What is the Marketing Mix

When you venture into becoming an entrepreneur, one of the many things you need to familiarize yourself with is the marketing mix. This is a basic and essential tool that you can use to drive your business to success.

What is the marketing mix? As a simple definition, it is a combination of controllable marketing tools that you can blend and adjust in order to achieve the kind of response that you aim to get from your target market. The marketing mix is also known as the 4Ps because its components consist of the following: product, price, place, and promotion. To better understand what is the marketing mix and its importance in your business, it is best to define these 4Ps and how they influence the success of a business.

Product

When you start up a business, it is most basic that you begin your concept with a product in mind. Thinking of a product is not easy, though, because you need to assess how it will be received by the market. First, it needs to fill a gap. If the consumers do not need such product or other companies are already offering the exact same kind, then your chance of making it big is small. This is why it is a smart move to put yourself in your consumers’ shoes.

What is lacking in the market and are you able to provide it? Once you have a product in mind, you must also consider its design, quality, and features that will make it well-received during launch. You need to take note of how your product will grow in the future, too. You can, for instance, start with the basic design but eventually, you need to make improvements to continually keep your market interested.

You see this happening every day when new features or variants are added to products that you have known since you were a child. When you foresee the future of your product, it is important that it has a long life-cycle if you want your business to stand for long-term. Conceptualizing a product is applicable not only to new businesses, but also to old players who want to introduce a new product to the market.

Place

Where will you sell your product? The most logical answer of course is near where your target customers are. If you are selling school supplies, then putting up stores near schools will be a brilliant move. If your budget does not allow that, then perhaps building a partnership with successful distributors will be your next good option. Included in this element is planning your logistics so that you can ensure fast delivery of your products to your distributors or directly to your customers. Another thing you need to consider in the current time, where internet has become a shopping place for most people, is creating your website where you can sell your products.

Price

Price undoubtedly plays a big role. Make it too high and consumers will turn to the cheaper alternatives, make it too low and you will not profit. It has to be balanced to serve your needs, while at the same time keep your buyers returning. Aside from coming up with the retail price of your product, you need to consider the modes of payment that you will accept, discounts that you are willing to offer for bulk purchases, equipment that you will need to facilitate the payment transactions, credit collection, and many others.

Promotion

You need to let your target market know that your product exists for them to patronize it. The truth of the matter is, no matter how good your product is, yet if you fail to market it well, then your business will not survive. Your competitors who have substandard products compared to yours, but aggressively advertise them, will get higher sales. Hence, it is important that you include in your planning the strategies that you will use for your marketing. This may include TV commercials, print ads, social media ads, billboards, and many more.
For small businesses that do not have enough capital to finance extravagant promotional gimmicks, the best route to take is to advertise on the internet. Creating free accounts in the various social media sites is a good way to reach out to buyers and get the word out about your product. You may also ask the help of relatives and friends to introduce your product to their social circles.

As you can see, these 4Ps are essential elements when creating your business plan. Each of these plays an important role in the success of a business. You may get the product, price, and promotions right, but if you fail at distribution, then that can result to unsatisfied customers. Hence, it is important that you create the perfect blend of these four elements before you set forth with your business. Fortunately, understanding what is the marketing mix has taught you how to go about it.