Social Media Man

Almost every company 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. This fundamental principle is fairly straight-forward, although it contains many specific details.

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 product and you will both be trying to earn money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you boost the chances of them spending money with you?

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 broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done well it can be the one business practice that can make or break a company.

So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every business will have its own set of advantages and weak points 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 platform. It is known as 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 describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business operations.

The term was later developed 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 quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly create a tailored and efficient marketing plan. The four P’s are; Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Our organisation created a marketing plan for our own sashes by making use of the marketing mix to identify our marketing strengths.

Product

Although every element 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 selling, 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 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?

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products in 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 or Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what sorts of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to produce and sell them.

Once your products have been fashioned and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to identify 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 typically used to either extend the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many customers as possible.

The motor industry uses this approach 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. Whilst these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.

One of the newest forms of promotional marketing is through websites which provide 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 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 specific objectives your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly large!

Whilst 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 shoppers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the lowest price to be the best value.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when 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 however, 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 money as possible from the sector 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 launch 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 base of customers that would pay it. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own cash flow.

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 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.

Another thing to bear 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 produce or carry out. So it is even more vital to get your pricing strategy right.

When marketing your corporate website it’s important to choose a suitable key phrase. Custom printed flag fitted our organisation the best and we have made the appropriate marketing changes.

Place

Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it is 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 receive money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when applied appropriately.

The most typical implications 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 crucial to identify your own priorities and adapt your distribution network appropriately. This is the main use of this element of the marketing mix.

With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing strategies have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a point 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 large pool of possible customers.

Promotion

When you mention the word “marketing”, many people immediately think of the promotional aspect 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 may be a costly undertaking it is often an essential one.

Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Classically 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 witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising material posted through your door.

Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but goes back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your rivals.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned each business is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a mixture of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.