Practically every company on the planet sets out with the primary 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 company can offer a product or service that is genuinely unique and cannot be provided by anybody else. This means that your business will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to make money from the same customers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you boost the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done right it can be the single business practice that could make or break a corporation.
So where should you begin when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and each business will have its own set of strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing framework. It is known as the “Marketing Mix”.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix was a term that was first coined in the 1950’s and is an expression that is used to express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business operations. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients list for a recipe.
The term was later developed to include the idea of “four P’s” that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very clear for company managers and marketers to swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly create a customised and effective marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Almost every segment in the modern market is competitive, especially turnout seat serivices, in which good marketing judgements could mean the success or failing of the company.
Product
Although every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most critical of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your company will be offering, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you.
Several people don’t think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical 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 opposite way around - your production department creates an item for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right?
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application products in the marketplace already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how can the principles of the marketing mix assist in this circumstance?
Rather than creating an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what sorts of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them.
Once your goods have been fashioned and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons why a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors’. The technique is called product differentiation and is one of the fundamental skills of the product part of the marketing mix cake.
Another form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is generally used to either lengthen the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.
The car industry uses this approach very effectively by offering various engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they sell. They use the marketing mix to great effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all businesses.
With the rise of the Internet and e-commerce companies find that their sites such as www.wraparoundsunglasses.net might be used as a direct sales channel and distribution system.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of carrying out market research to figure out the highest 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 tool designed to achieve any particular goals your business has.
Whilst it may seem obvious, it’s still worth noting that price has always been, and likely always will be, one of the crucial factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers do not constantly consider the lowest price to be the best value.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing plan, key among which are the price sensitivity of your customers, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing maximise your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the segment 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. Not only can this technique deliver excellent economic advantages, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your product.
This pricing technique is very often used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the release 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 base 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 rewards can be earned 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 critical to not give a bad impression of your product by aiming for too low a number.
Yet another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate earnings for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or carry out.
Grabbing any of the on-line search market is very beneficial, so choose a term, just like become a doctor then assess if that phrase has an adequate search marketplace for your needs.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often disregarded by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you deliver your product to your customer, and subsequently how you receive money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most common implications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing centres and shops or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network appropriately.
With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing strategies have had to consider how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a place of contact (or even as a complete distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of potential customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, many people instantly think of the promotional aspect of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely 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 might 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 common forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, producing short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing flyers or leaflets to potential customers. With the arrival of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial functions of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals. When all other pieces of the marketing mix are equal it can be branding that sways a customer’s choice.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned every company is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.
Yovia