The First Steps Of Marketing

Almost every business on the planet sets out with the main objective of making 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 where a company can offer a product or service that is genuinely unique and cannot be provided by anyone else. This means that your enterprise will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once. Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great deal of internal and external factors, 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 correctly can yield extraordinary outcomes. So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every company will have its own set of strengths 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 platform. It is called the “Marketing Mix”. 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 strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business functions. It got its name since it is similar to the ingredients checklist 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 easy for business managers and marketers to swiftly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly create a tailored and efficient marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Our organisation specialises in supplying the ability to easily paint concrete flooring and while we all believed our marketing strategy was adequate we have seen advancements since using marketing mix concepts. Product Whilst every aspect 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 describes the physical product or intangible service that your company 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 actual product that your business 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 a product for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application products on the market already, and since 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 trying to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft or Apple, it would be more effective to look at what sorts of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to produce and sell them. Once your goods have been fashioned and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively review your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’. Another 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. Once again, this method can be applied at all stages of product development. The car 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 good effect to sell their own products in an incredibly competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all businesses. We do not have a specific promotion division in our xbox 360 steering wheel and pedals enterprise though many of our own managers have been able to adopt marketing as part of their job role. Price Another important factor in the marketing mix relates to the price of your products or services. This is not 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 business has. The potential advantages of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly large! Whilst it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the key factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the lowest price to be the best price. 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 clients, 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 segment of the market which is price-insensitive and will be prepared to spend a premium amount of money to get a product or service early on. Not only can this approach deliver excellent financial advantages, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your product. This pricing strategy is frequently 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 core of customers that would pay it. By making use of 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 other end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary rewards can be earned long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can setup revenue streams for many years to come. Another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate revenue 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 vital to get your pricing strategy right. Our organisation has modified its corporate web site so French DVD for children shows up very frequently and more people can find us via search engines. Place Place is the component of the marketing mix that’s often not addressed by companies, but it’s still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your customer, and consequently how you collect money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing technique when applied correctly. The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your manufacturing plants and shops or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and adapt your distribution network accordingly. With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a place 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 possible customers. Promotion When you mention the word “marketing”, most people instantly think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely 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 a costly undertaking it is often an important one. Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Classically it would be done by posting on billboards, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing 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 simply as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door. Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will 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 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 strategy.

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