Marketing Mix Questions Answered Today!

Hey ya'll, we are getting down to the end of the "must have" marketing plan items so here is a fun one for you to start working on. If you've been following along and doing each step week by week, you should know that the marketing mix has 4 parts. So feel free to do one part a week. 

In marketing, the marketing mix is often called the 4 P's. The P's stand for Product, Place, Promotion, and Price. In total the marketing mix is the unique blend your business uses of these 4 P's. While each of the P's is it's own individual category, it's the way they are blended together that gives the marketing manager optimal results. 

For example, if I where selling bananas (product) for $0.66/lb (price) or $0.44/lb on sale (promotion) but you had to go to Brazil (place) to get them. American consumers would say this isn't and optimal blend and they wouldn't purchase bananas. 

When starting your marketing mix, we typically start with product, because without a product you don't have anything to sell.  It's sort of the heart of your business ;) wouldn't you agree. The most commonly overlooked things when thinking about your product are: packaging, after-sale service, branding, image, warranty, and value.  So be sure to take a beat and think about everything that goes into your product. Not just the product itself. 

As I talked about in the above example place is an important piece of the marketing mix puzzle. I won't rehash, but picking a place that makes sense for your product and to your clients is key. Don't forget to thinking about where your product will be made, stored, shipped to and from, where the raw materials come from and where the finished product will be sold. 

Next up is Promotion Strategies. There are sooooo many promotion strategies this could be a blog post/newsletter or 10 all to itself. For the purposes of this overview what you should consider is how you will sell and promote your product to you target market. What tactics and channels you'll use and if you'll have any specials or sales. 

Finally, Pricing. In simple terms price is the amount of money that a buyer gives up to get your product. Price can be super flexible and can change as often as it needs to. You can offer a sale if you want. In the fourth quadrant you'll want to include what your base price will be if you sell a product with buy up options and then think about what the range or price of those options will be.

You can also use pricing to discourage people from purchase your product so if your low on product and waiting on a shipment increase the price some to slow the number of purchases you'll get. If you follow some of the well selling items on Amazon.com your likely to see this tactic uses by may of the top drop-shippers. 

What every you do, don't forget to account for overhead and taxes. You don't want those coming out of your pocket in the end. 

So I think I've given you a ton to think about when it comes to marketing mix. Remember, you're doing this for the Target Market you just identified so you want the experience to be good for all involved. If you're Target Market has low income, you won't want to price your product with a high price point. 

Now, get out there and start creating your perfect marketing mix blend.