Prioritisation of Marketing Investments in Different Types of Marketing Functions

To elucidate how the marketing function's efforts influence the company's results, marketing functions are classified according to their role mix. The impact of the types is studied on the basis of an empirical study among 395 marketing managers.
The study identifies four types of marketing functions based on the efforts they dedicate to seven generic marketing roles. The four types of marketing functions are denoted as follows: (1) the broadly-based; (2) the hesitant; (3) the traditional and (4) the market-creating marketing function. All four types of marketing functions directly influence the company's results, but there is considerable variation in the composition of the roles within each type of marketing function, their use and impact on the company's results. The findings of this study indicate that marketing functions are heterogeneous, and the effect achieved from investing in any given role therefore varies. The primary managerial implication is a need for prioritisation of the marketing roles with a view to maximise the marginal impact on the company's results, but also to decide if the marketing function would benefit from shifting between different types of marketing functions by prioritising some roles differently.