Luggage Review

Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is usually done by producing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.

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

Marketing is the main tool used by modern firms to draw potential customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done well it can be the single business practice that could make or break a company.

So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and every industry will have its own set of strengths and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing framework. It is called the “Marketing Mix”.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a term that was first coined during the 1950’s and is a phrase 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 operations.

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 organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a customised and effective marketing system.

The “product” element of the four P’s can pertain to any service, such as painting concrete floors, or any intangible service being offered for sale by a business.

Product

Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most crucial of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your business will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you. If this element is not correctly managed then your company will find it hard to survive.

Many people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical product that your business 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 find ways to sell it, right?

Consider the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system and software application solutions on the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how could the principles of the marketing mix assist in this circumstance?

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 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.

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’.

Another form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is generally used to either prolong the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.

The car industry uses this approach very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they sell. They use the marketing mix to good effect to sell their own products in an incredibly competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same concepts can be applied to all companies.

One quick and easy method to recognise many stockists of great mod clothing that perform advertising and marketing effectively is to simply think of brand names connected to a certain industry.

Price

Another important 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 top price that your customers would pay (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 particular objectives your company has.

Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the key factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers do not constantly consider the lowest price to be the best price. Actually a price that is too low can sometimes turn customers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, 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 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 get a product or service early on.

This pricing technique is very often used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the release of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Manufacturers could set almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal base of customers that would pay it.

Penetration pricing

Penetration pricing is at the other end of the pricing spectrum, and is tailored towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial rewards can be made long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come.

Another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate revenue for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake. So it is even more essential to get your pricing strategy right.

SEO companies are more common these days and our business employed one in order to make cooking times a notable phrase on our website so we can attract more shoppers.

Place

Place is the part of the marketing mix that’s often disregarded by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In short, it describes the way in which you provide your product to your consumer, and consequently how you receive money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing approach when applied appropriately.

The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your products are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your production centres and retailers or other outlets around the world. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to identify your own priorities and modify your distribution network appropriately. This is the principal use of this element of the marketing mix.

With the growing 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 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 large pool of possible customers.

Promotion

When you say the word “marketing”, many people immediately think of the promotional side 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 can be an expensive undertaking it is often an essential one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will increase sales.

Advertising is one of the most common 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 buyers. With the coming of the information age we have witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising material posted through your door.

Another significant part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the preliminary purposes of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your competitors.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned every company is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing strategy.