Almost every business on the planet sets out with the main objective of earning money. This is usually 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 company can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided 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 earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once.
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done right it can be the one business practice that can make or break a company.
So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own business? Well, each situation is different, and every company will have its own set of strengths 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.
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 express 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 aspects 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 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 company managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a personalised and efficient marketing strategy.
Marketing is a global business idea and may be applied to balloon gas as well as any number of different products and services.
Product
Whilst 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 identifies the physical product or intangible service that your business 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 organisation will find it hard to survive.
Several people do not think that marketing has any role 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 manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application solutions on the marketplace already, and since the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.
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 types of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to produce and sell them. By being aware of the marketing mix early on in your product development period you can avoid business dead-ends at a later time.
Once your products have been designed 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 known as product variation and is typically used to either extend the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many customers as possible. Again, this method 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 great effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
As part of our individual marketing strategy, our hand flag team very carefully researched exactly what made our products stand out from the crowd.
Price
Another key 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 making use of the price of your products as a strategic tool designed to achieve any specific goals your business has.
Whilst it may seem obvious, it is 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 always consider the cheapest price to be the best value. Actually a price that is too low can often turn customers away.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, key amongst which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your rivals 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 main idea driving price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and will be willing to spend a premium amount of money to receive a product or service early on.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics market 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 geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary rewards can be made long into the future. It can be a high risk 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 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 undertake.
Grabbing any of the on-line search market is very beneficial, so choose a phrase, such as printed sashs, and consider if the phrase has an ample search market for your purposes.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often disregarded by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your customer, and subsequently how you collect money from them.
The most typical ramifications 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 manufacturing plants and retailers and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and alter your distribution network appropriately. This is the main application of this element of the marketing mix.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques 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 an entire distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of potential customers.
Promotion
When you mention the word “marketing”, many people immediately 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 instrument, and whilst it might be an expensive undertaking it is often an important one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will increase sales.
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 distributing flyers or leaflets to potential customers. 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. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the preliminary purposes of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned every business is different 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 plan.
