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Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of earning money. This is generally done by producing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging customers money for it.

Firstly, it is a very rare case that a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied by anybody else. This means that your enterprise will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you improve the chances of them spending money with you?

Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great deal of internal and external factors, but when done right it can be the single business practice that can make or break a company.

So where should you start when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every company will have its own set of advantages and weak points that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle that can be applied to almost any corporation to be used as a marketing framework.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a phrase that was first coined in the 1950′s and is an expression that is used to express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business functions. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients list for a recipe.

The term was later built upon to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very clear for business managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and effective marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

This marketing model is not restricted to physical goods, services like headache nottingham treatment can gain via fresh marketing ideas or a new perspective.

Product

Although every element of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most crucial of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your company will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you. If this element is not adequately managed then your company will find it hard to make it through.

Many people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the actual product that your business is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your production department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.

Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application solutions in the market already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how could the principles of the marketing mix assist in this situation?

Rather than developing an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what sorts of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to manufacture and sell them.

Once your products have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors’.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is generally used to either prolong the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many consumers as possible. Once again, this technique can be applied at all stages of product development.

The motor industry uses this technique very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they sell. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace.

Marketing plays a crucial role in our own DVD for children business strategy and it shouldn’t be treated like an afterthought.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This is not a simple case of performing market research to figure out the top price that your customers would spend (although that can be a useful tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific targets your business has. The potential advantages of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly substantial!

Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the key factors that shoppers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t constantly consider the lowest price to be the best value. Actually a price that is too low can sometimes turn buyers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, key among which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing boost your own profits. From a strategy point of view however, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing. These are outlined below.

Price skimming

The main idea driving price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and will be willing to spend a premium amount of money to get a product or service early on.

This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the launch of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Manufacturers could set nearly any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it.

Penetration pricing

Penetration pricing is at the opposite end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when employed correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come. When setting a price for penetration it is still essential to not give a poor impression of your product by aiming for too low a figure.

Yet another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate revenue for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.

Place

Place is the component of the marketing mix that is often disregarded by companies, but it’s still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your customer, and consequently how you receive money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing approach when applied appropriately.

The most common ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing plants and shops and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and adapt your distribution network appropriately. This is the principal application of this part of the marketing mix.

With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing strategies have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a point of contact (or even as a whole distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers.

Promotion

When you mention the word “marketing”, most people instantly think of the promotional aspect of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only one branch of a more comprehensive system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, and whilst it may be a costly undertaking it is often an essential one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will boost sales.

Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically handing out flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. With the arrival of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising material posted through your door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so good.

Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your competitors.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned each company is different and will have different marketing requirements. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.

Filed under: General Interest