iCan Marketing

Nearly every business on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is usually done by producing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.

First of all, it is a very rare case where a business can offer a product or service that is genuinely unique and cannot be provided 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 make 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 main tool used by modern organisations to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the single business practice that can make or break a company.

So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every industry will have its own set of strengths and flaws 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 platform. It is called the “Marketing Mix”.

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 express 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 subtle 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 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 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 quickly form a personalised and efficient marketing system.

Our organisation created a promotional strategy for our balloon arch products by using this marketing and advertising mix to identify our marketing strengths.

Product

Although every aspect of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most crucial of all. It identifies 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.

Several people do not think that marketing has any place 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 precise 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 and software application products on the market already, and since the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.

Rather than creating an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on 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 viable it would be to produce and sell them. By being aware of the marketing mix early on in your product development period 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 why a customer would 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 prolong the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many customers as possible. Again, this method can be applied at all stages of product development.

The car industry uses this technique very effectively by offering different 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.

We do not have a defined birthday sashes promotion division in our company though many of our own managers have been able to take up marketing as part of their job function.

Price

Another important factor in the marketing mix relates to 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 handy tool to use), but rather making use of 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 noting that price has always been, and probably 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 value. Actually a price that is too low can sometimes turn buyers away.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing strategy, key amongst which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing boost your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing. These are outlined below.

Price skimming

The principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and will be willing to spend a large amount of money to get a product or service early on. Not only can this approach deliver excellent economic benefits, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your item.

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 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 tailored towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be earned long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when employed correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come.

Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.

Before our corporation started researching on-line promotion hand waver did not seem to be the obvious choice of key phrase to use as our primary target.

Place

Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often overlooked by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you deliver your product to your customer, and subsequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when applied correctly.

The most common ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing centres and shops and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network accordingly. This is the primary application of this element of the marketing mix.

With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to consider how they use the Internet to help distribute 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) firms are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers.

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 used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication instrument, and whilst it might be an expensive undertaking it is often an essential one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will boost sales.

Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Classically it would be done by posting on billboards, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing 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 just as targeted advertising material posted through your front door.

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your competitors. When all other pieces of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that sways a customer’s choice.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned every company is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.