Almost every company on the planet sets out with the primary objective of making money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.
First of all, it is a very rare case where a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided by anybody else. This means that your company will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to make money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their money once. So how can you boost the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the primary tool used by modern organisations to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done well it can be the one business practice that could make or break a company.
So where should you start when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every industry will have its own set of strengths and weaknesses 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 platform. It is known as the “Marketing Mix”.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix was a phrase that was first coined during the 1950’s and is a phrase that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business technique, 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 easy for company managers and marketers to swiftly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very quickly form a personalised and efficient marketing strategy.
There are several sales channels available to event planning and our business applied marketing ideas to open new paths to our customers.
Product
Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most crucial of all. It describes the physical product or intangible service that your business will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you.
Many people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical product that your business is selling. In fact, the typical train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around - your production department creates a product for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system and software application products on 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 can the principles of the marketing mix help in this circumstance?
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft or Apple, it would be more effective to look at what types of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being aware of the marketing mix early on in your product development cycle you can prevent business dead-ends at a later time.
Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a critical 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 skill 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 typically 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.
The motor 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 incredibly competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
As part of our own promotion system, our business carefully researched what made our goods stand out from the crowd.
“Product is paramount” is one of the main mottos used within our event management business which tries to emphasise to all employees that we expect top quality production.
Price
Another key 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 determine 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 objectives your business has.
Whilst it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out that price has always been, and likely always will be, one of the key factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the lowest price to be the best price.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing strategy, 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 though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The principal idea driving price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on.
This pricing technique is frequently 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 almost 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 other end of the pricing spectrum, and is tailored towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when employed correctly it can setup revenue streams for many years to come.
Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or carry out.
Our company wanted to appeal to a broader market and focusing on best home shredder helped boost our profile in the international business community.
Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you receive money from them. It can be a great marketing technique when applied appropriately.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your manufacturing plants and retailers or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network accordingly. This is the primary application of this element of the marketing mix.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a point of contact (or even as a whole distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of possible customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, most people immediately think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only one branch of a more comprehensive system. Promotion can be employed 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 primary concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will increase sales.
Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing flyers or leaflets to potential customers. With the coming of the information age we have witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising materials posted through your 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 goes back to one of the preliminary functions of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your competitors. When all other pieces of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that sways a customer’s decision.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each company is unique 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 strategy.
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