Practically every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of earning money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people 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 anyone else. This means that your business will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to make money from the same customers, who only want to spend their cash once.
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 influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, 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 benefits, although spending this time correctly can yield extraordinary outcomes.
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 advantages and weak points that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing platform.
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 strategy. It reflects 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 easy for company managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very quickly create a customised and efficient marketing strategy.
While we were planning the unveiling for our own custom printed balloons we applied ideas in the marketing mix to devise a strategy.
Product
Although every aspect 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 adequately managed then your organisation will find it hard to survive.
Many people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the actual product that your company is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite 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 always 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 solutions in 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 creating 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 desired in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development cycle you can prevent business dead-ends at a later stage.
Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer would 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 prolong the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your brand 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.
One of the most recent forms of promotional advertising is via websites, for example http://www.b-loony.com/ that offer versatile and accessible means to reach potential consumers.
Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix relates to the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of carrying out market research to determine the highest 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 specific objectives your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly substantial!
Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and likely 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 always consider the lowest price to be the best price.
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 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.
Price skimming
The main 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 willing 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 release 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 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 geared 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 risky strategy, but when used correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come. When establishing a price for penetration it is still critical to not give a poor impression of your product by aiming for too low a figure.
Yet another thing to bear 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 carry out. So it is even more essential to get your pricing strategy right.
To optimise our web site for search engine visibility we chose award sashes for an aimed key phrase because it relates to our company and what we offer.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you provide your product to your customer, and subsequently how you receive money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most common implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your production plants and retailers or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network appropriately.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective 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 channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers. Effective positioning of your product or service can therefore yield impressive economic results.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, many people instantly 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 employed on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, and whilst it may be an expensive undertaking it is often an essential one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will improve sales.
Advertising is one of the most typical 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 buyers. With the coming of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but goes back to one of the preliminary purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each business 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.
