35. Marketing Channels

To reach a target market, the marketer uses three kinds of marketing channels. Communication channels deliver and receive messages from target buyers and include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, mail, telephone, smart phone, billboards, posters, fliers, CDs, audiotapes, and the Internet.

Beyond these, firms communicate through the look of their retail stores and Web sites and other media, adding dialogue channels such as e-mail, blogs, text messages, and URLs to familiar monologue channels such as ads.

Distribution channels help display, sell, or deliver the physical product or service(s) to the buyer or user. These channels may be direct via the Internet, mail, or mobile phone or telephone or indirect with distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and agents as intermediaries.

The marketer uses distribution channels to display or deliver the physical product or service(s) to the buyer or user. There are physical distribution channels and service distribution channels, which include warehouses, transportation vehicles, and various trade channels such as distributors, wholesalers, and retailers.

To carry out transactions with potential buyers, the marketer also uses service channels that include warehouses, transportation companies, banks, and insurance companies.

Marketers clearly face a design challenge in choosing the best mix of communication, distribution, and service channels for their offerings.

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