Marketing Mix
October 7, 2007
What is the marketing mix?
The marketing mix is probably the most famous marketing term. Its elements are the basic, tactical components of a marketing plan. Also known as the Four P’s, the marketing mix elements are price, place, product and promotion Read on for more details on the marketing mix . The offer you make to you customer can be altered by varying the mix elements. So for a high profile brand, increase the focus on promotion and desensitize the weight given to price. Another way to think about the marketing mix is to use the image of an artist’s palette. The marketer mixes the prime colours (mix elements) in different quantities to deliver a particular final colour. Every hand painted picture is original in some way, as is every marketing mix.
Price
There are many ways to price a product. Let’s have a look at some of them and try to understand the best policy/strategy in various situations
Place
Another element of Neil H.Borden’s Marketing Mix is Place. Place is also known as channel, distribution, or intermediary. It is the mechanism through which goods and/or services are moved from the manufacturer/ service provider to the user or consumer.
Product
For many a product is simply the tangible, phsysical entity that they may be buying or selling. You buy a new car and that’s the product – simple! Or maybe not. When you buy a car, is the product more complex than you first thought?
Promotion
Another one of the 4P’s is promotion. This includes all of the tools available to the marketer for ‘marketing communication’. As with Neil H.Borden’s marketing mix, marketing communications has its own ‘promotions mix.’ Think of it like a cake mix, the basic ingredients are always the same. However if you vary the amounts of one of the ingredients, the final outcome is different.
What is Marketing?
October 7, 2007
Most people think that marketing is only about the advertising and/or personal selling of goods and services. Advertising and selling, however, are just two of the many marketing activities.
In general, marketing activities are all those associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then going about satisfying those customers better than the competitors. This involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution.
In other words, the five categories listed on the MOTI home page represent the broad scope of marketing.
This view is consistent with the following definition of marketing found in a popular marketing textbook:
“Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives.”
-Contemporary Marketing Wired (1998) by Boone and Kurtz. Dryden Press.
