Super Fitness Health BlogModern Marketing
Practically every company on the planet sets out with the primary 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. This fundamental principle is fairly straight-forward, though it contains many specific details.
Firstly, it is a very rare case that a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied by anyone else. This means that your company 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 cash once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern firms to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done right it can be the single business practice that could make or break a corporation. Any time spent on marketing will reap benefits, although spending this time efficiently can yield extraordinary outcomes.
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 advantages 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 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 technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business functions.
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 swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly form a tailored and efficient marketing strategy.
Our company specialises at supplying car mobility aid and while we believed our marketing strategy was adequate we have seen improvements since 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 crucial 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 buyers 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 precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your production department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to discover ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application solutions in the market already, and since the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how can the principles of the marketing mix assist in this circumstance?
Rather than developing an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft or 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 manufacture and sell them.
Once your goods have been fashioned and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively review your own products to identify the reasons why a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors’.
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 currently in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many customers as possible.
The car 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. Whilst these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
We do not have a defined promotion department in our own xbox 360 steering wheel and pedals operation though many of our administrators have been able to take up marketing as part of their job role.
Price
Another important 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 determine the top price that your customers would spend (although that can be a useful tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic tool designed to achieve any specific targets your company 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 don’t always consider the lowest price to be the best price.
There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing strategy, 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 however, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The main idea behind price skimming is to make as much money 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. Not only can this technique yield great economic advantages, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your product.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics market 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 using 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 tailored 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 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.
Our company has modified its business website so pork cooking shows up more frequently so more people can locate us via 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 a nutshell, it describes the way in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing technique when used appropriately.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your manufacturing plants and shops or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and adjust your distribution network accordingly.
With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective 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 point 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. Effective placing of your product or service can therefore yield impressive financial results.
Promotion
When you mention the word “marketing”, most people instantly think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely one branch of a more comprehensive system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, and whilst it may be an expensive undertaking it is often an important one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a particular message that will improve sales.
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 customers. 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 material posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but goes back to one of the preliminary functions of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned every business is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a mixture of the four P’s reviewed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing strategy.
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