The 7 Marketing Functions

What are marketing functions?

Marketing functions describe the processes involved in taking a product from the shelf to the customer’s hand. There are 7 functions of marketing and each is integral to a business's ultimate marketing success.

In this blog, we’ll delve into each of the seven functions of marketing, leaving you with a clear idea of how to excel in each one.

What are the seven functions of marketing?

What are the 7 functions of marketing? Read on to find out what ingredients you need for marketing success:

1. Promotion 

So you’ve got a fantastic product and you think it’s amazing. In fact, you know it’s amazing. The problem is that no one else does. Actually, they don’t even know that your product exists. 

So first things first, you need to tell the world about your product, set it apart from the competition, and do it in a way that makes people want to buy it.

There are several ways to go about promoting your product, including:

• Print ads
• Email marketing
• Promotional events
• Content marketing
• Social media advertising
• Influencer partnerships

2. Selling 

Once you’ve got the word out about your brand, the next step is to nurture leads until they are ready to buy. A lead is anyone who has expressed interest in your brand in some way. This can be a subscription to a newsletter, a reaction on social media, a Google search, or a direct inquiry, to list a few. The best (and really only) way to effectively track interest is with project management software that can run analytic reports.

Here are some strategies to nurture your leads through to a sale:

• Offer sales and incentives
• Create a sense of urgency with short-term deals 
• Follow up on interest 
• Know your customer, ie. where do they hang out both physically and digitally? And what sparks their interest?

3. Product Management

It's one thing to strike out successfully with a new product, but quite another to maintain that success. Once you’ve got your product off the ground, you’ll need to do the following to keep your product selling:

• Stay on top of trends
• Communicate with customers
• Implement feedback
• Research your target audience
• Research competitors
• Create a strong brand voice and authority
• And of course, invest in maintaining a quality product

4. Price

Pricing is all about trying to find the perfect sweet spot between making enough profit and keeping customers happy with what they are paying. 

There also needs to be a strong awareness of what competitor brands are charging for similar products, down to when they are running sales.

The amount you decide to charge for your product depends significantly on how your customer perceives your brand. Are you a high-end, designer brand or a value-for-money brand? Ralph Lauren, for example, currently charges $30-$90 for a plain men’s t-shirt, while Old Navy’s price is $6-$10 for the same item type.

5. Marketing Information Management

One of the 7 core functions of marketing is marketing information management since to successfully market a product, you need to know your customers really well, as well as have the ability to gauge the success of your marketing campaigns.

The question is, how do you get to know your customers and how do you know if your campaigns are successful?

Getting to know your customers requires researching demographics like age, values, interests, and location, both physical and digital. The way to gather this information is with analytics software that can run reports that give you this information on both current and potential customers.

The same is true regarding knowing whether your campaigns have been successful. You can track the success of marketing campaigns by tracking:  

• ROA - Return on ad spend
• ROI - Return on investment
• Conversion rate
• Cost per acquisition
• Cost per lead
• Click through rate
• Cost per click
• Website visits
• Impressions

According to Forbes, it’s important not to rely on measuring numbers alone, as numbers don’t always give you the information you need. For example, if you're trying to do a rebrand and change your customer’s perception of your offering, numbers won’t tell you how much perception has changed. You can use survey tools that track qualitative data to do this.

6. Financing

The greater the budget you can set aside for your marketing efforts, the higher your chance of marketing success (so long as that budget is handled wisely!).

It’s important not to underestimate the amount of money you’ll need for advertising, as advertising costs tend to build up faster than you expected.

Having said that the higher your marketing budget the better, don’t be disheartened if you are just starting out or simply don’t have the capital to invest heavily in marketing. A clever, spot-on campaign can yield fantastic results even if not a lot of money is spent on it.

7. Distribution

Distribution is one of the 7 marketing functions because the way you distribute your product affects its popularity.

You’ll want to consider the following distribution channels:

• Stores
• Online stores
• Magazines and catalogs
• Wholesale
• Sales calls
• Social media shopping

Knowing your customer includes knowing their distribution preferences, which means knowing their location and their preferred shopping methods.

On a final note, it’s important to mention that all the 7 functions of marketing mentioned above need an addendum. The addendum is that a marketing function only works as well as the teams in charge of it. Good collaboration between departments is essential if the efforts invested in the seven functions of marketing are to bear fruit.

How can Workamajig give your marketing the best chance at success?

As we mentioned above, reporting is integral to knowing how to go about your marketing ventures and keeping track of results.

With the best reporting tools, you get to provide your clients and your agency with effortless, beautiful reports. Without them, you get to spend many tedious hours pulling data from here, there, and everywhere, putting shoddy-looking reports together on your own. 

Piece of advice: don’t do it!

If you are a creative agency, the best software you can get for yourself is Workamajig - the only platform built especially for creative agencies.

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• Do more of what works. Identify & focus on the clients, projects & services that drive true profitability
• See how your key financial metrics trend over time with our easy-to-use Metrics Monitor
• Grow with confidence. Improve cash flow, make smart hiring decisions & build an agency that lasts

Integration gives you insight

Why use separate tools for time tracking, project management, resourcing, finance, and reporting? 

Get everyone on board & gain visibility across the board.

• Don't wait hours for reports - get the data you need, when you need it, in real-time
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• Create reports for anyone, with the exact data they need

Make smart, data-backed decisions - explore Workamajig here