Dissecting Marketing - Five Fundamental Components

Marketing is an obviously crucial and necessary part of any given business. In fact, Marketing is one of the 3 fundamental functions of every business.

Having said that the actual performance and success of the marketing for any given business varies widely. Not all business owners have been exposed to a properly planned and executed marketing effort. Which is why I have created this resource dissecting the marketing function into its 5 core processes. How well a marketing department is able to execute these processes correctly will determine how successful the overall marketing efforts become. Even further the level of marketing performance has a huge impact on the overall well-being and profitability of the entire business.


Here I will list and explain the  five core processes that combine to become what we call marketing. These processes are Research, Strategy Development, Advertising (most refer to it as 'Promotion' when referring to this list), Sales & Closing Procedure, and last but not least Customer Service.

5 Core Processes of Marketing

1. Research - A top performing marketing department is able to crush their industry competitors because of some sort of edge or competitive advantage that they developed and exploited successfully. The advantage is ultimately formed during the strategy development process however the seed or raw information that exposed the idea is a product oof the research process. Marketing research is a broad study of many different variables that in the end, they all will have an impact on the company's ability to sell products, obtain customers, and retain those customers. These variables can typically be lumped into one of four categories of research as listed below. Remember one of the top priorities is to find something of use that your competition won't see coming until it is too late. This "Something can come in many different shapes and forms. For example, it could be as simple as identifying some sort of hazard that is not easily noticed at this time but can be prepared for so when that hazard surfaces your marketing campaign can simply pull out it's hidden umbrella while your competitors get soaked and frustrated.
1. Customer Study
2. Product/Service Study
3. Competitor products/services as well as substitute products from indirect competitors
4. Industry and Direct Markets Study
2. Strategy Development - Now that you are well-versed in everything and anything that can have an impact on your efforts it is time to put that new data to work and come up with a brilliant and irresistible marketing strategy that will blow away the competitors and will have the consumers chasing you for more.
3. Advertising or Promotion - Now the fun can begin. This is where we get to implement our strategy and start reaching out to customers as effectively and efficiently as we possibly can.
4. Sales & Closing Procedure - As the advertising starts bringing in customer traffic we must be able to seamlessly engage the customer with the start of the sales or closing. the process that we have already mapped out.
5. Customer Service - This process is an ongoing never ending dance or marriage between the company and the current customer. It is imperative that this effort never slacks or takes a rest. The customer today has a big-time sense of entitlement and it won't take much at all for many long time customers to ditch a company for the guy next door. Having said that if a company is able to build solid customer loyalty over many years then it can make a sort of temporary shield that may be able to save and retain some customers after some sort of conflict that is able to be resolved.

Also, I believe it is important for anyone  involved in running or starting a business to that these processes are often explained as some sort of marketing cycle. I however strongly disagree. Any business that goes in circles instead of straight ahead towards new and better innovations will surely be left behind and forgot about.