Nearly 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.
First of all, it is a very rare case where a company can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied by anyone else. This means that your enterprise will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to make money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern firms to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive topic that is affected 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 business? Well, each situation is different, and each business will have its own set of strengths and flaws that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule 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 during the 1950’s and is an expression that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate balance of different elements of business functions. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients checklist for a recipe.
The term was later built upon 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 easy for company managers and marketers to quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a customised and effective marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Our organisation has risen to become a leader for conference production services since employing customised marketing and advertising concepts across our entire range of products. To see our website click here.
Product
Although every aspect of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most critical of all. It describes 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 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 exact 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?
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application solutions on the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how can the principles of the marketing mix assist in this circumstance?
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft or 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.
Once your products have been designed and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively review your own products to identify the reasons that a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’.
Another form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is typically used to either lengthen the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many customers 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 various engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they sell. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own goods in an extremely competitive marketplace.
As part of our own promotion method, our business carefully researched what exactly made our products stand out from the masses.
We do not have a defined marketing department in our conference production firm though many of our own administrators have been able to take up marketing as part of their job function.
Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix relates to 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 tool designed to achieve any specific targets your company has.
Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth noting 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 do not always consider the lowest price to be the best price. Actually a price that is too low can sometimes turn customers away.
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 clients, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing maximise your own profits. From a strategy point of view however, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.
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. Not only can this approach deliver great economic benefits, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your item.
This pricing technique is very often used in the consumer electronics market where customers will often eagerly await the release 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. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a company can help to smooth its own cash 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 rewards can be earned 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. When setting a price for penetration it is still important 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 one 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 create or undertake.
After using on-line tools to compare key phrase search frequency we identified chicken cooking to guide our strategy for on-line promotion as well as off-line marketing materials.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it’s still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your customer, and subsequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing technique 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 involves the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing plants and retailers or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and adapt your distribution network accordingly.
With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a place of contact (or even as an entire distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a large pool of possible customers. Effective positioning of your product or service can therefore deliver impressive economic results.
Promotion
When you mention the word “marketing”, many people instantly think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely 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 important one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will boost sales.
Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Classically 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 witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising material posted through your front door.
Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your competitors. 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 every company is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a balance of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.
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