For every student of the marketing, understanding the marketing mix is one of the primary objectives before they start providing the marketing services. The marketing mix has a great significance that is why every marketing strategy revolves around it. That is why being a blogger and the digital marketer I decided to write something for my fellow young marketers and to educate them about the importance of marketing mix. In this article, you are going to read about the basics of the marketing mix from its history to their definitions and usages.
Introduction:
The marketing mix was introduced by the Ej McCarthy in 1960 in one of his many books on marketing. He designed this marketing mix to suggest to all the marketers that they should have balanced marketing activities within their marketing plan. Initially, he only introduces four Ps on marketing mix which later on increased to seven. Though, we will only limit this conversation to the four Ps of marketing mix so as students you can write your dissertation on it on your own and does not take any outside help just like the law students take help from writing companies for their law dissertation help.
Product, Price, Promotion and the Place are the four Ps that we are going to discuss in this article one by one so you can build up an understanding of the fundamentals of the marketing mix first and then we can discuss other topics in the next articles.
Elements of the Marketing Mix:
- Product:
The first element of the marketing mix is Product. This could be service too which can be referred as a product that you create by researching the needs and then providing the satisfying products to your customers directly or indirectly.
While developing your marketing strategy or plan, you must start with the product. Instead of listing the attributes of your product, you have to focus on the benefits that your product can provide to your customers. These benefits can be rational and emotional. These benefits can be in the quantity and the quality. After that, you have to include all those benefits in your marketing strategy and plan. Including and highlighting the benefits of your products will help you in making a positive impact on your audience and can drive the want in them towards your product. You must align the benefits of your product with your customer so that you can create value for your product among them. To do all such things, you have to find the answers to few questions regarding your product that will make your life easy in creating the marketing strategy for any product.
You have to find either your product is solving the needs of the customers. You have to find that is your product relate to any particular group. You have to find all the possible variations in the product to attract maximum numbers of people. Most of the important, you need to find the USP or the unique selling point of your product so you can show it different from other product or your competitors.
- Price:
The second element in the marketing mix is the Price. This is the price of your product and all the decisions you take surrounding the price of your product. Setting the price is one of the most complicated areas of work. You would be trying to manufacture a product of best quality among your competitors, but by doing this, it increases the price of your product. The business driven people in your company may want to keep the price as low as possible so you can beat your customers easily just by reducing the price. Albeit, the best marketer, is the one who can deal with all these complexities and proposed absolute right price for the product.
You can create two types of marketing strategies based on your pricing. You can show your product as the high end which is just for the people who prefer quality over quantity. You can make your product a high-end product and create a marketing strategy which appeals to those who can afford your product. OR, you can keep the price of your product on the lower side so everyone can afford your product. You can show your product as for everyone and affordable.
Whatever strategy you choose for your marketing strategy based on your price, you must find the answers of the following questions first.
You have to find the profits that you make from one sale by applying either strategy. You have to find a space for providing any offers, discounts in the present scenarios of the market. You have to consider the average price of the products like you in the market before deciding the price of your product. You also have to keep an eye on your competitors and their activities after the launching of your product.
- Promotion:
Promotion is the third P and the third element of the marketing mix that we are going to discuss in this article. Talking about the promotion is entirely about marketing and all the things related to it. This promotion could be above the line (ATL) or below the line (BTL) it all depends on the requirement of the product and the current trends. However, the marketing department is responsible for deciding what to choose or to go with both.
The promotion of your product is all about the communications between you and your audience. That is why it is also called as the first line of selling your product to your customers. This is a very sensitive point in the making of your marketing strategy that is why you have to be sure about the process by considering the following things.
You have to consider the budget first while making the promotional strategy for your product. You should know either you are going to outsource all your promotional activities or you have any in-house setup too. You have to consider different exposures of promotion. You also have to consider either you will take direct questions from your customers or keep some distance from them.
- Place:
The final P or the final element that we are going to discuss in this article is the Place. The place means the location or the medium which you are going to use for all your promotional and marketing campaigns. This involves deep researching, and you have to be accurate enough while deciding it.
You must know everything about your product and your promotional activities before you put your product on the market. You also consider the pricing aspect because it directly connected with the place. You cannot market a high-end product in a place where people cannot afford expensive products.
While deciding the place you need to consider all the other three elements of marketing mix and some other things too which are written below.
You have to find the place where customers have enough buying power to buy your product. You should know the process of accessing your product by the customers. You must know the dynamics of all the sale channels you are going to use. You should find all the available distribution channels for better accessibility and availability of your product in the market.
Author Bio:
John Wick is a Master’s degree holder in Marketing and is now working as the professional digital marketer in one of the most reputable marketing agency in the world. He has an excellent writing skill that is why he also provide writing services to the academic writing company and give online dissertation help to the students in need.