Marketing Mix

How to develop the marketing mix of a marketing plan defined as the four ps of marketing whichare product, place, price and promotion.

These four ps have also been extended into the 6 ps and the 4 cs by academics around the world in an attempt to get inside the head of the customer and the marketing departments in larger organisations to ensure they are as one when it comes to developing solutions to customer problems.

All are discussed below and if there are other areas you'd like to see us research then please let us know.

What is the Marketing Mix ?

The marketing mix is commonly defined as the four p's of marketing although this has been expanded in recent times to the six p's or even the seven p's of marketing. Those P's are product, place, price and promotion of a product. The other P's are people, process and physical evidence. These elements are discussed in more detail below. See how they influence your marketing in your business.

Product

The first element is the product. This is fairly straight forward as is the tangible or physical item you are selling but there are three levels of a product; the core product offering, the actual product and the augmented product. It's important to understand the differences...

• The core product - This is not the actual tangible product but the benefit the product provides to the customer to satisfy their need. In reality this is the sole purpose of offering your product or service in the first place - to satisfy needs of the consumer.
• The actual product - This is the tangible item people purchase and is defined by such things as the color, the style, branding, fashion and how many are purchased.
• The augmented product - This is the non tangible elements that are perhaps provided in addition to the physical parts. These may include warranties and guarantees, customer service excellence, finance options for purchasing delivery options, installation services and post sale customer care.

All of the above are included in the overall product but have different benefits for the end customer.

Place

The place element of the marketing mix is defining how and where the product is being sold. In these days of online purchasing the place covers both the website and the physical distribution and delivery of the product once purchased. When developing your marketing plan you should cover all areas from the wholesaler, retailer and any storage or intermediaries along the way. Dropshipping comes into this context if you are selling but not distributing the final product to the end customer.

Price

The pricing of products has been written about many times and whether to price highly which may indicate quality or low to offer the lowest market price for commodity products will greatly influence the profits your company makes. Some companies have doubled their prices and still sold more units so it's worth experimenting with the pricing levels. You can bundle products so customers pay and all-inclusive price or unbundle so each element needs to be purchased seperately.

Look at price closely - you can develop all types of offers or go into new markets entirely. Some pricing headings include: premium pricing, penetration pricing, product line pricing, psychological pricing, price skimming, economy pricing, promotional pricing and value pricing.

Promotion

Promotion is the part of the marketing mix that many people consider to be "marketing" but this is really the end result of all your hard work in defining products to satisfy needs and pricing it accordingly.

Once you are at the promotions stage you have a lot of areas you could work in. The main areas are direct marketing (or direct mail), direct advertising (such as television or radio - called "above the line advertising" by marketing directors), personal sales, public relations (PR not press releases) and sponsorship.

Not all may be right for your products but certainly a mix of these promotional activities is essential to get your message across.

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