What is Marketing Mix?
Marketing Mix is a blanket term that covers the actions implemented for sales enhancement and brand promotion.
The marketing mix includes crucial factors: Price, Product, Promotion, and Place, together known as the 4 Ps of the marketing mix.
A marketing mix is vital for interpreting the product or service that helps prepare potent marketing strategies.
What are the 4 Ps of the Marketing Mix?
The following involves the process of defining the marketing mix:
Product
The company manufactures or designs the item or service to fulfill consumer needs.
The product ought to be promising, productive, and effective. Customers won’t buy an inefficient product even when you promote it heavily.
With Chisel, you can craft amazing products using our premium product management features for free! Sign up today!
Your audience will acknowledge the marketing investments and strategies if the product has potential.
Price
The consumer pays the value to access or receive the product. Most marketing promotions stress the cost-effective pricing of the product.
Pricing depends on the various costs incurred during the development phase and the profit margins desired by the stakeholders.
For setting the price, you should consider a few factors:
- The worth of your product: From the user’s perspective, is the product worth the money spent on buying it. Is it equipped to serve most of the user’s needs? And is it better than the other brands?
- Compare the market prices: If another brand’s product provides the same service as yours, it comes down to the price difference. The customer will buy the more cost-effective product, and marketing promotions attract the customer by price comparison.
- Over or underpricing: You should price the product based on its features, the number of needs it fulfills, and the prices offered by competitors. Also, sometimes, the brand image aids the pricing.
Therefore, a product shouldn’t be so overpriced that the customer won’t buy it. It also should be too underpriced that you don’t meet the profit margins even if the sales are high.
Place
Place refers to the areas of distribution.
As the site’s culture, needs, and market environment change, marketing strategies vary depending on the location.
Promotion
Promotion helps communicate with the potential customers and promote product benefits to convince or attract them to buy.
It involves advertising, incentive, discounts, word of mouth, or anything that promotes a good image.
All these are interrelated such that you can focus on no factor individually. That’s why it is a mixture or a ‘mix.’
What Are the Marketing Mix 4Ps Examples?
A firm’s marketing mix combines Product, Pricing, Promotion, and Place. This combination involves the process of defining the marketing mix.
To elaborate, let’s understand the 4Ps of marketing using a top-rated product, “‘the iPhone.”
The “first P” of the marketing stands for product.
In the case of the iPhone, the product will include every feature and design.
The cellular structure, variety of colors, touchpad, and so on will fall under the “‘product mix” part.
Bonus: Click here to learn the ABC’s of Product Marketing.
The “second P” stands for pricing.
Apple is a classic example of a premium pricing strategy.
That means the product’s prices are marked high owing to its high quality and value.
The “third P” stands for Promotion.
Apple invests a lot in advertising, marketing, and appealing promotional techniques.
As marketing has evolved, we have also seen new, more innovative, and creative ads for the iPhone. They are now also involved in social media marketing.
The “fourth P” stands for Place.
You can easily find iPhones on online and offline platforms.
They are always available on giant e-commerce stores like Amazon.
What Are the Four C’s of the Marketing Mix?
As marketing has evolved, the focus has shifted from business to customer, and companies now resort to a more customer-centric approach.
That is why the four Cs have taken over the four Ps since 1990, especially in digital marketing.
The four C’s are Customer, Cost, Convenience, and Communication.
They are the essential tools for any successful marketing strategy.
Customer
The customer is the center of attention in any excellent marketing strategy.
Customer value is everything to an organization; their satisfaction is its primary goal. Organizations should focus on solving customer problems, needs, and demands.
Bonus: Access our Guide to implementing a killer Customer-led Product Strategy.
Cost
The cost of goods sold can refer to the total amount you’ve paid (including materials and labor) to manufacture, distribute, and market a product.
It may also include the expense of making trade-offs for consumers, such as delaying their next purchase or feeling guilty about not purchasing anything at all.
Convenience
This is also an essential requirement for making purchasing decisions.
Organizations must provide comfort to buyers by offering user-friendly policies regarding selection, price, delivery, and so on.
These primary factors influence convenience, cost of customer acquisition, customer service, product features, and information availability.
Communication
Communication helps acquire customer feedback that may alter the business’s marketing strategy.
You can do this in marketing, advertising, emails, media appearances, and so on.
Define communication with your customer using surveys with the top product management software. You can also tailor your audience to your needs.
How To Identify Your Marketing Mix?
Following are the steps one should take to identify their Marketing Mix.
Step 1: Identify who are your target customers.
Step 2: Understand your customers’ problems, needs, and demands.
Step 3: Establish a way of solving their problem/ fulfilling their needs.
Step 4: Determine how the product or service designed solves the problem.
Step 5: Study the customers closely to understand their buying motivation.
Step 6: Identify sales goals and budget marketing expenses accordingly.
Step 7: Finally, pick the most suitable marketing tactic for the target customers.
Marketing Mix vs. Product Mix
Definition
The marketing mix is a blanket term that covers all the actions implemented for sales enhancement and brand promotion. It is a ‘mix ‘of factors that affect product marketing.
The product mix is a sales term that refers to a product line in its entirety. A product line means a group of products in a category you market together to increase sales volume.
Ambit and Scope
The marketing mix is a broad term encompassing product, price, promotion, place, product development, and product life cycle.
On the contrary, the product mix is a much narrower term defining individual product lines. The product mix is a subset of the marketing mix that contains a product line within the marketing department’s control.
Nature
The marketing mix can change over time. This concept evolves as per the changing circumstances, market, and customer needs.
On the other hand, the product mix is static. The product mix is limited to the company’s product line. Therefore, the variability is much lower here.
Importance
The marketing mix has multiple constituents. Hence, it has a more strategic point of view.
The product mix has far less impact than the marketing mix regarding importance and exposure. This is due to its limited scope since it deals only with a single component.