Question

Analyze Shorter University Marketing Mix. Make sure to address each point thorougly and support your points. Four P's analyze- Product, Price, Promotion, People. 2 pages

Answer 1

Marketing Mix

Marketing mix forms an important part of overall competitive marketing strategy. The marketing mix is the set of controllable variables that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. The marketing mix consists of everything that the firm can do influence the demand for its product. These variables are often referred as the 4 P's. The 4 P's stand for product, price, place and promotion. An effective marketing program blends all of the marketing mix elements into coordinated program designed to achieve the company's marketing objectives by delivering value to consumers. The 4 Ps are from a marketers angle. when translated to the perspective of buyers they may be termed as 4 C's. Product may be referred as customer solution, price as customer cost, place as convenience and promotion as communication.

• Product: Product stands for the goods and service combination the company offers to the target market. Strategies are needed for managing existing product over time adding new ones and dropping failed products. strategic decisions must also be made regarding branding, packaging and other product features such as warrantees. Products and markets are infinitely dynamic. An organization has to capture such dynamic through a set of policies and strategies. Some products have consistent customer demand over long period of time while others have short and fleeting life spans. There are products that have wide range of quality and workmanship and these also change over time. There are industrial or consumer products, essentials or luxury products, durables or perishables. Products can be differentiated on the basis of size, shape color, packaging, brand names, after sales service and so on. Organizations seek to hammer into customers minds that their products are different from others. it does not matter whether the differentiations is real or imaginary. quite often the differentiation is psychological rather than physical. it is enough if customers are persuaded to believe that the marketers product is different from others.organizations formalize the product differentiation through christening brand names to their respective products. These are generally reinforced with legal sanction and protection. Brands enables customers to identify the products and the organization behind it. The products and even firms image is built around brand through advertising and other promotional strategies. customer tend to develop strong brad loyalty for a particular product over time.
• Price: Price stands for the amount of money customers have to pay to obtain the product. Necessary strategies pertain to the location of the customers, price flexibility, related items within a product line and terms of sale. The price of a product is its composite expression of its value and utility to the customer, its demand, quality, reliability, safety, the competition it faces, the desired profit and so on. In an industry there would be organizations with low cost products and other organizations with high costs. The low cost organizations may adopt aggressive Pricing strategy as they enjoy more freedom of action in respect of their prices. They may also afford selective increase in costs to push their sales. Theoretically, organizations may adopt cost plus pricing where in a margin is added to the cost of the product to determine its price. However, in the competitive environment such an approach may not be feasible. more and more companies of today have to accept the market price with minor deviations an work towards their costs. They reduce their costs in order to maintain their profitability. For a new product pricing strategies for entering a market needs to be designed. In pricing a really new product at least three objectives must be kept in mind;
  • Making the product acceptable to the customers
  • producing a reasonable margin over cost
  • Achieving a market that helps in developing market share

For a new product an organization may either choose to skim or penetrate the market. In Skimming prices are set at a very high level. The product is directed to those buyers who are relatively price insensitive but sensitive to the novelty of the new product. For example call rates of mobile telephony were set very high initially. Even the incoming calls were charged. since the initial take off the product is low, high price, in a way, helps in rationing of supply in favor of those who can afford it. In Penetration firm keeps a temptingly low price for a new product which itself is selling point. A very large number of potential customer may able to afford and willing to try the product.

• Place: stands for company activities that make the product available to target consumers. one of the most basic marketing decisions is choosing the most appropriate market channel. Strategies should be taken for the management of channels by which ownership of product is transferred from the producers to customers and in many cases, the systems by which goods are moved from where they are produced from they are purchases by the final customers. Strategies applicable to the middlemen such as wholesalers and retails must be designed. The distribution policies of a company are important determinants of the function of marketing. The decision to utilize a particular channel or channels sets the pattern of operations of sales force.
• Promotion: stands for the activities that communicates the merits of the products and persuade target consumers to buy it. Strategies are needed to combine individual methods such as advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion into a coordinated campaign. In addition promotional strategies must be adjusted as a product move from an earlier stage from a later stage of its life. Modern marketing is highly promotional oriented. Organizations strive to push their sales and market standing on a sustained basis and in a profitable manner under the conditions of complex direct and indirect competitive situations. Promotion also act as an impetus to marketing. it is simultaneously a communication, persuasion and conditioning process. There are at least four major direct promotional methods or tools- personal selling, advertising, publicity and sales promotion.
  • Personal selling: is one of the oldest forms of promotion. It involves face to face interaction of sales force with the prospective customers and provides a high degree of personal attention to them. In personal selling, oral communication is made with potential buyers of a product with the intention of making sale. It may initially focus on developing a relationship with the potential buyer, but end up with efforts for making a sale. personal selling suffers a very high costs as sales personnel are expensive. They can physically attend only one customer at a time. Thus it is not a cost effective way of reaching a large number of people. However as it is a highly effective method to persuade a potential customer into making purchase, the personal selling is used in all kind of industries for all products.
  • Advertising: is a non personal highly flexible and dynamic promotional method. The media for advertising are several such as pamphlets, brochures,newspapers, magazines, hoardings, display boards, radio, television and internet. Choice of appropriate media is important for effectiveness of the message. The media may be local, regional, national or international. The type of message, copy and illustration are matter of choice and creativity. Advertising may be directed towards consumers, middlemen, or opinion leaders.
  • Publicity: is also a non personal form of promotion similar to advertising. However, no payments are made to the media as in case of advertising. Organizations skilfully seek to promote themselves and their product without payment. publicity is communication of a product , brand, or business by placing information about it in the media without paying for the time or media space directly.
  • Sales promotion: is an omnibus term that includes all activities that are undertaken to promote the business but are not specifically included under personal selling, advertising, or publicity. Activities like discounts, contests, money refunds, installments, kiosks, exhibitions, and fair constitute sales promotion. All these are meant to give a boost to sales.

Expanded Marketing Mix

Typically all organizations use a combination of 4 Ps in some form or other. However, the above elements of marketing mix are not exhaustive. It is pertinent to discuss a few more elements that may form part of an organizational marketing mix strategy. They have got more currency in recent years. Growth of services has its own share for the inclusion of newer elements in marketing. A few new Ps are as follows;

• People: all human actors who play a part in delivery of the market offering and thus influence the buyer's perception, namely the firm's personnel and the other customer.
• Physical Evidence: the environment in which the market offering is delivered and where the firm and customer interact.
• Process; the actual procedures, mechanisms, an flow of activities by which the product/service is delivered.