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 customers money for it.

Firstly, it is a very rare case that a company can offer a product or service that is truly 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 make money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money 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 prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the single business practice that could make or break a company. Any time spent on marketing will reap benefits, although spending this time correctly can yield extraordinary results.

So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own business? Well, every situation is different, and every business will have its own set of advantages and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle 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 express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate 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 easy for company managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly create a tailored and effective marketing plan.

Our company specialises at offering drama lesson plans and although we all believed our marketing plan was adequate we have seen improvements since using marketing mix concepts.

Product

Although 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 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.

Several people do not think that marketing has any role 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 production 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.

Consider 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 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 help in this circumstance?

Rather than developing an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to take on 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 viable it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development cycle you can prevent business dead-ends at a later time.

Once your products 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’.

Another form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is generally used to either prolong the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your 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 great effect to sell their own goods in an extremely competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.

Marketing plays a crucial function within our DVD for children business strategy and shouldn’t get treated like an afterthought.

Price

Another key 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 figure out the top price that your customers would pay (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 objectives your business has.

Whilst it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out that price has always been, and likely always will be, one of the key factors that shoppers 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 while devising a good pricing strategy, key among which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your rivals are doing and how can pricing maximise your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.

Price skimming

The main idea driving price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this technique yield great financial benefits, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your product.

This pricing technique 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 base of customers that would pay it. By using this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own money 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 earned 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.

Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the one 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 produce or undertake. So it is even more vital to get your pricing strategy right.

Our company wanted to appeal to a wider market and focusing on become a singer helped increase our profile in the international business community.

Place

Place is the portion of the marketing mix that’s often disregarded by companies, but it’s still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your customer, and subsequently how you receive money from them.

The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your production plants and shops and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and alter your distribution network appropriately. This is the main use of this part of the marketing mix.

With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing strategies 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 whole distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a large pool of potential customers.

Promotion

When you mention 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 employed on a very individual basis or as a mass communication instrument, and whilst it can 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, producing 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 witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door.

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

Putting it into Practice

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