WHAT ARE THE MAIN

FUNCTIONS OF
MARKETING?
1. Product and Service Management
2. Distribution
3. Promotion
4. Price
5. Selling
6. Financing
7. Marketing Information Management

FUNCTIONS OF
MARKETING
• When a company develops a product, it is done so in accordance with
what its customers want.
• For new companies, this could be more challenging, since their
products have not garnered preferences, as yet. Irrespective of this
fact, every business has to design and change their product as per
the customer requirements.
• Thus, product/service management deals with the designing,
changing, updating, and modeling your product as per the customer's
satisfaction.
• This may involve changing the color, size, functionality, quality, etc.
• The company could even decide to branch out into different sectors
and create new versions of the product, to suit the consumer's needs.

1. Product and Service

Management
• Consider that a company manufactures liquid soap.
• Over a period of time, if they understand (through reviews) that their
customers prefer a particular fragrance, the next batch of production
may possibly have liquid soaps with intoxicating fragrances, like
strawberry, cocoa, lemon, etc.
• It may also be possible that the company is already aware of its target
audience, and so they distribute the liquid soaps with two pre-decided
fragrances.
• Now, again with the help of research, if they find out that only one of
the brands is more popular, they may accordingly work on the one
that has more public awareness, rather than the one which is not very
popular. Accordingly, the production rates change as well, and so do
the sales.

EXAMPLE:
• In simple words, it is how you plan to distribute your products.
• You must have an idea about channel management so that you can distribute your
products carefully.
• You can distribute goods directly to the shop, go through wholesalers and retailers, go
online, or even out of the country.
• It is very difficult to plan product distribution, because you need to study and understand
your target customers well enough.
• You need to plan how and where to distribute your goods. In today's scenario, it is
increasingly difficult to attract customers to one shop, since they are spoiled for choice.
Therefore, if you plan to sell goods in a regular store, study the area and the competition
thoroughly.
• If you plan to distribute products abroad, you need to find distributors accordingly.
• Online businesses work in a different way, and you need to be aware of the rising and
falling tendencies on the internet.

2. Distribution
• Consider a new company that manufactures hand-stitched
chiffon tunics.
• To build up a reputation, the company would obviously choose
a good clothing store to begin with, since no one may trust an
online source.
• Once the clothes have been distributed at a popular boutique,
the brand gains popularity, and then, the company can choose
to distribute the same online.
• This way, the company no longer has to depend on the
boutique brand name to sell their clothes, they can have their
customers buy clothes directly from them.

Example:
• This is one of the most important functions of marketing,
almost synonymous with the term itself.
• Promotional tactics develop and increase brand awareness.
• You may have seen billboards and hoardings all over the
city―the idea is to expose your consumers to your product
name and brand as much as possible.
• Promotions involve highly innovative advertising strategies.
And these strategies could range from print media to
telemarketing, and from public campaigns to online marketing.
• Ultimately, your product should have brand recall.

3. Promotion
• You may have often noticed that when a new supermarket
or store is launched, they often have substantial discounts
and other attractive offers. This is a promotional tactic..
• If there is a new company that sells ready-to-eat meals,
they may offer one packet free on the purchase of 2
similar packets.
• Or, a supermarket may offer a 15% flat discount on goods
for the first three days. These are effective promotional
strategies that attract customers.

Example:
• This is one of the challenging aspects of marketing.
• Fixing a price for your product requires extensive market research.
• This can be extremely difficult―if you set a low price, you are
bound to get losses; if you set a higher price, you may not get
customers at all.
• Again, prices keep varying as per the market situation.
• If your competitor has set a particular price, you may set the same as
well, but after undertaking sufficient research about the other aspects
of production and management.
• You may have to undergo a few trials runs until you are confident
about setting the correct price range.
• You may also consider offering benefits, but be sure that your
company generates profits.

4. Price
• Consider a business that sells seasonal fruits.
• In such a case, the owner may or may not have competition. If
he does, he may have to adjust the prices accordingly.
• If not, he may be the only seller in a widespread geographical
area, and he can afford to increase the prices.
• In fact, if there are any weather changes, his product may
become very expensive or cheap.
• Also, if the government imposes any import-export
restrictions, the price may vary accordingly.

Example:
• You can sell your product only after understanding your
customers.
• Decades back, selling was a simple affair that involved the
buyer and seller.
• Over time, we have had retailers, wholesalers, shop owners,
producers, distributors, etc.
• You may sell your products via retailers, or may sell it online
as well.
• Selling depends on how much your product is preferred by the
target customer base.
• Marketing is an efficient tool that helps company owners sell
their products―whatever the method of selling.

5. Selling
• You may choose to sell your products directly or
indirectly.
• If you own a store where you sell your own manufactured
goods, you can personally see to it that you have assisting
staff for the customers.
• If you sell products online, you must have proper
explanatory brochures.
• If you go through retailers, make sure to explain all about
the product.

Example:
• This again, is one of the most obvious functions of marketing.
You need to invest to obtain returns.
• A company needs to have sufficient finance for advertising
their product. In corporate terms, this is called, 'marketing
fund'.
• There needs to be sufficient money available for marketing
your product on television, in newspapers, through pamphlets,
flyers, on the radio, on the internet, etc.
• Once the product starts gaining popularity, the company has to
spend more in order to make their product easily available,
attractive, and wanted.
• They may offer discounts, or reduce the cost of certain
products, or have a free-product policy, etc.

6. Financing
• Suppose a company decides to rely completely on online
advertising.
• In this case, the marketing funds will be restricted to creating a
website, using other websites to launch your product, etc.
• Once the product becomes popular, the company may set aside
some funds to attract customers.
• For instance, if it is an e-leaning company, they may offer their
learning material and e-books free of cost to the first 50 people
who register on the site.
• This will attract interested users, increase customer traffic,
help the company gain popularity, and also help customers to
decide if they are really interested in the site or not.

Example:
• This function involves understanding your target audience.
• It involves understanding your customers' interests, needs, and wants.
• You have to collect information about them, analyze the same, and
store it for future reference.
• You have to undertake a lot of research for this as well. One of the
prominent ways to obtain and manage consumer information is to
surf social media sites.
• When a particular product is in demand, you will find people chatting
about the same on an everyday basis, and to an extent, you will
understand what a section of the audience likes or dislikes.
• This is just one way, of course, another way is to carry out live
surveys.

7. Marketing Information
Management
• As mentioned above, conducting customer surveys is one the
most efficient ways to understand what your customers think
about your company.
• A company may dispatch some of its promotional staff to
malls and other stores to survey customers.
• Some may distribute feedback forms and analyze the data.
• Through these reviews, the company gets an idea about the
customer's likes and dislikes. This information is stored and
analyzed, and helps companies develop better business models.

Example: