THE MARKETING P’S
The Marketing Mix P’s is a significant tool to help you select and create the right marketing strategies for your business. It forces you to think about which areas of your business you can change or improve on, to help you meet the needs of your target market, add value and differentiate your product or service from your competitors.
PRODUCT/SERVICE
The product or service element refers to what you are offering as a whole to your customers. Product decisions include functionality, branding, packaging, service, quality, appearance, and warranty terms.
When thinking about your product consider the key features, benefits, and needs, and wants of customers. For example, if you are a food manufacturer you may decide to add some new flavors to extend your range.
PRICE
The price element refers to the way you set prices for your products or services. It should include all the parts that make up your overall cost, including the advertised price, any discounts, sales, credit terms, or other payment arrangements.
Your pricing will also depend on your business's position in the market, for example, if you advertise your business as a budget car rental service, your pricing should reflect that choice. Or if you are a premium food product then your price should be at a premium to lesser quality products to reflect the better packaging and quality of ingredients you offer.
PROMOTION
Promotion refers to all the activities and methods you use to promote your products/services to your target market. It includes sales, public relations, direct marketing, advertising, sponsorship, and social media.
Since promotion costs can be substantial, it is sensible to conduct a return on investment analysis (ROI) when making promotion decisions. Firstly, you need to establish who your target market is, what media do they consume, what the cost of that media will be, how many more sales you need to cover your investment, and how you will gather the information that shows how the promotion has worked.
PLACE
The place element refers to how you get your product or service to your customers at the right time, at the right place, and in the right quantity. It includes distribution channels (e.g. via a shopfront, online, or a distributor), location, logistics, service levels, and market coverage.
If you’re thinking of expanding your business online, you’ll need to think about how your customers use the internet, if they would feel comfortable purchasing your goods online and if they would be willing to pay shipping costs for your products. If you’re looking to grow your business, you might consider changing or expanding the way you sell your products and services.
PEOPLE
The people element refers to your customers, yourself, and your staff. You need to consider both your staff and customers if you’re thinking of growing your business. It includes understanding what your customers’ needs and wants are, setting targets, and measuring your customer service levels so that you attract and keep loyal customers. You’ll also need to consider staff training so they have the skills to offer the best experience and meet customer expectations.
PACKAGING
Packaging refers to the way your product or service appears from the outside. Packaging also refers to your people and how they dress and groom. It refers to your offices, your waiting rooms, your brochures, your correspondence, and every single visual element about your company. Everything counts. Everything helps or hurts. Everything affects your customer's confidence about dealing with you. The packaging of your company, your product, or service, think in terms of everything that the customer sees from the first moment of contact with your company all the way through the purchasing process.
Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember, people, form their first impression about you within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers.
POSITIONING
Develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think and talk about you when you're not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words people use when they describe you and your offerings to others?
Marketing Strategy Things To Do...
Defining the target population is the main and necessary step in choosing your marketing strategy. It gives the proper demographics which help in selecting the most appropriate marketing plan for your business.
Test your audience
Create a hypothetical process of buying to test your audience. Once you know the buying behavior of your target audience, you can select more appropriate marketing strategy.
Consider marketing strategies
Once you know the demographics; their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. You can select a more appropriate marketing strategy.
Evaluate those strategies
Once you have considered the marketing strategies and found the applicable ones. Assess them, apply them, and evaluate them. This process must be for testing purposes and the most suitable and productive strategy must be applied.
Types of Marketing Strategies
There are different types of marketing strategies available. Picking up a marketing strategy includes analyzing the needs of your business, your target audience, and the specifications of your products.The two main types of marketing strategy are:
- 1. Business to business (B2B) marketing
- 2. Business to consumer (B2C) marketing
The Different Types of Marketing
Paid advertisingThis includes multiple approaches to marketing. It includes traditional approaches like TVCs and print media advertising. Also, one of the most well-known marketing approaches is internet marketing. It includes various methods like PPC (Pay per click) and paid advertising.
