Elements Of A Successful Marketing Campaign

Practically every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of earning money. This is usually done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging customers money for it.

Firstly, it is a very rare case where a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided by anyone else. This means that your company will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once. So how can you boost the chances of them spending money with you?

Marketing is the main tool used by modern organisations to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their competitors. It is a very broad topic that is influenced by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that could make or break a corporation.

So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, every situation is different, and each industry will have its own set of advantages and weak points that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle that can be applied to almost any corporation to be used as a marketing platform. It is known as the “Marketing Mix”.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a term that was first coined during the 1950′s and is an expression that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a simple, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business functions. It got its name because it is similar to the ingredients list for a recipe.

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 easy for business managers and marketers to swiftly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own organisations, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and efficient marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Our company already sells a successful range of wheelchair hoists products but we still use fresh promotional suggestions to improve our revenue numbers.

Product

Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly the most critical 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 make it through.

Several people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the physical product that your business is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around – your manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right?

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many well-known brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the marketplace already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.

Rather than creating 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 products have been fashioned 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’.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is generally used to either extend the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many customers as possible. Again, this technique can be applied at all stages of product development.

The motor industry uses this technique very effectively by offering various engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to great effect to sell their own goods in an extremely competitive marketplace. Whilst these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all businesses.

We do not have a specific promotion department in our stainless steel cheese gratersservice although many of our own managers have been able to take up marketing as part of their job function.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix relates to the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of carrying out market research to figure out the highest price that your customers would spend (although that can be a handy tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific targets your business has.

Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the crucial factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t constantly consider the lowest price to be the best price. In fact a price that is too low can sometimes turn customers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself when devising a good pricing strategy, 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 main principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.

Price skimming

The main idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the sector of the market which is price-insensitive and will be prepared to spend a large amount of money to get a product or service early on. Not only can this technique deliver great economic advantages, but it can also advertise an exclusive and high quality image of your product.

This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics market where customers will often eagerly await the launch of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Makers could set almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own money flow.

Penetration pricing

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

Yet another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the only part of the marketing mix that will generate income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to create or undertake. So it is even more vital to get your pricing technique right.

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Place

Place is the part of the marketing mix that is often not addressed by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your customer, and subsequently how you collect money from them. It can be a fantastic marketing approach when used appropriately.

The most typical ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your products are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your production centres and shops and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to identify your own priorities and alter your distribution network appropriately. This is the principal use of this part of the marketing mix.

With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to consider how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a point of contact (or even as an entire distribution route in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers.

Promotion

When you mention the word “marketing”, most people immediately think of the promotional aspect of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication instrument, and whilst it might be a costly undertaking it is often an important one. The key concern of promotion is to deliver a specific message that will increase sales.

Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Typically 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 customers. With the arrival of the information age we have witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising materials posted through your front door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so good.

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial purposes of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your competitors. When all other parts of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that swings a customer’s decision.

Putting it into Practice

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

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