Which business function involves activities that make products and services available to consumers?

The marketing mix is the set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that a company uses to produce a desired response from its target market. It consists of everything that a company can do to influence demand for its product. It is also a tool to help marketing planning and execution.

The four Ps of marketing: product, price, place and promotion

The marketing mix can be divided into four groups of variables commonly known as the four Ps:

1. Product: The goods and/or services offered by a company to its customers.
2. Price: The amount of money paid by customers to purchase the product.
3. Place (or distribution): The activities that make the product available to consumers.
4. Promotion: The activities that communicate the product’s features and benefits and persuade customers to purchase the product.

Marketing tools

Each of the four Ps has its own tools to contribute to the marketing mix:

• Product: variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, services
• Price: list price, discounts, allowance, payment period, credit terms
• Place: channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory, transportation, logistics
• Promotion: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations

Marketing strategy

An effective marketing strategy combines the 4 Ps of the marketing mix. It is designed to meet the company’s marketing objectives by providing its customers with value. The 4 Ps of the marketing mix are related, and combine to establish the product’s position within its target markets.

Weaknesses of the marketing mix

The four Ps of the marketing mix have a number of weaknesses in that they omit or underemphasize some important marketing activities. For example, services are not explicitly mentioned, although they can be categorized as products (that is, service products). As well, other important marketing activities (such as packaging) are not specifically addressed but are placed within one of the four P groups.

Another key problem is that the four Ps focus on the seller’s view of the market. The buyer’s view should be marketing’s main concern.

The four Ps as the four Cs

The four Ps of the marketing mix can be reinterpreted as the four Cs. They put the customer’s interests (the buyer) ahead of the marketer’s interests (the seller).

• Customer solutions, not products: Customers want to buy value or a solution to their problems.
• Customer cost, not price: Customers want to know the total cost of acquiring, using and disposing of a product.
• Convenience, not place: Customers want products and services to be as convenient to purchase as possible.
• Communication, not promotion: Customers want two-way communication with the companies that make the product.

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Irrespective of whether you are a business owner or a working professional, there are several critical questions that you should be asking yourself. For example – Are you aware of the needs of your customers? Do you think customers trust your products? Have you observed any of the messages or posts that the customers make about your products and services?

The one word that can answer all these questions is ‘marketing’. The importance of marketing for your business is that it makes the customers aware of your products or services, engages them, and helps them make the buying decision. Furthermore, a marketing plan, a part of your business plan helps in creating and maintaining demand, relevance, reputation, competition, etc. Therefore, as marketing has a pivotal role to play in making your business a huge success, without understanding the importance of marketing, it may be a little difficult to manage and run a profitable business in today’s world. To understand the importance of marketing for your business and why it is needed, we need to first understand what marketing is.

Marketing is a term that covers a whole gamut of activities aiming to make people aware of your products and services and persuade them to buy the same. While advertising is the most common way of marketing, it also involves consumer research, product design, as well as other aspects. However, sales do not fall under marketing, instead, sales are an outcome of marketing. This is why it becomes important to thoroughly understand the importance of marketing for businesses and B2B marketing strategies that businesses adopt. Let’s begin.

Marketing and its Importance for Businesses

In this section, we’ll discuss the importance of marketing for businesses along with the reasons.

Effective consumer engagement: Businesses must engage customers, and herein, marketing proves to be an effective tool. Customers can be engaged by telling them what they do not know and creating good content around your products and services.

Building and maintaining reputation: The reputation of your business depends on how it grows and what its lifespan is. This is where marketing comes across as a way to build the brand equity of businesses. And this happens when the expectations of the customers are met.

Building relationships between customers and business: For any business to grow, it must build a long-lasting relationship with its customers. Marketing is based on demographics, psychographics, and consumer behaviour and therefore, gives an understanding of what customers want.

Boosting sales: Since marketing utilizes different ways to promote products or services, it helps in increasing the likelihood of better sales. Happy customers translate into a company’s brand ambassadors automatically.

Staying relevant: Marketing helps a business to remain relevant to the customers and in its domain. It helps in maintaining good relationships.

Making informed decisions: The basic questions that every business has are around the how’s and why’s of producing products or delivering services. This underscores the importance of marketing for businesses and the fact that it links a business and society.

Types of Marketing

The different types of marketing strategies that you should be aware of are:

B2B Marketing

The term B2B marketing means business-to-business transactions. B2B marketing strategies are used when a company is selling goods or services to some other company.

B2C Marketing

B2C marketing means business-to-consumer marketing. This refers to a company selling its products or services to consumers and the business promotion is done through ads.

C2B Marketing

This is the opposite of B2C and means consumer-to-business marketing. In this type of marketing, the consumer gives goods or services to the company.

C2C Marketing

C2C Marketing refers to consumer-to-consumer marketing. In this, consumers interact with co-consumers when they share a common product or service. An example of this is OfferUp and let go apps.

How Marketing Strategies Lead to Success?

The success story of a business largely depends on the marketing strategy it deploys. An effective business marketing strategy helps in boosting growth as well as growing the number of consumers for a business. Some of the different marketing strategies include promotions and advertising, establishing media relations and other aspects. Even when a business provides the best products and services, it is important for people to know about it. This provides information to consumers and makes them aware. Another benefit of a marketing strategy is that it helps in building a company’s reputation thereby leading to better trust among its consumers.

Build Your Career in Marketing

Building a career in marketing management is extremely lucrative for those who want to progress in this field. There are various marketing management courses offered by Emeritus India that you can undertake to advance your career in marketing further.

Which business function involves activities that make products?

Which business function includes studying the product or service to determine the reasons that customers will want and need the product or service?

Which function of business creates or obtains products or services for a business to sell?

What function establishes and communicates the value of products and services to prospective customers?