Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.
Firstly, 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 enterprise 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 cash once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done well it can be the one business practice 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 every industry will have its own set of strengths and weak points 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.
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 system. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business functions.
The term was later developed to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very clear for business managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and efficient marketing plan.
There are multiple income channels for planning consultancy products so our business used marketing ideas to open new paths to our buyers.
Product
Whilst every aspect of the marketing mix is a necessity, 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.
Several people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the physical product that your company is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your manufacturing department creates an item for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the market already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be more effective to look at what sorts of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them.
Once your goods have been fashioned 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.
A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called 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. Again, this method can be applied at all stages of product development.
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 good effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
One quick and simple method to recognise several companies who perform marketing effectively is to simply think of brand names related to a certain market.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of performing market research to figure out the highest price that your customers would spend (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 targets your company has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly substantial!
Although it may seem obvious, it is 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 constantly consider the lowest price to be the best value.
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 maximise 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 principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be willing to spend a premium amount of money to get a product or service early on.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics industry 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 other 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 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. When setting a price for penetration it is still essential to not give a poor 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 income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.
After using on-line tools to compare key phrase lookup popularity we identified schizandra plus to lead our campaign for on-line promotion as well as off-line advertising materials.
Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, 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 fantastic marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your production centres and retailers or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and modify your distribution network appropriately.
With the increasing 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 a whole distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of possible customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, many people immediately 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 an expensive 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, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically handing out flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. With the coming of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising material posted through your door.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the preliminary purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned every company is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.
Modern Marketing
Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.
Firstly, 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 enterprise 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 cash once. So how can you increase the chances of them spending money with you?
Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external factors, but when done well it can be the one business practice 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 every industry will have its own set of strengths and weak points 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.
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 system. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business functions.
The term was later developed to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very clear for business managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and efficient marketing plan.
There are multiple income channels for planning consultancy products so our business used marketing ideas to open new paths to our buyers.
Product
Whilst every aspect of the marketing mix is a necessity, 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.
Several people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the physical product that your company is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your manufacturing department creates an item for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the market already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.
Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be more effective to look at what sorts of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them.
Once your goods have been fashioned 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.
A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called 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. Again, this method can be applied at all stages of product development.
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 good effect to sell their own products in an extremely competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.
One quick and simple method to recognise several companies who perform marketing effectively is to simply think of brand names related to a certain market.
Price
Another important factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of performing market research to figure out the highest price that your customers would spend (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 targets your company has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly substantial!
Although it may seem obvious, it is 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 constantly consider the lowest price to be the best value.
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 maximise 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 principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be willing to spend a premium amount of money to get a product or service early on.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics industry 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 other 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 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. When setting a price for penetration it is still essential to not give a poor 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 income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.
After using on-line tools to compare key phrase lookup popularity we identified schizandra plus to lead our campaign for on-line promotion as well as off-line advertising materials.
Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In a nutshell, 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 fantastic marketing approach when applied correctly.
The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution infrastructure between your production centres and retailers or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and modify your distribution network appropriately.
With the increasing 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 a whole distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of possible customers.
Promotion
When you say the word “marketing”, many people immediately 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 an expensive 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, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically handing out flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. With the coming of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising material posted through your door.
Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the preliminary purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned every company is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing plan.