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The
Marketing Mix Explained
In
order for your business to sell its products and services as successfully
as possible, you need to look at what products you are selling in
detail to ensure they will be attractive and needed; the price to
ensure it is not too cheap or too expensive; where you are best
distributing your product; and finally, how you can create interest and awareness
for your products. All
these elements need to be targeted at the right people at the
right time. In
order for your business to tackle this correctly, you need to get
the right type of mix (marketing mix), the mix should include four
main elements: Product, Price, Place and Promotion, by examining
each and carefully and adapting them to your customer's needs, you will
continue to produce and needed products and services.
Product
You
need firstly to identified who will be interested in buying your
products and services, this should be identified once you have
analysed the results of the market
research. Your market
research data will be able to look more closely at what your
market want and then look at your products to see if they are
satisfying your customer's needs.
Examine your packaging design, materials used, size and
quantity. By
analysing the market and its requirements, you will be able to
change the product or develop the product in order to match that
requirements of the people you are aiming at.
You
also need to remember that your customer's needs are likely to
change and therefore your products should constantly change to
reflect each market change, if you ignore these changes your
products will no longer be needed or desired by your target
customers. The only
way you will be able to do this is to track your products and
track how your customers are still receiving your products and services,
balancing the subtle changes as they occur.
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More
about the Marketing Mix
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Product
Phases (life-cycle)
Products
also go through what is known as a life cycle or phase. When
exploring what mix is best suited to your product, you should also consider
where
in the life-cycle your products lie:
Introductory
Phase
If you are releasing a brand new product or service then it will
be a baby in the market and will need to be introduced to your
market. How you price, promote and place this into the
market place will need careful consideration.
Growth
Phase
If your product or service has been enjoying being the only
one on the market, you may have noticed that others are also
joining in and entering a competitive product or service and this
will have an affect of the healthy sales you might be enjoying at
the moment. How you react to this will have an impact on the
survival of your product - Will you drop the price to compete,
will you change the way in which you promote it, will you change
the distribution method?
Maturity
Phase
If you product is one of many competing products, then you can
consider that your product is a mature one. If this is the
case then you have to take care that interest for your product is
not lost. Maturity of a product is a dangerous time and it
could get swallowed up by your competitors. As with a product in
the growth part of the life-cycle - Will you drop the price to
compete, will you change the way in which you promote it, will you
change the distribution method?
Decline
Phase
Perhaps you have noticed that one of your products is losing
its appeal; sales or interest might have dropped. If this is the case,
your product may be in decline and if you are not careful it may
die. This part of the cycle need careful
consideration. You might decide, enough is enough, and
remove it from your shelves or you could re-invent it by changing
by packaging or product name. Take a close look at your
market research data - could you aim it at a different type of
person?
Depending
which phase you felt your products were at - introductory, growth,
maturity or decline, you would be able to make further decisions
at to what price to charge, where to sell your product and what
type of promotion would be most effective.
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