Cause marketing
Cause marketing links the services and products of a company to a social cause or issue. It is also well known as cause-related marketing.
Relationship marketing
This type of marketing is basically focused on customer building. Enhancing existing relationships with customers and improving customer loyalty.
Undercover marketing
This type of marketing strategy focuses on marketing the product while customers remain unaware of the marketing strategy. It is also known as stealth marketing.
Word of mouth
It totally relies on what impression you leave on people. It is traditionally the most important type of marketing strategy. Being heard is important in business world. When you give quality services to customers, it is likely that they’d promote you.
Internet marketing
It is also known as cloud marketing. It usually happens over the internet. All the marketing items are shared on the internet and promoted on various platforms via multiple approaches.
Transactional Marketing
Sales is particularly the most challenging work. Even for the largest retailers, selling is always tough especially when there are high volume targets. However, with the new marketing strategies, selling isn’t as difficult as it was. In transactional marketing, the retailers encourage customers to buy with shopping coupons, discounts, and huge events. It enhances the chances of sales and motivates the target audience to buy the promoted products.
Diversity Marketing
It caters to diverse audiences by customizing and integrating different marketing strategies. It covers different aspects like culture, beliefs, attitudes, views, and other specific needs.
Market Penetration Strategy
When a firm focuses on selling its current products to existing customers, it is pursuing a market penetration strategy. The marketing activities that will dominate in this type of marketing plan are those that emphasize increasing the loyalty of existing customers so that they are not vulnerable to loss to competitors, attracting competitors’ customers, increasing the frequency of product use, and converting non-users into users.
Increasing awareness through marketing communications and increasing availability through expanded distribution are common marketing activities in this type of plan. Price promotions might be used to encourage competitors’ customers to try the firm’s product if there is reason to believe that such a trial will result in repeat purchases. Loyalty programs can be very effective in retaining existing customers. This strategy reduces risk by relying on what the firm already knows well—its existing products and existing customers.
Target Marketing:
Market segmentation is the process of matching the needs of consumers with companies suffering by grouping them into relatively homogenous groups. Segmentation is the stepping stone to market targeting or target marketing. It enables the marketing manager to target his market that selecting among the segments market parts based on some definite criteria market targeting is the process of deciding and preparing the marketing program for the market or markets.
Segment profiling is a major and constructive step in this direction of market targeting. For understanding the size of segment, growth potential, segment’s structural attractiveness, company objectives, and resource. In fact, the size and growth potential of a segment is more important.
Marketing Segment and Marketing Mix:
There is a close alliance between market segments and the marketing mix. There are two possibilities of the relationship between marketing mix and marketing segmentation. In the first possibility, the direction is from market segmentation to marketing mix.
Here, the company assumes certain things about a segment and then prepares a marketing mix based on these assumptions. For instance, it is safe for stereo manufacturers to assume that the young singles segment of the music market will need the latest in Hi-Fi equipment and will be willing to pay for it.
In the case of the second possibility, the direction is from marketing-mix to the market segmentation to revised mix. It implies that the company already has the product in hand and that the market is crowded with similar items. The company studies the market to see if there is any correlation between certain buyers and certain brands of products, instead of taking a blind plunge in the fray.
Market Development Strategy
The efforts to expand sales by selling current products in new markets are referred to as a market development strategy. Such efforts may involve entering new geographic markets, such as international markets. Creating product awareness and developing distribution channels are key marketing activities. Some product modifications may be required to better match the needs of the local market.
Expanding into a new market with an existing product carries some risk because the new market is not well known to the firm and the firm and its products are not well known in the market. The return on marketing investments in such a strategy is likely to be longer than for a market penetration strategy because of the time required to build awareness, distribution, and product trial.
