Marketing department functions

The workflow of marketing department is defined by its functions. Most organizations have a marketing division responsible for marketing strategy, advertising, researching, promoting, conducting customer surveys, branding, public relations and creating of corporate style. All these responsibilities can be gathered in several main functions of marketing department. These functions are as follows:

• Development of marketing goals and strategy
• Conducting marketing researches and monitoring customer needs
• Promotion and advertisement

Besides these main functions, there are other functions including focus on customers, research customers’ habits and needs, analyze customers’ reaction to advertizing, identifying influential groups in market segments, get feedback from target audience, managing relationships with vendors, manage budget, track competitors’ activity, conduct advertizing campaigns, plan sales presentations, measuring effectiveness, develop product brands, forecast and analyze sales, developing price strategy, plan for product and package design, treat for online promotion.

Marketing dept can use enterprise-wide business management solutions to carry out these functions. For example, with help of CentriQS software marketers can manage customer relationships, process payments and orders, and make marketing schedules.

Managing customer relationships

Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the fundamental practices of marketing dept. to build a strong relationship between the company and its customers. CRM requires marketers to develop a client-oriented approach that could allow attracting more first-time customers and strengthening relations with repeat customers.

With help of CentriQS the CRM function of marketing department appears to be easier to the personnel. This business management programallows creating an enterprise-wide client database which helps in profiling prospects, recording their needs, and viewing sales state. For example, marketing specialists can view the details of their customers (incl. name, photo, phone number, etc.), access links to related files, and label new and regular clients.

Processing orders and payments

Marketing department is often involved in processing orders and payments. In cooperation with sales teams this department keeps track of sales orders and payment status. It may also need to report to accounts division on revenues, costs, margins, and other sales-related parameters.

CentriQS lets create a single view of sales orders to help marketing department carry out processing of orders and payments. Marketing personnel can track sales orders by paid/unpaid status, order date, product, etc. The program lets calculate sales amount, gross margin, COGS, revenue, etc. so this information can help marketers report on sales performance and state.

Making marketing schedules

The activities of marketing department should be scheduled so that the personnel would know which activity to perform, when to do it and what resources to utilize. Scheduling helps department manager assign an appropriate number of employees to various jobs (ad campaign, presentation, phone call, negotiation, etc.) during each workday.

By using the Scheduler view in CentriQS, marketers can make schedules of various tasks and appointments relating marketing activities. Tasks and appointments can be assigned to certain employees, with certain priority, due date, project, etc. Overdue tasks and appointments will be highlighted with red, so employees will see delays directly on their schedules.

Development of marketing goals and strategy
One of the most important functions of marketing department is to design a set of written goals, objectives and strategies for marketing activities of the organisation. This means establishing rules and business concept of how the organization will conduct itself on the market, what marketing instruments will be used, what goals will be set and what strategies should be applied to attaining effective advertising campaigns. marketing department develops a market-based business strategy that provides unique value to the customers on all services and products of the organization.

The strategy establishes the workflow in the marketing department so that each process within the workflow can be continually evaluated, measured, and improved until marketing goals are successfully achieved. The software allows to design and share marketing goals and strategy and build marketing department workflow. By using this software, Marketing Director can create a work structure for coordinating all marketing processes toward the attainment of organizational goals.

Conducting marketing researches and monitoring customer needs
To introduce products and services into a market and create value in the mind of the customers, the managers of the marketing department need clear and appropriate information. marketing research provides the facts and directions that the managers can use to make their important decisions for marketing and competitive activities. To organize the workflow for managing market research and monitoring customer needs, marketing department can business management software. Then each marketing research can be created as a project with appropriate stages and to-do lists. In the Scheduler view the managers can create schedules for marketing researches and set due dates per task.

Advertising and Promotion
Finding new customers is the key challenge for every business. Through creative advertising and promotion a business can attract new customers and gain more revenue.  The marketing department is responsible for providing product/service advertising and promotion. The function of advertising and promotion is especially important when the organization launches a new brand and it should be promoted by informing the customers of the brand’s features and advantages. Marketing dept staff can arrange advertising campaigns and manage promotion activities. The software allows to break down a campaign into stages and tasks with possibility to track each step of the involved employees and measure the campaign outcome. It is a convenient tool for brand and product management.

• Marketing department staff
• >> Marketing department functions
• Development of marketing goals and strategy
• Conducting marketing researches and monitoring customer needs
• Advertising and promotion