The First Steps Of Marketing
Practically every business on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is usually 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 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 earn 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 firms to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very extensive 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 efficiently can yield incredible results.
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 phrase that was first coined during 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 delicate balance of different elements 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 quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a personalised and efficient marketing plan.
Our company already sells a successful collection of environmentally friendly flags however we have used new marketing suggestions to improve our revenue figures.
Product
Although every element of the marketing mix is a requirement, 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 business will be offering, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you. If this element is not correctly managed then your organisation will find it hard to make it through.
Many 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 typical train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing department creates a product 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.
Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products on the market already, and because the market is fairly well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how could the principles of the marketing mix assist in this circumstance?
Rather than creating an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft or Apple, it would be more effective to look at what sorts of product are sought after in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to produce and sell them.
Once your products have been designed and created it is still a vital skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons that 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 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 offer. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own products in an incredibly competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have substantial marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all businesses.
We do not have a defined marketing division within our company though several of our own managers have been able to adopt marketing as part of their work function.
Price
Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t 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 tool designed to achieve any specific goals your business has. The potential advantages of an effective pricing plan are surprisingly large!
Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out 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 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 among which are the price sensitivity of your customers, 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 also penetration pricing.
Price skimming
The principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much cash as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and will be willing to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this technique deliver great financial benefits, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your product.
This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the launch 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 geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when used correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come.
Yet another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the only 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 produce or carry out. So it is even more essential to get your pricing strategy right.
Following using on-line tools to compare keyword lookup frequency we identified party sashes to direct our campaign for on-line promotion as well as off-line marketing materials.
Place
Place is the portion of the marketing mix that is often disregarded by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the way in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you receive money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when used appropriately.
The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your production plants and shops and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and adapt your distribution network appropriately. This is the principal application of this element of the marketing mix.
With the increasing use of the Internet by your potential customers, marketing techniques have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a place of contact (or even as a whole distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a huge 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 tool, and whilst it can be an expensive undertaking it is often an essential one.
Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Typically 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 material posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so good.
Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more sales directly, but goes back to one of the initial purposes 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 choice.
Putting it into Practice
As previously mentioned each business is unique and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.

