8 Roles of Marketing in Business
Marketing is a field that almost everyone has an opinion about. According to some, it is a “soft skill” and according to others, it is a deep field of study. In a training I’ve taken from CXL, I gained new information on this subject. I am sharing the new information I’ve just learned about this topic and my thoughts on it.
We can start with the most talked about misconceptions on marketing.
- Thinking that the goal of marketing is to trick people
- Thinking marketing is just advertising.
- “Marketing is a soft skill”
- Claiming that marketing is dead
- Thinking of marketing as managing social media accounts and website
We now live in a post-modern era and almost everything is intertwined. So everything is vague. This is also true in the business world. Therefore, it may be difficult to make a clear definition for marketing, but we can understand what marketing is by listing the fields it is related to.
Product Marketing
Product marketing is a field that conducts user research and identifies opportunities in the market. There are many topics in this area, from the packaging of the product to the pricing. Even what will be done at the launch of the product can be counted in this area. Besides, product marketing’s responsibilities include connecting sales, product and engineering. Someone working in this field has to do competitive analysis very well. How the product will look and how it will differentiate from its competitors are among the responsibilities of this area.
Brand
This is the area that deals with how the brand will be perceived by people and the market. The brand’s voice and tone, its appearance and how it makes people feel are among the working areas of this field. Positining and creating awareness is very important in this field. How strong the brand is in “word of mouth” marketing is related to how good this area is. Color choices for the brand and the tone of the advertising texts are among the responsibilities of this area.
Demand Generation
One of the areas where marketing is closest is undoubtedly sales. Demand generation is also the area where marketing and sales are most intertwined. In this area, the pipeline is created, lead funnels are optimized, and leads are tried to be converted into customers. This area and the sales side determine the answers to questions such as where and how to communicate with the desired audience.
Events & Community
Whether B2B or B2C, every company needs to have a strong bond with its audience and partners. The task of this area is to strengthen this bond and to acquire new connections. Organizing events to reach the audience, which is among the goals of the brand, supporting them and collaborating with influencers that suit the brand’s identity. It is the duty of this field to work with names that fit the brand’s identity and achieve the highest performance.
Sales Enablement
This area is one of the areas that facilitates the sales team’s work the most. Prepares presentation and e-mail templates. Informs the sales team about the market and product. With the case studies he wrote, he tries to show how valuable the service provided by the brand is.
Public Relations
The most well-known area of marketing is definitely PR. It analyzes where the target audience gets the information and tries to establish collaborations with those areas. The partner prepares the calendar of the content and gives instructions for the content in order to get the best efficiency.
Content & Creative
The content area, which is included in all marketing areas, is an area responsible for all areas from campaign images to the content to be entered on the site. Prepares the media kit for PR, prepares the contents of the brand in the brand materials section. All content about the brand is produced under the leadership of this field.
Operations & Analytics
Data, data, data… All work done today has to be data-driven. This area represents exactly the analysis part of the operation. Many issues are under the responsibility of this area, from how to optimize the funnel process of the sales side to how to increase the ratio of subscribers to the press release to all visitors. This area uses all the tools on data analysis.
I can say that each field is very close to each other, but I think that marketing and sales are closer to each other than other fields. I saw a nice image on CXL, it has the titles Awereness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, Evaluation and Purchase. Beneath them are Education, Inspiration and Reassurance. In the middle of these two areas, there is the Marketing / Sales section, which is split right in the middle. We certainly don’t know where marketing ends or sales begin, but these two areas should definitely work together.
The 8 fields I have listed here are actually intertwined with each other. As I said at the beginning of the article, we now live in a post-modern age and it is difficult to separate even departments from each other. Therefore, it is difficult to clearly divide an area into sub-parts. For example, a marketer working on Brand should actually have ideas in the field of Content & Creative.
While designing the identity of the brand, you actually determine how it will be sold. For this reason, the 8 items I have mentioned above can be done by a marketer as well as by a team. It is very important to specialize in these areas and to use these areas to provide a better brand perception and a better experience.
I want to closely follow the marketing processes of all brands whose biggest element is creating value and see how they do this job. I will also write many things I learned on this subject here. This week, I’ve written about the 8 main fields of marketing in a business. I hope it was useful for you. See you in next week!
