Practically every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is usually done by producing 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 genuinely unique and cannot be supplied by anyone else. This means that your business will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to make money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their money once.

Marketing is the main tool used by modern organisations to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done well it can be the one business practice that could make or break a corporation.

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

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a term that was first coined in the 1950’s and is an expression that is used to express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business functions.

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 easy 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 tailored and efficient marketing plan.

Our organisation excels at offeringconference production services and while we all believed our marketing strategy was adequate we have seen advancements after using marketing mix ideas.

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 critical of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your company will be offering, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you. If this part is not adequately managed then your organisation will find it hard to survive.

Many people don’t think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the physical 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 other 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?

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application solutions on the marketplace already, and since the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly 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 and Apple, it would be far 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.

Once your products 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’. The technique is called product differentiation and is one of the fundamental skills of the product part of the marketing mix cake.

Another form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is typically used to either lengthen the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.

The motor 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 goods in an extremely competitive marketplace.

As part of our individual marketing method, our business thoroughly studied what exactly made our products stand out from the crowd.

“Product is paramount” is one of the main slogans applied in our event management business which aims to remind all employees that we expect high quality manufacturing.

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 highest price that your customers would spend (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 targets your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing plan are surprisingly substantial!

Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out that price has always been, and likely 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 do not constantly consider the lowest price to be the best price. In fact a price that is too low can sometimes turn buyers 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 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 primary principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.

Price skimming

The main idea behind price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this approach yield great financial advantages, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your product.

This pricing technique 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. Makers could set almost 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 opposite 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 risky strategy, but when employed correctly it can setup revenue streams for many years to come.

Another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the only 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.

An example of one of the newest forms of public advertising is this stockings and suspenders website which offers flexible and accessible means to target potential consumers.

Place

Place is the portion of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and consequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when used correctly.

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 country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network appropriately. This is the principal use of this element of the marketing mix.

With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective 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 say the word “marketing”, most people instantly think of the promotional aspect of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only 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 can be a costly undertaking it is often an important one.

Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Classically it would be done by posting on billboards, producing 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 seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.

Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which will 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 competitors.

Putting it into Practice

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