Nearly every business on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is usually done by producing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it. This fundamental principle is fairly straight-forward, though it contains many specific details.
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 anyone else. This means that your business will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to earn money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their cash once.
Marketing is the primary tool used by modern firms to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done well it can be the single business practice that could make or break a corporation. Any time spent on marketing will reap rewards, although spending this time efficiently can yield incredible results.
So where should you start when constructing a marketing strategy for your own business? Well, every situation is different, and every business 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 framework.
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 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 delicate balance of different aspects of business functions.
The term was later built upon to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the critical elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very clear for business managers and marketers to swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and effective marketing strategy. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Our organisation has grown to become a leader for website services after using tailored marketing concepts across our entire range of products.
Product
Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most critical of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your business will be offering, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you. If this part is not adequately managed then your company will find it hard to make it through.
Several people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical product that your company is selling. In fact, the typical train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to discover ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be 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 goods have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to identify the reasons why a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors’. The skill is called product differentiation and forms one of the basic skills of the product part of the marketing mix pie.
A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is generally used to either lengthen 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 different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to great effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace.
“Product is paramount” is one of the mottos applied within how to make chocolate firm which aims to emphasise to all staff that we expect top quality production.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of performing market research to figure out the top price that your customers would spend (although that can be a handy tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific goals your company has.
Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth noting 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 do not always consider the cheapest price to be the best value. Actually a price that is too low can often turn buyers away.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing plan, key amongst which are the price sensitivity of your customers, what your rivals are doing and how can pricing maximise your own profits. From a strategy point of view however, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and penetration pricing. These are outlined below.
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 prepared to spend a premium 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. Makers could set almost 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 monetary benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when used 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 earnings for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or carry out.
To optimise our website for google search marketing we selected large childrens bean bags for an aimed phrase since it relates to our company and what we offer.
Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that is often overlooked by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you provide your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when used correctly.
The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your production plants and shops and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and modify your distribution network accordingly.
With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques 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 an entire 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 mention the word “marketing”, most people immediately think of the promotional side 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 instrument, and whilst it can be an expensive undertaking it is often an essential one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will improve sales.
Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Classically it would be done by posting on billboards, producing short clips for TV and radio or by physically handing out flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. 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 front door.
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 choose 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 decision.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each business is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.
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