Almost every company on the planet sets out with the main 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.
Firstly, it is a very rare case where a business can offer a product or service that is genuinely unique and cannot be provided by anybody else. This means that your business will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the primary tool used by modern organisations to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done well it can be the single business practise that could make or break a company. Any time spent on marketing will reap benefits, although spending this time efficiently can yield incredible outcomes.
So where should you begin when constructing 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 corporation to be used as a marketing framework.
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 demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business operations. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients list 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 clear 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 quickly form a customised and efficient marketing system.
There are several income avenues for floor prep and coatings so our company used marketing ideas to open new routes to our customers.
Product
Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most critical of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your business will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you.
Many people don’t 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 exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your production department creates a product for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.
Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application solutions in the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how could 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 and Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what sorts 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 designed and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to identify the reasons why a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’. The technique is called product differentiation and forms one of the basic skills of the product part of the marketing mix pie.
Another form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is typically used to either extend 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 products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all companies.
We do not have a distinct marketing team within our own how to make icing service although many of our own administrators have been able to take up marketing as part of their work function.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This is not a simple case of carrying out market research to determine the top price that your customers would spend (although that can be a useful tool to use), but rather making use of the price of your products as a strategic tool designed to achieve any particular goals your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly large!
Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out that price has always been, and probably 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 price. Actually a price that is too low can sometimes 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 also penetration pricing. These are outlined below.
Price skimming
The main idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a premium amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this technique deliver excellent economic advantages, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your item.
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 nearly 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 tailored towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary 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 setting a price for penetration it is still important to not give a poor impression of your product by aiming for too low a number.
Yet another thing to keep 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 carry out. So it is even more essential to get your pricing strategy right.
To optimise our website for Google search visibility we selected buy childrens bean bags for a targeted phrase since it relates to our business and what we do.
Place
Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often disregarded 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 customer, and subsequently how you collect money from them.
The most common implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your products are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing plants and retailers and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and adjust your distribution network appropriately. This is the main use of this part of the marketing mix.
With the growing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing strategies have had to consider 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 route in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of possible customers. Effective placing of your product or service can therefore yield impressive financial results.
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 merely one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be used 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 specific 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 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 just 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 may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial functions of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your competitors.
Putting it into Practise
As previously mentioned every business is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.
