Branding

• Branding speaks volumes about a company with a single image.Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
  
  Branding is the most important single function in a marketing strategy. It involves more than creating an attractive logo; branding shapes public perception of a company. Effective branding attracts and retains customers as well as top talent and gives the company's products a head start in new markets.
  
  

Advertising

• Advertising involves developing a creative strategy and identifying the media outlets to make it happen. The creative strategy determines what the ads will communicate to the consumer and describes how that should be done. Identifying the specific media outlets that will most effectively get out the message comes out of the creative strategy.
  
  

Public Relations

• Public relations is important in building, supporting and protecting a company's brand. It defines the relationship between a company and its community whether it is local, national or global. Effective public relations should educate, inform and persuade.
  
  

Marketing Research

• Marketing research is the gathering, analysis and interpretation of information regarding the size of a demographic and the trends within it. Marketing research can be divided into three types: exploratory, descriptive and casual. Exploratory research, which includes taking surveys and conducting focus groups, is for formulating hypotheses about a market strategy. Descriptive research is used to develop a description of the users of the product being marketed. Casual research is accomplished through laboratory and field experiments to identify cause and effect relationships between product variables.
  
  

Communications

• Objectives and goals are established through communications.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Marketing communications (marcom) is the part of a marketing strategy where objectives and goals are set for all aspects of the marketing plan. For instance, whether the objective for a marketing campaign is to increase sales or enhance product image is accomplished through communications, as are setting specific goals for either improving awareness or increasing revenue.
  
  

Electronic Media

• Electronic media marketing is simply any marketing activity that involves one or more electronic methods, such as the Internet, radio, television or motion pictures. Each one of these methods has multiple options; television media can involve cable television outlets, network broadcasting, shopping channels and product placement in television shows; Internet marketing can include creating a website or advertising on other websites, search engine placement, online catalogs and shopping websites; radio can involve AM, FM or satellite venues; motion picture advertising can be video ads shown in movie theaters before the previews or product placement within motion pictures.
  
  

Event Marketing

• Event marketing involves more than just trade shows. It is brand visibility at public events, such as sponsoring a car or driver at NASCAR events or advertising at baseball, football or other sporting events. Event marketing is broad and varied, from fashion designers who either allow or pay for celebrities to wear their designs at awards banquets and premieres, to free samples of a frozen food product handed out at a super market.