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Practically every business on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.

First of all, it is a very rare case that a company can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be supplied by anyone else. This means that your enterprise will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their cash once.

Marketing is the main tool used by modern businesses to draw potential 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 variables, but when done well it can be the single business practise that could make or break a corporation.

So where should you start when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every company 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 framework.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a term that was first coined in the 1950’s and is an expression that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business functions. It got its name because it is similar to the ingredients checklist for a recipe.

The term was later built upon to include the idea 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 swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly create a tailored and efficient marketing strategy.

Nearly every sector in the modern marketplace is reasonably competitive, especially back treatment Ruddington, in which good promotional judgements could mean the success or failure of the business.

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 critical 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 buyers are going to spend money with you.

Many people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the actual product that your company is selling. In fact, the typical train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your production department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to discover ways to sell it, right? This is not necessarily the case.

Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system and software application products in the market already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be incredibly 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 or Apple, it would be far 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 avoid business dead-ends at a later time.

Once your goods have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons why a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors’.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is typically used to either extend the lifecycle of a product currently 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 motor industry uses this technique very effectively by offering various engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own goods in an extremely competitive marketplace.

“Product is paramount” is one of the main slogans used in our stainless steel cheese graters organisation which aims to point out to all staff that we expect high quality manufacturing.

Price

Another key 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 useful tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific objectives your company has.

Whilst it may seem obvious, it’s still worth noting 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 don’t constantly consider the cheapest price to be the best value. In fact a price that is too low can sometimes turn buyers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing strategy, key among which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your competitors are doing and how can pricing boost your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two primary principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing. These are outlined below.

Price skimming

The principal idea driving 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 prepared to spend a premium amount of money to receive a product or service early on.

This pricing technique 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 almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it.

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 risky strategy, but when employed correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come.

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 create or undertake. So it is even more essential to get your pricing strategy right.

Following using on-line tools to compare key word search frequency we identified list of the best songs to lead the campaign for on-line promotion as well as off-line marketing materials.

Place

Place is the portion of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In a nutshell, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you receive money from them.

The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your production plants and retailers and other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network accordingly. This is the primary use of this element of the marketing mix.

With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing methods have had to consider 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 huge pool of potential customers. Effective positioning of your product or service can therefore yield impressive economic results.

Promotion

When you say the word “marketing”, most people instantly 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 tool, and whilst it may be an expensive undertaking it is often an important one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a specific message that will increase sales.

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 customers. With the arrival of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising material 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 could be branding that swings a customer’s decision.

Putting it into Practise

As previously mentioned each business is different and will have different marketing requirements. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing strategy.