceive to be
right in terms of satisfaction for their needs (Davis, 2012).
Places- availability of the products to the consumers in times of needs is important. It then
requires McDonald Company to construct some of the stores that can be used to keep the
products near the consumers such that if they need the products then they can easily access them.
Price- The prices of the products must show the value for money. This is the most crucial part
which most of the consumers do factor in. the values that the consumers can derive from the
product should be equal and the prices has to balance the prices of the competitors.

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Promotion- The organization has to go viral with their products It the sense that the products
should reach the entire market through advertisement, sales promotion, going via social media.
McDonald has to reach far ends to ensure that good are well served along the market segment.
Process- The process includes the services that are laid down by the organization. it should
determine how the organization is delivering their products to every consumers in the market.
The organization should a better buying experience for the consumers in the entire market.
People- In an organization is part and parcel of the success for an organization. Therefore, the
organization requires suppliers, customers, employees, management to ensure that the
organizational culture is met. The services of McDonald Company are based on the entire people
who are part of the organization (Davis, 2012).
Physical environment- this involves the facilities that are involved in the business organization
so that the success can come to reality.

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LO 3
P4. Produce and evaluate a basic marketing plan for an organization.
The marketing plan of McDonald Company can be developed as follows;
The company should develop a clear understanding of the customers. McDonald Company
should do a vigorous research in the market to understand their products and services. The
company should do massive research to have unique products that the market can need as
compared to the products which are produced by the competing organizations. Therefore the
products should be in position to meet the needs of the customers and offer them satisfactions
which they need.
The company will then goes and identify the most targeted consumers in the market. The
targeted consumers are important because that will determine the type of the products and who
should the market sell for. An organization should be clear on their customers to help them
create and plan accordingly.
The organization must work close with their consumers to identify their competitors who are
targeting their consumers. The analysis of the competitors will help business organization to
know how the market is trending so that they can adjust with the market appropriately and
efficiently.
The organization can now evaluate their research deeply to make their strategies in response to
what the market needs and what the market requires. The organization will now create a budget
plan that helps the marketing activities and the organization will create goals and objectives that
can be easily achieved.
The company will finally use appropriate marketing channels that will help them reach people
across the world. This will involves the use of the digital media channels to promote the
marketing plans of an organization (Lanier & Lanier, 2017).
The organization will then evaluate the marketing plans and monitor the outcomes by checking
their effectiveness of the marketing plan that has been used.

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Marketing plan with tactically applies 7ps in achieving marketing objectives
The marketing mix is variables that have been grouped together and they involves the 7ps that
are satisfying the needs of the consumers regarding the business organizational contemporary.
The marketing plan of McDonald Company is as follows:
Product- products of the company must have features that can be used to meet the needs of the
customers. Therefore, the products must have quality, branding properties, customer service etc.
McDonald should work on the branding, quality of the products that they offer in the market so
that customers can get satisfied.
Promotion- the way in which the company is strategized to reach the market is what we refer as
promotion. Company needs to communicate with the consumers using different marketing
communication, advertisements and direct marketing while reaching the entire market.
Price- the price is the most sensitive part of the marketing mix. McDonald Company has to use
the pricing model that can counter their competitors in the market in order to provide the value
elements to consumers.
Pace-product availability is an important part of the marketing mix. The location of the
organizational store should be within the reach of the customers and delivery methods needs to
be good so that clients do not have complains and shortages of the products in times of needs.
People- these are the assets of the company. People who are involved in the progress of the
company are important they includes employees, managers etc. (Lanier & Lanier, 2017).
Process- the process under which an organization is set to produce their services must have the
focus on the needs of the customers.
Physical environment- the entire environment such as customers and organizational
representatives must show their professionals in their services.

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Conclusion
This assignment helps in understanding the roles that are played by marketing functions and the
relationships that they have with the organizational functions. Organizations applies marketing
mix I achieving their objectives, and that give a clear picture of how McDonald organization
used the method to become the best food industry in the entire UK. Due to business completion
in the current errors, marketing becomes an essential tool that helps the modern business to go
viral in the worlds that customers can know of its goods and services. A good market work
involves knowing the demands for customers, understanding the market place, building a good
relationship with customers, and above all providing the quality product and services that can
beat those of our competitors in the market. Business organizations are tending to believe that a
good customer relationship is building a good strategy that can help in innovative approaches
towards developing marketing strategies in the business.

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