Functions of marketing

The functions of marketing run before, during and after the sale.

• Gathering and analysing market information: what customers want, and why.
• Marketing planning: setting marketing goals and an action plan to reach them (for example, a plan to raise the firm's market share over the next few years).
• Product designing and development: a product that attracts buyers.
• Standardisation: producing goods to set specifications, so every unit is the same: a packet of your favourite chips tastes the same every time. Grading: sorting products into classes by quality and size, mostly for goods not made to specifications, such as farm products (oranges sorted into sizes, for example).
• Packaging and labelling.
• Branding.
• Customer support services: after-sales service, complaints, credit; they bring repeat sales.
• Pricing.
• Promotion: informing and persuading customers.
• Physical distribution: getting goods to customers.
• Transportation: moving goods from where they are made to where they are sold.
• Storage or warehousing: holding goods until they are needed, because production and consumption happen at different times.