13 April – up to here Anyone who studied marketing and got their degrees years ago, would relate to having been taught that there were 4 P’s in the marketing mix that were ultra important and that all had to be taken into consideration as a package deal so to speak.
These were always :
- Product
- Place
- Price
- Promotion
So in a nutshell, you had to have the right product in the right place at the right time, at the right price and promote it effectively and you would have the perfect mix.
Marketing is a business function that identifies consumer needs, determines target markets and applies products and services to serve these markets. It also involves promoting such products and services within the marketplace. Marketing is integral to the success of a business, large or small, with its primary focus on quality, consumer value and customer satisfaction.
The way in which we do business has evolved (fortunately) and the way in which we market our businesses has also evolved (fortunately too). Thus there are in fact seven main aspects that need to be taken into consideration for the perfect marketing mix :
- Product
- Place
- Price
- Promotion
- People
- Process
- Physical evidence
Product
There are so many products and services out there to satisfy every want, need and desire imaginable. This means that companies need to work so much harder at making their products or services stand out from the crowd. This involves
- Design
- Technology
- Usefulness / Features
- Convenience
- Value
- Quality
- Packaging
- Branding / Image
- Accessories
- Warranties
Place
Having your products or services in the right place means that you need to be offering your clients easy access to your products or services through :
- Retail
- Wholesale
- Mail order
- Internet
- Direct sales
- Peer to peer
- Multi-channel
Price
At first glance, pricing seems to be a simple function. However, when deciding on a price for your product you need to consider the following :
- Positioning
- Discounts
- Credit
- Payment methods
- Free or value-add elements
- Penetration
- Competition
Promotion
So having a product to sell or a service to offer is all good, but if you don’t promote it and get people talking about it and interested in it, your products won’t get off the shelves and your services will be useless. Thus good promotion involves :
- Advertising
- Special offers
- Endorsements
- User trials
- Free gifts
- Competitions
- Joint ventures
- Public relations
People
Interestingly people do business with people, they do not do business with companies. Therefore having the right people to represent your organisation is key :
- Employees
- Management
- Customer service
- Culture
Process
Effective business process is what drives a successful organisation. This involves having great IT systems that are customer focused and business led :
- Research and development
- IT
- Customer focused
- Management leaders
Physical Evidence
From a business perspective, all the above is just great but if you have no absolute physical evidence to both the business in terms of how well your products are selling and to your clients in terms of supporting your claim to them needing to purchase your products or services, then you basically should shut your doors. It’s so important for you to know your business inside out and that means knowing your clients through :
- Customer relationship building
- Great sales force
- Accounting systems (supported by IT)
- Financial control
When next you look at your own organisations marketing mix, make sure that you consider all 7 of the P’s.
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