Almost every business 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 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 primary tool used by modern organisations 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 practise that can make or break a corporation.
So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every business 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 platform.
The Marketing Mix
The marketing mix was a term that was first coined in the 1950′s and is a phrase that is used to express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business functions.
The term was later developed 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 easy for company managers and marketers to quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a personalised and effective marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Our company has risen to be a leader for Nottingham commercial floor cleaning after employing tailored marketing and advertising concepts across our complete range of products.
Product
Although every element 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.
Many people don’t think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the actual product that your company is selling. In fact, the typical 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?
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the marketplace already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how can the principles of the marketing mix assist in this situation?
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 far 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 stage.
Once your products have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively review 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 called product variation and is typically used to either lengthen the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many consumers as possible. Again, this technique can be applied at all stages of product development.
The motor industry uses this technique very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all businesses.
With the rise of the Internet and ecommerce businesses see their sites, for instance lace tablecloths may be used for a direct sales channel and distribution network.
Price
Another important 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.
Whilst it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out 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 constantly consider the cheapest price to be the best price.
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 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. These are outlined below.
Price skimming
The main idea behind price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and will be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this approach deliver excellent economic advantages, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your product.
This pricing strategy 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 almost 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 create revenue streams for many years to come.
Yet another thing to bear 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 create or undertake.
After using on-line tools to compare key word lookup popularity we identified helium balloons wholesale to direct the campaign for online promotion as well as off-line marketing materials.
Place
Place is the component of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it’s 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 consequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most common implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your production plants and shops and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network accordingly.
With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing strategies 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 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 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 instrument, and whilst it can be a costly undertaking it is often an essential one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a specific message that will boost sales.
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 distributing 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 simply as targeted advertising material posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so good.
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 pick your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practise
As previously mentioned each company is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.