EFG Marketing – Expand Your Company The Effective Way
“The marketing mix is the basis for all business everywhere. It is taught first as the start to any formal business education. It is something every business starter thinks about in depth, though for those who do not have the formal education, it may be important to learn the term courtesy of EFG Marketing Solutions. The phrase “”marketing mix”" was put into mass usage about fifty years ago and is still going strong today.”
The marketing mix is simply these four elements: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. They are commonly known as the four P’s. Packaging is the debated fifth P. The product is what you sell. The price is how much you charge for it. The place is where you sell it. The promotion is how you let people find out about it.
The product is possibly the first step. One must fill a void in the current market in order to be successful. What good or service is not being employed? Or what good or service is being incorrectly or poorly employed? The product, especially for small companies, is a very creative and personal choice and requires much attention to stay on top of the competition.
Price is far more complicated because it takes into account the cost of labor and supplies for the business, whether one wants to under-sell the competition, whether one wants to play with consumer expectations, and if the consumer will realistically pay what is needed to make a profit for the product. One must look closely at other options, because the customer will, too. If one can get a similar quality alternative for much less money, is your venture really worth it?
Place means: where can this product be bought? Is it regionally specific? Can it be bought online? Who is the target group most likely to buy it, and is it being sold in places they would visit?
No one is going to buy your product, however, if they don’t know it exists. This is where promotion comes in. You need to get people talking about your product, if it’s through viral marketing, or magazine ads, or product placement in movies.
The new wave of business teachers is starting to use the four Cs: consume, cost, convenience, and communication. Cost and communication are not any better alternatives for price and promotion; they’re just alliterative with the other two Cs, which ARE better definitions. Consumer focuses more on who is buying and what you can give to them, rather than looking at the product alone.
Convenience is a terribly important part of the marketing mix –one that was not addressed in the four P’s. It is even more important than place because placement of a product is only one part of the convenience of an item. Yes, the customer has to have easy access to a product in order for it to sell well. Products should be placed in areas where the types of residents will be likely to buy them. But one must also consider how convenient a product is to someone. In India, for example, the mindset is that smaller sized food packages are more convenient. They would rather pay more for a smaller bag of chips that they could eat in one sitting than pay less in the long run for a large bag that would last them several days.
Since 2005, EFG Marketing Solutions has been providing professional results for their Fortune 500 clients. With advice from EFG Marketing Solutions, their clients have been improving their bottom line for over 5 years.
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