Product, Price, Place & Promotion
Nearly every business on the planet sets out with the primary objective of making money. This is usually done by producing 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 anybody else. This means that your enterprise will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to earn money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their money once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the primary 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 affected by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done well it can be the single business practise that can make or break a company. Any time spent on marketing will reap benefits, although spending this time efficiently can yield extraordinary outcomes.
So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every company will have its own set of strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing framework.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix was a phrase that was first coined in the 1950′s and is an expression that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business functions. It got its name because it is similar to the ingredients list for a recipe.
The term was later developed 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 business managers and marketers to swiftly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very quickly form a tailored and effective marketing strategy.
Almost every segment in the modern marketplace is competitive, particularly Nottingham chiropractor, in which proper marketing judgements can mean the success or failure of the business.
Product
Whilst every aspect of the marketing mix is a necessity, 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 offering, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you. If this part 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 typical 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 task of the marketing department to find 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 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”.
Rather than developing an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what types of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to manufacture and sell them.
Once your goods have been fashioned and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons why 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 extend the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many customers as possible. 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 products in an extremely competitive marketplace.
To maintain a standard corporate image a company ought to update their own portal an example would be how to make curry that echo colourings, fonts and also graphics associated with their own branding.
Price
Another important 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 highest price that your customers would pay (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 particular objectives your company has.
Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out 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 don’t constantly consider the lowest price to be the best value.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing plan, key amongst 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 also penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The principal idea behind 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 large amount of money to get a product or service early on.
This pricing strategy 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 nearly any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal base 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 earned long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can setup 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 earnings for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.
To optimise our website for Google search marketing we chose buy childrens bean bags for a targeted key phrase since it relates to our business and what we offer.
Place
Place is the component of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it’s still a significant 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 fantastic marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your manufacturing plants and shops and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network appropriately. This is the main application of this element of the marketing mix.
With the growing 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 point of contact (or even as a whole distribution channel 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 instantly 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 used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, and whilst it can be an expensive undertaking it is often an important one.
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 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 functions of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practise
As previously mentioned each business is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing strategy.
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