Marketing channel
A marketing channel consists of the people, organizations, and activities necessary to transfer the ownership of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It is how products get to the end-user, the consumer, and is also known as a distribution channel. A marketing channel is a valuable management tool and crucial to creating an effective and well-planned marketing strategy.
Another less-known form of the marketing channel is the Dual Distribution channel. This channel is less traditional, allowing the manufacturer or wholesaler to reach the end-user using more than one distribution channel. The producer can simultaneously reach the consumer through a direct market, such as a website, or sell to another company or retailer that will reach the consumer through another channel, i.e., a store. An example of this type of channel would be franchising [Whitty's MBA].
Roles of marketing channel in marketing strategies:
Links producers to buyers.
Influences the firm's pricing strategy.
Affecting product strategy through branding, policies, and willingness to stock.
Customizes profits, installs, maintains, offers credit, etc.
Brands carry out online and offline advertising on behalf of channel partners to aid them in generating sales of their branded products. Those online and offline marketing initiatives can be isolated or coordinated to inform one another. Marketing Channels can be long-term or short-term [Armstrong, p. 330].
Armstrong, G. (2009). Marketing: an introduction. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
What Is A Marketing Channel. Whitty's MBA. Retrieved from: https://mbaed.tripod.com/marketing101/id12.html