Product Development Strategy
Creating new products to sell to existing customers, a product development strategy is a common marketing strategy among firms that can leverage their relationships with existing customers. For example, American Express has been able to leverage its relationships with its credit card customers to also sell travel-related services. Similarly, cable television companies have expanded their offerings into Internet and telephone services. Research and development activities play a dominant role in this strategy. The time required to develop and test new products may be long, but once a product is developed, creating awareness, interest, and availability should be relatively rapid because the firm already has a relationship with customers. A product development strategy is also riskier than a market penetration strategy because the necessary product may not be possible to develop, at least at a cost acceptable to customers, or the product developed does not match the needs of customers.
Diversification Strategy
A diversification strategy involves taking new products into new markets. This is really the creation of a completely new business. This is the riskiest of strategies and the strategy likely to require the most patience in waiting for a return on investment.
Elements of Branding
- Vision and mission: What is your business’s purpose for existing? How will it improve the lives of your clients or customers?
- Core values & beliefs: What distinguishes your company from its competitors? What principles does it abide by?
- Brand/business name: A unique and compelling business name will be meaningful to your customers. While the word amazon has no correlation to Amazon’s business, the name is a daily part of many people’s lives.
- Logo: A unique logo will set your brand apart in the marketplace and make it more memorable.
- Visual brand elements: This includes the colors, fonts, graphics, and any other visual elements of a brand. When used effectively, a simple image becomes an icon and represents a brand.
- Tagline, slogan, or jingle: Create a simple tagline relevant to your audience or your product. Phone numbers set to music can linger for years in the thoughts of your target audience.
- Keywords or personality: What emotions do you want your brand to invoke? This helps develop the personality of your brand and creates an emotional connection with your customers.
- Target market: Who is the ideal client of your business? Who do you serve?
- USP (Unique selling proposition): Your USP helps you stand out from competitors and make your brand unique in the eyes of your customers.
- Brand stories: Brand stories, such as the brand’s origin story or a customer’s significant testimonial, are powerful tools capable of creating a strong emotional connection with customers.
- Consistency: Consistency over time and across platforms is necessary to establish a memorable brand.
You can have a variety of cost-effective promotional materials to give people to make it easier for them to remember and find you. Be sure these contain contact information, such as your email, phone number, website, and social media profiles. They also serve as a durable form of showcasing your work or products.
- Business cards: Business cards look professional and are easy to take along and leave with people. They are a very portable, cost-effective reminder of your business.
- Postcards, pamphlets, leaflets: These are easy to leave behind, pin up on bulletin boards, or mail to potential customers. They offer more space for promotions and information about your business than a business card, but are still quite portable.
- Brochures, depending upon your business: Offering much more marketing space, brochures can include a brand story and more history about your business. They can also showcase your products and offerings.
- Branded products, tools, or items: Many people hang on to useful branded items such as calendars, pens, key fobs, notepads, tote bags, magnets, lanyards, and other items like these. These products place a visible reminder of your company in front of people at all times.
Promotional marketing is a business marketing strategy designed to entice a customer to take action towards making a purchase. It’s a technique that includes various incentives to buy, such as:
- Contests: We all enjoy the chance to win something for free. Contests offer an attractive marketing vehicle for small businesses to acquire new clients and create awareness.
- Coupons or discount codes: Coupons provide an affordable marketing strategy for small businesses. Many people seek coupons and discounts, and they can create enough incentive for them to sample your offer and become a customer.
- Sampling: The try-before-you-buy technique is a powerful sales method. Giving away a small sample or a limited-time trial of your product or service can lead to a purchase or a recurring customer.
Since many people only get bills and advertisements in the mail today, there is an edge with original direct mail marketing tactics. Be creative and send pieces like birthday cards, anniversary notes, seasonal postcards, or unique business updates or announcements. These days, people throw junk mail directly in the garbage but immediately open personal notes or cards. Sending personalized cards to your customers can help your business feel more personal and stand out from the competition.
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