Almost every company on the planet sets out with the primary objective of making money. This is generally done by producing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it. This fundamental theory is fairly straight-forward, although it contains many intricate details.
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 supplied by anybody else. This means that your company will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their money once.
Marketing is the main tool used by modern firms to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive topic that is affected by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that can make or break a corporation.
So where should you start when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every industry will have its own set of advantages and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any corporation 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 a phrase 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 tool, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business operations.
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 swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly form a tailored and effective marketing strategy. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Our company has risen to be a forerunner in conference production services after using tailored marketing ideas across our complete range of products. To see our website click here.
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 critical 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. If this element is not correctly managed then your organisation will find it hard to make it through.
Many people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical 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 other way around - your manufacturing department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application products in the market already, and since the market is relatively well saturated it would be very 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 sought after in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture 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 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 would buy your product rather than a competitors’. The skill is called product differentiation and forms one of the fundamental skills of the product part of the marketing mix cake.
A different 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 already in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.
The motor industry uses this approach very effectively by offering various 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 companies.
As part of our own marketing plan, our business very carefully studied exactly what made our goods stand out from the masses.
We do not have a defined marketing team within our conference production firm although several of our own managers have been able to take up marketing as part of their work role.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix relates to the price of your products or services. This is not a simple case of carrying out market research to figure out 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 goals your company has.
Whilst it may seem obvious, it’s still worth noting that price has always been, and likely always will be, one of the crucial factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t constantly consider the cheapest price to be the best price. Actually a price that is too low can often turn customers away.
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 customers, 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 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 premium amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this technique yield great economic benefits, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your item.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the launch of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Manufacturers 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 monetary benefits can be earned 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. When establishing a price for penetration it is still important to not give a bad impression of your product by aiming for too low a number.
Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only 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 undertake.
“Product is paramount” is one of the main slogans applied in our buying sunny plants firm which aims to emphasise to all staff that we expect top quality production.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you provide your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you receive money from them.
The most typical 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 production centres and retailers and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and adapt your distribution network appropriately. This is the main use of this part 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 place of contact (or even as a complete distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a large pool of potential customers.
Promotion
When you mention the word “marketing”, most people immediately think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only 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 may be a costly undertaking it is often an essential one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will improve sales.
Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, producing short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. With the coming of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising materials 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 goes back to one of the initial functions of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your competitors.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each company is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing strategy.