In the Marketing Research Tutorial , we discussed how marketers follow two main paths for gathering information. The first path, called primary research, involves data collection projects developed by the market researcher, such as using surveys, focus groups, experiments, and observation.

While primary research is widely used to address many marketing questions, it is not the leading type of research used by marketers. That distinction belongs to the other research path--secondary research.

Possibly the most challenging concept in marketing deals with understanding why buyers do what they do (or don’t do). But such knowledge is critical for marketers since having a strong understanding of buyer behavior will help shed light on what is important to the customer and also suggest the important influences on customer decision-making. Using this information, marketers can create marketing programs that they believe will be of interest to customers.

The business market is comprised of organizations that, in some form, are involved in the manufacturer, distribution or support of products or services sold or otherwise provided to other organizations. The amount of purchasing undertaken in the business market easily dwarfs the total spending by consumers. Because the business market is so large it draws the interest of millions of companies worldwide that market exclusively to business customers. For these marketers understanding how businesses make purchase decisions is critical to their organizations’ marketing efforts.

The first few sections of the Principles of Marketing Tutorials have introduced the basic concepts needed as a foundation for building a strong marketing program. In particular, it has emphasized the importance of understanding customers since they are the reason an organization is in business. With customer knowledge in hand, it is now time to turn our attention to the process of addressing customers’ needs through actions undertaken by the marketer.

Marketing starts with the product since it is what an organization has to offer its target market. As we’ve stressed many times in this tutorial, organizations attempt to provide solutions to a target market’s problems. These solutions include tangible or intangible (or both) product offerings marketed by an organization.

In this Product Decisions Tutorial, we showed that marketers are confronted with many issues when building the product component of their marketing strategy. While product decisions represent just one aspect of marketer’s overall activities, these decisions are often the most important because they lead directly to the reasons (i.e., benefits offered, solutions to problems) for why the customer decides to choose the organization’s goods, services or ideas.

Our discussions in the tutorials Product Decisions and Managing Products indicate product decisions may be the most important of all marketing decisions since these lead directly to the reasons (i.e., offer benefits that satisfy needs) why customers decide to make a purchase. But having a strong product does little good if customers are not able to easily and conveniently obtain it. With this in mind we turn to the second major marketing decision area--distribution.

In an ideal business world, most marketers would prefer to handle all their distribution activities by way of the corporate channel arrangement we discussed in the Distribution Decisions Tutorial. Such an arrangement provides the marketer with two important benefits. First, being responsible for all distribution means the marketing organization need only worry about making decisions concerning their product. When others, such as resellers, are involved in distribution attention is not given to a single supplier but is stretched across all products the reseller carries. Second, having control on all distribution means the marketer is always in direct contact with buyers of their products, which can make it easier to build strong, long-term relationships with customers.

As we discussed in the Retailing Tutorial, it is more the rule than the exception that marketers are not able to handle all distribution activities on their own. Instead, to get products into the hands of customers often requires the marketer to seek assistance from third-party service firms. In addition to retailers, marketers should be aware of other resellers whose expertise in certain facets of distribution can prove quite beneficial. Additionally, other activities associated with moving products must also be well understood and often requires the help of others.

In addition to enlisting the assistance of retailers and wholesalers to make products available to customers, marketers also face additional concerns when trying to meet their distribution objectives. In this section we examine the tasks that must be carried out in order to physically move products to customers. In some cases the marketer will take on the responsibility of carrying out some functions, while other tasks may be assigned to distribution service providers. Whether handled by the marketer or contracted to others, these functions are crucial to having a cost-effective and efficient distribution system.