The First Steps Of Marketing
Almost every company on the planet sets out with the main 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.
Firstly, it is a very rare case where a company can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided by anyone else. This means that your company 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.
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. 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 single business practise that can make or break a company.
So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own business? Well, every situation is different, and each business will have its own set of strengths and flaws that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle that can be applied to almost any corporation to be used as a marketing framework. 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 a phrase that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. 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. It got its name because it is similar to the ingredients checklist for a recipe.
The term was later developed 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 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 create a tailored and effective marketing system. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Nearly every sector in the modern market is competitive, especially epoxy garage floor coating, in which good promotional judgements could mean the success or failure of the business.
Product
Whilst every aspect of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most crucial of all. It describes the physical product or intangible service that your company will be offering, 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 role 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 precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to discover ways to sell it, right?
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system and software application solutions in the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be very 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 more effective to look at what types of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to produce and sell them.
Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a vital 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 prolong the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many customers as possible.
The car 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 great effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace.
An example of one of the most recent forms of public advertising is this stockings and suspenders website which provides versatile and accessible means to reach potential consumers.
Price
Another key 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 determine the highest price that your customers would pay (although that can be a handy 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 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 do not always consider the cheapest price to be the best value.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, key among 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.
Price skimming
The principal idea driving 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 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. Manufacturers could set almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a company can help to smooth its own cash flow.
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 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. 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 bear 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.
SEO companies are more common these days and our business used one in order to have cooking times a notable key phrase for our web site so we can attract more shoppers.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often overlooked by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive 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 goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your production plants and retailers or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network accordingly. This is the principal use of this part of the marketing mix.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help distribute 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) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of potential customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, most people immediately think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, 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 boost 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 handing out 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 will not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but goes back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals. When all other parts of the marketing mix are equal it can be branding that swings a customer’s decision.
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 discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing strategy.
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