Marketing, Sales and Pricing: Introduction

Marketing is the process of intentionally stimulating demand for and purchases of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emphasize in advertising; operation of advertising campaigns; attendance at trade shows and public events; design of products and packaging to be more attractive to buyers; selection of the terms of sale, such as price, discounts, warranty and return policy; product placement in media or with people believed to influence the buying habits of others; agreements with retailers, wholesale distributors or resellers; and attempts to create awareness of, loyalty to and positive feelings about a brand (Kotler & Armstrong, 2018). Marketing is typically conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or manufacturer. Sometimes tasks are contracted to a dedicated marketing firm or advertising agency. From a historical point of view, the term marketing denotes the corporate division whose task (function) is to market products and services (offer for sale in such a way that buyers perceive this offer as desirable). From a business point of view, this term has been describing the concept of holistic, market-oriented corporate management to satisfy the needs and expectations of customers and other interest groups (stakeholders) since the beginning of the twenty-first century (Meffert et al., 2008). The understanding of marketing is thus developing from an operational technique for influencing the purchase decision (marketing mix instruments) to a management concept that includes other functions such as procurement, production, administration and personnel. Figure 1.1 shows how marketing, sales, pricing and other aspects are integrated into the value chain as primary function. The marketing function follows the procurement and operations as interface to the customers (Helmold, 2021). Finance, human resources, IT, quality, finance or ethics functions support the value chain processes as secondary function. The corporate management is responsible for the corporate marketing strategy. The corporate strategy, from which the marketing strategy will derive, is a unique plan or framework that is long term in nature, designed with an objective to gain a competitive advantage over other market participants while delivering both on customer, client and stakeholder promises (i.e. shareholder value). Within the appropriate marketing strategy and framework, it is necessary to define the right sales management, the right pricing strategies and the distribution network. This will be done with innovative tools and processes (Kotler et al., 2017). Sales management is defined as the planning, direction and control of personal selling including recruiting, selecting, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying and motivating as these tasks apply to personal sales force. Sales management specifically contributes to achieve the marketing objectives of a firm. In fact, sales managers set their personal selling objectives and formulate the personal selling policies and strategies (Kotler & Amstrong, 2018).