Basic Function: Marketing

Ever wonder what the function of the marketing department is?

As an engineer, I loathed marketing because I felt they contributed only spent money aimlessly with their output, the advertisements!

In my MBA, I understood what marketing is. The marketing team is responsible for defining the market - they are “customer focused”, especially these three types of customers:

• customers who belong to the company
• customers who belong to the competition
• customer who are not in the market, at all.

One example I like to use: diapers

If we are the diaper company, P, with one competitor, H - the market can be:

• customers of P - they prefer diapers of P over H
• customers of H - they prefer diapers of H over P
• customers of neither - they prefer diapers from P or H

If we consider there to be only two diaper companies for the whole market, how can there be the last option of customers of neither?

This is where marketing comes in - in what situation would a customer even consider buying diapers?

If the customer has a baby, they would consider buying a diaper. If they do not, they will not consider buying diapers at all.

Of course, there are more than two diaper companies - so this becomes more complicated, but there will be the last group: a group of customers that are not in market for a product for a reason.

That’s the basic function of marketing.

Next, I talk about basic function of advertising