Almost every business on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging customers money for it.
First of all, it is a very rare case that a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied by anybody else. This means that your enterprise 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 money once.
Marketing is the main tool used by modern firms to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practise that can make or break a corporation.
So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own business? Well, each situation is different, and each industry 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 in 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 technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business operations. It got its name because 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 clear for company managers and marketers to swiftly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly form a customised and effective marketing system.
Our organisation has risen to become a forerunner in back pain treatment Ruddington since using customised marketing and advertising ideas across our entire range of products.
Product
Whilst every aspect of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most crucial of all. It describes the physical product or intangible service that your company will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you. If this element is not correctly managed then your company will find it hard to survive.
Many people do not think that marketing has any role 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 opposite way around - your production department creates an item for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find 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 on the marketplace 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 help in this circumstance?
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft or 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 produce 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 time.
Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’.
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 customers as possible.
The motor industry uses this technique 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 goods in an extremely competitive marketplace.
With the rise of the Internet and e-commerce companies see their sitesincluding lace tablecloths could be utilised for a direct sales channel and distribution network.
Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This is not 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 making use of the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific objectives your business has.
Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the crucial factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the cheapest price to be the best value.
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 though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.
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 are going to be willing to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on.
This pricing technique 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. 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 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 risky strategy, but when employed correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come.
Yet another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the one 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.
Following using on-line tools to compare key phrase search popularity we identified list of the best songs to direct our strategy for on-line promotion as well as off-line advertising materials.
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 successfully. In short, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive money from them.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your production centres and retailers or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network accordingly.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing strategies 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 route in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers. Effective placing of your product or service can therefore yield impressive financial results.
Promotion
When you say 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 a costly undertaking it is often an essential one.
Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Typically 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 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 great.
Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial functions 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 swings a customer’s decision.
Putting it into Practise
As previously mentioned each business is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a balance of the four P’s discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing strategy.