Marketing Mix
Reshma Kanase | Jan. 25, 2021, 11:45 p.m.
Marketing aims to reach the target market customers to increase the sales and to make a startup successful. So before rushing with marketing, an entrepreneur needs to create a marketing plan. This blog - Marketing plan, will give you a better idea about marketing planning and elements of it that an entrepreneur needs to focus upon.
The marketing mix is defined as four Ps: product, price, placement, and promotion by E. Jerome McCarthy, a marketing professor and author. These four Ps of marketing are the elements of marketing a product or a service.
Borden was an advertising professor at Harvard University. His 1964 article titled "The Concept of the Marketing Mix" demonstrated the ways that companies could use advertising tactics to engage their consumers. Decades later, the concepts that Borden popularized are still being used by companies to advertise their goods and services.
So one has to decide which approaches of the four Ps suit for their target market.
1.Product -
The product can be defined as a good or service provided by an enterprise to customers at a particular cost. The product can be defined based on parameters like
quality, style, design, feature, options, brand name, packaging, guarantee, spare parts, etc. All these parameters should be fulfilled by the product to provide the superior version of the product and it should also be superior to other existing products in the market. A marketing manager should not assume the needs and choices of the customer rather have a look at the data and work upon the product development accordingly.
2. Price -
The price is the amount of money consumer pays to buy a product. Price of a product also depends on the location of the target market. To make a great sale of the product it is necessary to consider the financial status of the customers at a particular region. Therefore, the product should be priced such that it is affordable for the customers in all the target markets.
While selecting an affordable price range, it is also essential to consider the existing competitor's product price. More importantly, the product price should be justified by the product quality and quantity, and this will be a detrimental factor for the product sale. Price involves different aspects such as a discount, allowances, credit, payment period, rental, tax, EMIs, etc which should be curtailed, with critical analysis. Further, the season and period for discounts, offers, should be decided carefully to make good returns.
3. Place -
The place is the location where a product is marketed to reach maximum customers, which is also often referred to as the target market. The location of the target market should be selected, considering the location of manufacturing the product, the location of getting raw material, etc, these places should not be too far from each other, which will increase the cost of production and distribution via transportation.
The place is also referred to as the place in a rack of the product in a retailer store. Many retailers charge, for placing a product at places where it will get maximum attention of the buyers; eg- Dmart also uses this strategy.
4.Promotion -
Promotion involves advertising, sales promotion, publicity. Promotion is done to make the target customers, aware of the product and its features which are provided at a price and convincing them for buying the product.
Previously, door to door publicity was majorly done, but now with the advent of technology, the promotion has become cost-effective and even too easy. Now, the product is presented to a huge number of people via television, radios, newspapers, social media, and even telecalling is still used. If the product is really good, then mouth publicity also helps to increase the customer number.
Reference :
1.BUSINESS ESSENTIALS- The4 Ps- By ALEXANDRA TWINR.
