9.01 – The Marketing Mix
Successful promotion starts with knowing exactly what you want your audience to do. The marketing mix consists of several elements that can significantly impact your business’s success. Here are the key components to consider:
Place
This encompasses everything from your business location to how you distribute your product or service. Effective placement ensures your product is available where and when customers need it.
Pricing Strategies
Pricing can vary from premium pricing to covering just the marginal cost. Knowing your costs is crucial, but pricing should also consider market conditions, competition, and product positioning. For instance, luxury items require different pricing strategies compared to essential goods.
Product or Service
While customers use products, what they buy are the benefits these products offer. For example, camera buyers focus on capturing great pictures rather than the camera’s features like lens type or film format.
Promotion
Promotion involves all activities that inform potential customers about your products or services. This includes your website, brochures, advertising, business cards, and letterheads.
People
Often, the difference between companies offering similar products is the quality of their personnel. Knowledgeable, helpful, and attentive staff are assets, while untrained and unfriendly ones are liabilities.
Process
The process involves how customers experience your product or service. Poor process management includes complicated ordering systems, unhelpful return policies, and non-mobile-optimized websites.
Physical Evidence
This includes tangible elements that support your marketing proposition. For retail businesses, physical evidence is crucial. For instance, a children’s play area is a positive feature for McDonald’s but not for an accounting firm.
The term “marketing mix” refers to the array of tools available to capture business in your chosen market. Originating from the late 1940s and formalized by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960, the marketing mix initially included the Four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place.
Over time, this mix has expanded to include more subtle elements. Today, marketing professionals generally accept the Seven Ps, adding people, process, and physical evidence to the original mix.
Just like cooking, using the same ingredients in different proportions can result in various outcomes. Adjusting these marketing elements can tailor your offering to meet specific market segments’ needs.
To succeed in any marketplace, it’s essential to have a clear vision and mission. Effective marketing requires decisions about product range and depth before entering the market. For instance, if opening a corner shop, decide whether to focus solely on food or also carry household items, newspapers, and flowers. Additionally, determine whether to stock multiple brands and sizes of each product.
If the key advantages of your corner shop are location, extended hours, delivery service, and friendly staff at competitive prices, a wide or deep product range may not be necessary.
