Tempers Fuggit

Practically 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 theory 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 genuinely unique and cannot be supplied by anyone else. This means that your business will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to make money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once.

Marketing is the primary tool used by modern firms to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practise that can make or break a company.

So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and each company 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 known as the “Marketing Mix”.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a phrase that was first coined during the 1950’s and is a phrase 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 tool, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business operations.

The term was later built upon to include the idea of “four P’s” that described the critical 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 form a tailored and efficient marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Almost every segment in the modern marketplace is competitive, especially Nottingham chiropractor, in which proper promotional decisions could mean the success or failure of the company.

Product

Whilst 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 describes the physical product or intangible service that your business will be offering, 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 adequately managed then your organisation will find it hard to make it through.

Many people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the actual product that your business is selling. In fact, the typical train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing 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 established brands of both operating system and software application products on the market already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly 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 and Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what types of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to produce and sell them.

Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively review your own products to identify the reasons why a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is generally used to either lengthen 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 incredibly competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all companies.

One quick and easy method to recognise numerous producers of mod clothing that perform marketing effectively is to simply think of brand names connected to a certain market.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of performing market research to determine the top 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 weapon designed to achieve any specific goals your company has.

Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and likely 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 lowest price to be the best price. In fact a price that is too low can often turn buyers 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 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 principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the segment 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.

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. 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 opposite end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come. When setting a price for penetration it is still important to not give a bad impression of your product by aiming for too low a figure.

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 produce or carry out. So it is even more vital to get your pricing technique right.

Our company has tweaked its company website so pork cooking shows up more frequently and more people can find us through search engines.

Place

Place is the component of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the method in which you provide your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive money from them.

The most common ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing plants and shops or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and adapt your distribution network accordingly. This is the main application of this part of the marketing mix.

With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing methods 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 an entire distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge 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 essential one.

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 arrival of the information age we have witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door.

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial functions of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals. When all other parts of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that swings a customer’s choice.

Putting it into Practise

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

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