Marketing is an important function of any organization. Marketers seek to satisfy customers’ needs and wants as well the company owners’ needs. For example, they charge fair prices for the benefit of both business owners and customers.

Product differentiation

A product’s design plays a key role in differentiating it from competing products. Product development involves the modification of an existing product or its presentation to satisfy a customer’s needs. Businesses may hire marketing agencies for product design and development services. The agencies work together with a company’s marketing team to design unique and more competitive products.

They play an active role in designing and managing a product’s offerings. Such include packaging and labeling. A product’s packaging should be economical, convenient, protective, and attractive. Expensive packaging leads to an increase in the cost of the product.

The packaging should draw the customer’s attention and provide relevant product information as well. It should protect the product from any damage and enhance the convenient movement of products from one place to another. A product’s label should contain relevant product information such as the expiry date, nutritional facts, and ingredients list. A product’s design also considers its reliability, quality, functions, and performance.

Pricing

Pricing is a critical marketing function because it creates revenue for an organization. Marketers consider factors such as cost of production, competitors’ prices, and profits when setting the price of a product. Before pricing your product, it is important to consider the cost of its production. Such costs include direct and indirect costs.

Marketers should also consider the profits that the business owners desire to draw from the manufacture and sale of a product and set the prices accordingly. Efficient pricing ensures that the business operates in profits. Marketers should also set the price of a product with their target market in mind. They should investigate the role that the product’s price plays in their purchase decisions.

By doing so, they determine whether the customers are driven by low prices or value. They then can set the right prices for their products. Marketers also use a pricing strategy whereby they monitor their competitors’ prices and set the price of their products within the same range. Adopting the right prices for the value offered by your product is key to business success.

Creating utility

Marketing creates product utility, that is, a product’s ability to match the customers’ wants. Form utility is created when a product or service is designed to fulfill a customer’s needs and desires. Form utility adds value to a product and increases its demand. Place utility bridges the physical gap between the business and its customers.

It is created by availing a business’s goods and services to the consumers. Distribution channels and retailing play a big role in creating place utility. Time utility, on the other hand, is created when the product is availed at the time when the customers need it.

Marketers, therefore, ensure that they offer timely deliveries to their customers. Possession utility is derived from owning and using a product. It is created during the sale of a product to the customer. Every marketing activity, therefore, seeks to increase the value of a product and satisfy a customer’s needs.

Marketers not only create awareness of a company’s products but also perform roles such as pricing. Every role they play should be geared towards the satisfaction of customers’ needs. They, therefore, attract new customers and retain old ones.