Almost every business on the planet sets out with the main objective of earning money. This is usually 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 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.
Marketing is the primary tool used by modern businesses to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very extensive topic that is affected by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that could make or break a corporation. Any time spent on marketing will reap rewards, although spending this time efficiently can yield extraordinary outcomes.
So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and each company will have its own set of strengths 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 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 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 operations. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients checklist 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 quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly form a personalised and efficient marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
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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 company 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 correctly managed then your organisation will find it hard to make it through.
Many people don’t think that marketing has any place 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 precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right?
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 since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how could the principles of the marketing mix help 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 feasible it would be to produce and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development cycle you can avoid business dead-ends at a later time.
Once your goods have been fashioned and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to identify the reasons why a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’.
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 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 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. Although these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
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Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This is not a simple case of carrying out market research to figure out the highest price that your customers would pay (although that can be a handy tool to use), but rather making use of the price of your products as a strategic tool designed to achieve any particular objectives your company has.
Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and likely 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 constantly consider the lowest price to be the best price. In fact a price that is too low can sometimes turn buyers away.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing strategy, key among which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your rivals 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 penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The principal 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 prepared to spend a premium amount of money to get a product or service early on. Not only can this approach deliver excellent financial advantages, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your product.
This pricing strategy 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. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own money flow.
Penetration pricing
Penetration pricing is at the opposite end of the pricing spectrum, and is tailored towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be earned long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when used 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 undertake. So it is even more vital to get your pricing strategy right.
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Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that is often disregarded by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing technique when applied correctly.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your production plants 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 alter your distribution network accordingly. This is the principal application of this part of the marketing mix.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques have had to consider how they use the Internet to help deliver 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 huge pool of possible customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, many people immediately think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be employed on a very individual basis or as a mass communication instrument, and whilst it might be a costly undertaking it is often an essential one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will increase 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 handing out flyers or leaflets to potential customers. With the coming 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.
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 every company is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.