Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is usually done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging customers money for it.
Firstly, it is a very rare case where a company can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied 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 earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is affected 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. Any time spent on marketing will reap benefits, although spending this time efficiently can yield incredible outcomes.
So where should you start 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 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 an expression that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a delicate balance of different elements 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 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 business managers and marketers to swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very quickly create a customised and effective marketing strategy.
Our business already sells a prosperous collection of wheelchair hoist products yet we still use new promotional suggestions to improve our sales numbers.
Product
Although every element 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 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 customers are going to spend money with you.
Many people do not think that marketing has any place 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 precise 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?
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the marketplace already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be 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. By being aware of the marketing mix early on in your product development period you can avoid business dead-ends at a later stage.
Once your products have been fashioned and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively review your own products to recognise the reasons that 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 already in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many consumers as possible. Again, this method can be applied at all stages of product development.
The motor industry uses this technique very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all businesses.
With the rise of the Internet and ecommerce companies find that their sites such as www.horsegamesforgirls.net might be utilised as a direct sales channel and distribution system.
Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of performing market research to determine the top price that your customers would pay (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 objectives your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing plan are surprisingly large!
Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the crucial 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 value.
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 customers, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing boost your own profits. From a strategy point of view however, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and penetration pricing. These are outlined below.
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 willing to spend a large amount of money to get a product or service early on.
This pricing technique is frequently 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 nearly 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 geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial rewards 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. When setting a price for penetration it is still essential to not give a poor impression of your product by aiming for too low a figure.
Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate revenue for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to create or undertake.
SEO firms are more common nowadays and our company employed one in order to make cooking times a dominant phrase for our web site so we can attract more shoppers.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that’s often overlooked by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product successfully. In short, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your customer, and subsequently how you receive money from them.
The most typical ramifications 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 network between your production plants and shops or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to identify your own priorities and adapt your distribution network accordingly.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing methods have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a point 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. Effective positioning of your product or service can therefore deliver impressive financial results.
Promotion
When you mention the word “marketing”, most people immediately 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 may be a costly undertaking it is often an important one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will boost sales.
Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Classically 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 material posted through your door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so good.
Another important 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 rivals. When all other pieces of the marketing mix are equal it can be branding that swings a customer’s choice.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each company is different 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.
Related posts:
- Business Strategy: Marketing Practically every company on the planet sets out with the...
- The Fundamentals Of Marketing Nearly every business on the planet sets out with the...
- The First Steps Of Marketing Almost every business on the planet sets out with the...
- The Fundamentals Of Marketing Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the...
- channel marketing, viral marketing & mobile marketing traffic Those companies such as la accountants & accounting firms in...