Seven Functions of Marketing

Product/Service management

Deciding which goods/services/ideas to sell, improving products, updating products, deciding when to stop selling a product

Pricing

Deciding the cost assigned to a product, as determined by what a customer is willing to pay, while also taking into consideration a company’s costs, to make a profit. Price communicates value.

Promotion

Any effort to inform, persuade, or remind potential customers about your products. This can include radio, tv, social media, billboards, signs, email, texts, etc. 

Distribution

How does a customer buy from a business? Is it at an in-person store, online, drive-thru, or through an app? How does a company get its supplies to create its products? Where do they source them from? What times/days is a company open?

Market Planning

Creating a plan to enter the market. Identifying your target market, analyzing the competition, setting a budget, deciding how to get start-up funding, creating marketing strategies and key metrics to measure success.

Selling

Direct, personalized communication with your customers to best match your products with their wants and needs. Providing customers with the goods and services they want; the exchange of money for goods and services.

Market research

Gathering information about customers, trends, and competing products, storing the information, and analyzing it. This can be through polls, surveys, focus groups, sales data, or social media analytics.