It’s 2022 and if you’re worried about not making enough sales then you need to go back to the basics. For a product to be successful in the market a lot of marketing elements go hand in hand. For marketers and brand managers it is crucial to understand what is the marketing mix and how it can help to create a successful product offering.
If you’re still confused about which tasks would be included in the marketing mix and how it helps make your product successful, then continue to read our ultimate guide on the subject, relevant to 2022.
What is Marketing Mix?
The term marketing mix was first introduced in 1960. It refers to a combination of factors that the company can control to promote its product to the target audience. It initially consisted of the 4 Ps which later became 7.
Every company needs to strategize and determine these 4 Ps of the marketing mix that will help create awareness for its product, make it appealing to its customers and lead the buyer to purchase it. These 4 Ps of the marketing mix are your answer to making your product successful in the market.
What Are The 4 Ps of the Marketing Mix?
The 4 Ps in the marketing mix consist of the following:
Product: product refers to the goods or services that the company offers as a solution to the problem of their customers. The product has a life span and at the end of its life businesses have to reinvent the product or invest in a new one according to market response and the consumer’s problem.
Price: another important factor in the marketing mix is the price of the product at which the consumer will be willing to purchase it. The price of the product is influenced by the production cost, price of competitor products, and the perceived value of the product.
Place: Things that need to be determined under place are how best to make the product reach the consumer. You want to incur the least cost possible in making it available to consumers. The place determines where it will be stocked and how it will reach there. Products today can also be sold only through an e-commerce store in which case you want to ensure a smooth website and a smooth delivery process.
Promotion: promotion includes the different tactics used by companies to gain attention to their product. This can include public relations, sales promotions, advertising, and customer service among others.
These four elements, most popularly known as the 4 Ps of the marketing mix can be controlled by companies to determine and maximize their profits. This model has been further refined introducing three more Ps to the mix. These include people, processes, and physical evidence.
Let’s understand how you can develop the marketing mix to make your product a success.
Which Tasks are Included in the Marketing Mix?
To understand which tasks would be included in the marketing mix consider the steps below. This will help you develop the marketing mix for your product.
Determine Your Goals
Setting the right goals is the first step to developing an effective marketing mix. Your marketing goals can include different things, such as increasing sales, creating brand awareness, or increasing product reach. Make sure you are setting realistic and measurable goals along with the budget required to meet those goals.
Goal setting is extremely important for the effectiveness of the marketing mix. If you don’t know what you are after, you can’t measure it and won’t know how effective your efforts are.
Define Your Target Customer
Who is the target audience of your product? In order to sell to them, you need to know and understand them. This includes researching their interests, buying patterns, pain points, and problems among other things.
In this regard, social listening with tools like Notifier can help you immensely. It allows you to track keywords and trends across social channels that help you uncover important insights about your target audience.
Identify Your USP
In order for your product to stand out in the market, you need to define your unique selling proposition (USP). This can be determined through focus groups, surveys, and interviews. The USP of any product/service helps determine what can make it stand apart from customers and help solve their problems better than other solutions in the market.
Every business needs a USP which becomes the foundation on which it stands. Without a USP your product will end up being similar to every other product in the market. To be successful it is important to create differentiation.
Study Your Competetion
Studying your competitors and understanding how they are operating is also important to determine your own processes and marketing. Using social listening can also help you understand your competitors and devise better strategies. Competitor analysis will immensely help you in developing a successful marketing mix.
Importance of the Marketing Mix
The marketing mix has been beneficial for businesses since its introduction a decade earlier. It helps create profitable products by helping to understand the product, pricing, placement, and promotion strategies. To take it a step further you can also focus on people, processes, and physical evidence.
With an effective marketing mix and other marketing strategies, companies can better stand out against the competition, reach their ideal customers effectively, be ready in the face of risks and also refine their product for customers.
Every product has a lifecycle and at the end of it, either the product has to be phased out, reintroduced in a better way, or simply replaced by a newer and better product.
Unlike before, marketing research has been simplified today by using social listening. A big chunk of your target consumers is online. They discuss their problems and seek reviews. By listening in on these conversations, marketers and brand managers are able to extract important data that will help them strategize better.