Five Core Marketing Functions

8/9/2019 Five Core Marketing Functions

1/6

Five Core Marketing Functions ABusiness Organization BlueprintBY ANDREW STEIN ON DECEMBER 16, 2012 11 COMMENTS

Like trying to understand an electrical circuit board without the schematic, its hard to keep up with

the complexity and importance of the five core marketing functions without a reminder from time to

time.

And, with the daily hype around the

tactical effort, tools, and constantly

changing environment of social media, its

easy to lose sight of the five core

marketing functions.

As a corporate advisor and successful

turnaround CMO, I regularly discuss the

big picture as I guide CEOs and

executives in building sustainable

organizations for the long-term.

If you are a marketing leader, CMO, VP of Marketing, or Director of marketing, and you havent read

at least a dozen articles in the past 3 months about how Social Media has changed or replaced

marketing, then you might either be incredibly busy or already understand the foundational five core

marketing functions.

Importance of Core Marketing FunctionsThe five core marketing functions are every bit as important as R&D, operations, and finance and

by many accounts, even more critical to the business. Think back to business school and recall what

you learned. Or, review your most recent business failure. Was there enough horsepower behind

marketing? Were the marketing basics ofcreating value,capturing valueand building programs

and plans forsustaining valueput in place before the social media trigger was pulled?

To understand these core marketing functions, one has to relax and clear their mind of the day to day

frenzy of delivering on tactical activities and all the pressures of every other executives demands on

the marketing function in your organization. To do so, will allow this blog post to give you insight as to

how you might need to organize for success. Do it now relax and breathe deep before you proceed

to read.

1
http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#wp-commentshttp://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#wp-comments


2/6

Oh, yes you will find social medias pervasive role described in context of the Five Core Marketing

Functions at the very end. That way its tactical potential can be integrated into the structure of these

functions more effectively.

Internal Business Process ChainA good friend, business mentor and coach once told me that every successful business needs three

things.

1. Make a product or service.

2. Market the product or service to customers.

3. Manage the money.

This over-simplification makes a point and helps us avoid being distracted by the most recent shiny

object. My friend also indicated that he has never met the person that could do all three of these

functions. Perhaps there is someone that can do 2 of these, but understand in addition to the

different talent required, there probably isnt enough time in the day to do more than any one of these

well.

Recognizing this fact helps to understand the value of organizational roles differentiated from specific

tactical activities. A model I created many years ago and have successfully used in technology

companies looks like this.

2


3/6

3


4/6

This model will take some digesting and it will be the basis for a number of future blog posts from

me. Briefly, the following describes the five core marketing functions in the business process.

Corporate MarketingThis function has global marketing domain to set and enforce brand standards, define global

infrastructure for public relations (PR), investor relations, advertising, corporate communications,

event strategies, user group community programs and production synergies across all marketing.

Operates on an annual corporate marketing plan calendar assembled from editorial, PR, product

roadmap, and other coordinated calendars to deliver on milestones and objectives.

Strategic MarketingThis function sets strategies for growth, assesses competitive landscape, works with engineering

and product management to perform gap analysis, performs make vs. buy analysis, proposes andperforms due diligence for merger and acquisition (M&A) targets, creates, develops and manages

partner programs, manages key relationships to support technical, business, and other strategic

needs. Strategic marketing operates on an opportunity-based calendar.

Product ManagementThis function is the owner of the product and its long-term strategy (multi-release through end-of-life)

and current direction (next release), articulates innovation such that it can be built and marketed.

Defines and communicates initial positioning and messaging, pricing strategies, commercialization

strategies, go-to-market strategies and competitive positioning. This function works in a cross-functional team with sales, marketing, product development, R&D, engineering and operations

functions to achieve pre- and post-launch results. Product management operates on a product-

lifecycle calendar.

Product MarketingThis function builds and drives launch plans for products and service offerings, refines raw

positioning and messaging (received from Product Managers in MRDs) into crisp value propositions,

drives tactics for product and services sales training programs. Product marketing operates on a

product-lifecycle calendar.

Field MarketingThis functions modus operandi is toexecute, execute, execute marketing programs and

campaigns that have a singular focus of lead generation and driving opportunities through the

pipeline. Operates under a quarterly calendar. This function has dotted-line or direct matrix reporting

to the divisional or geographically distributed organizations.

4


5/6

hings o Ponder !hile "igesting Each of these functions operates on aunique calendar which is a driver to recognize that

there are many core marketing functions.

Marketing business processes are not linear allthese core marketing functions are

iterative, both on a micro-scale and a macro-scale. Micro-scale means that within a productlifecycle, change can happen through iteration, and on a macro-scale, the process does not end, it

circles back to begin again.

Marketing presents aunique organizational challenge. Just as no one person can be the

R&D (make the product) Marketing and Sales (market the product) and the company accountant

(watch the money) all at the same time, there is no one marketing person that can effectively do all

these functions simultaneously.

Understanding what we mean byinnovation, vs. say,product launch, for example, helps

tobalance demandson the marketing professionals you have and need by organizing properly and

effectively.

I know a few human resources professionals who fully understand these functions and theunique demands on each.Engage human resourcesas a partner and fill any gaps around

marketing as business strategy to engage their support.

These roles maynot all be organized under the Marketing VP or CMOin your company.

They may be in silos, in matrix organizations, divisionally structured and/or even globally distributed.

Marketing functions may be achieved throughshared rolesin non-traditional marketing

organizational structures. For example, field marketing may be organized in the sales organization.

This is not wrong or right, just something again to observe.

Whether your company is a small startup, or a large multi-divisional conglomerate these

functions all exist, and are done at some level of effectiveness.

Understanding now thateach marketing function exists, and the activity is done.

Recognizing this from an organizational perspective enables one to coordinate better results.

Pervasive Social MediaSocial media fits in each of the five core marketing functions as the anchor to carry on a

conversation with the customer. Each function must be connected with the customer, just as every

group in a modern company must be. Interestingly, my model demonstrates the pervasive demand of

social media in and across an organization. The five functions of marketing are grounded in the

business strategy fundamentals of creating value, capturing value and sustaining value which

effectively drives any social media initiative.

Understanding the pervasive shared responsibility for social engagement, this then becomes the

single argument against hiring one single social media marketing person or social media marketing

agency. It is impossible to expect any effective performance, positive outcome or success beyond

some immediate tactical metrics. Social media efforts, and therefore customer engagement, must be

grounded in the five core marketing functions.

5


6/6

Social initiatives must be integrated into the larger marketing business processes. They must carry

on the conversation with customers, markets and industries that the core goals of the business have

outlined at the highest levels of its vision and mission.

Please leave a comment. Others value your thoughts as they ponder and digest how this affects theirown organization.

Image Credits:aviddviaphotopincc

Read more:http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-

blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3

6
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avidd/3818379983/http://photopin.com/http://photopin.com/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3http://www.flickr.com/photos/avidd/3818379983/http://photopin.com/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3http://steinvox.com/blog/five-core-marketing-functions-a-business-organization-blueprint/#ixzz3PXHGAbB3

Documents

Five Core Marketing Functions