Today we're going to be talking about the Marketing Mix, so what is the Marketing Mix, the Marketing Mix is a model based on commonly accepted definition of marketing by Adcock, Holborg & Ross.
In which says that marketing is all about having the right product, in the right place, at the right price and at the right time. The original model have four key elements product, price, place and promotion.
This then evolved into a larger model which is called the extended Marketing Mix, this has seven key elements, it has the original product, price, place and promotion.
That also has new elements of people, process and physical evidence. So let's look at each of these.
In turn first of all we have "Product", this is the Product or Service that you provide and this is all about what makes your product or service what it is.
It's about design, technology, usefulness, convenience, value, quality things such as packaging branding and accessories and warranties.
We then have "Price", there are various different approaches that you can take to pricing your product or service you have cost plus pricing.
This is where you take the total costs of producing and getting your product or service to your customer and add a percentage markup.
You have consumer-led pricing which is about researching your target customer base and prior to providing them with a product or service that you would consider they would find a fair price.
You have competitive pricing, which is about supplying your product or service at a price, that is competitive with other businesses, that are supplying the same product or service to your target market.
Yyou have penetration pricing, which is you're looking to obtain market share, in a target marketplace and you enter with a low price and then once you've obtained that market share you rise your prices.
Then we have skimming, this is almost the opposite of penetration pricing, this is where you have a price that's very high initially for your product or service and then this reduces over time.
It's commonly used by technology companies, who have high initial investments in production costs, but then over time as there's greater uptake on their product, this reduces with the product life cycle.
We have premium pricing, which is obviously high pricing to reflect a luxury good or brand and then we have economy pricing such as cheap flights.
Next we have the "Place", in terms of elements in the Marketing Mix this is how your product or service is found and is able to be purchased by your target customer base.
So you may have your product available through wholesalers, you may have your products available through your own store, you may have direct sales, as a channel through which you sell your product.
You may have online sales, things such as party plans or make use of mail-order.
The next element looks at "Promotion", this is all about how the customer finds out about your product.
It's about advertising, it it's about public relations, it's about sponsorship things, like sales promotion, personal selling, Direct Mail, digital content and social media.
Then we have "People", these are the people who are involved in selling and supporting your product or service to the customer.
It's about advice and sales support, it's about customer service, it's about after sales & back ups.
We then have "Process", this is all about looking at how everything fits together.
How your product or service actually gets to the customer and how successful those processes are managed. This is where you can look at Quality Assurance and quality management.
Then we have "Physical Evidence", this is all about the evidence that proves that your marketing is successful.
Then your product and service is definitely out there and doing what, it should this is about packaging, paperwork things like invoices, tickets, dispatch notes.
It's about vehicle signage, your presence on the internet such as webpages, furnishings, brochures, uniforms, buildings such as your offices or headquarters and things such as awards that reflect the success of your product, service and brand.
So there we have it an overview of the extended Marketing Mix, but how is this actually used in the real world, well let's look at a major global brand McDonald's.
Well known everywhere here, we have how the Marketing Mix looks for McDonald's, they have their products, obviously the core for most one among them being vegan hamburger.
But they don't just do a hamburger, they do a range of options with their hamburger, they do chicken burgers and as markets evolve where we've got things such as consumers.
Now who are looking for more responsibly sourced meat, more ethically packaged goods and more healthier options McDonald's have also adapted their products to match pricing.
McDonald's obviously with their range of products, that they have they have different prices, they also work internationally so they work with multiple currencies and they will have different pricing for the different countries that they deal with.
And they will work to a range of different pricing models placement, you can obviously find McDonald's burgers in there McDonald's restaurants.
So they have a clear place you can buy their product or service, you can also look at information on them on the Internet in terms of promotion.
McDonald's have a range of different means with which they communicate about their product and service to their potential customer and they gear them to different target markets.
We have the standardized promotion, so things like their McDonald's arches we have the logos on their clothes clearly evidenced in the different restaurants that they have you can see them on the internet and find information about the company.
There you've got special promotions things like Happy Meals and the free giveaways, that they give with the happy meals for children different toys, that change every so often we have different promotions in terms of the meals that they provide.
So you might have a special option one week and then a different option the next week they also advertise free Wi-Fi within their restaurants for business customers or customers who would like to access the internet.
While they're there, so they have a balance of different promotions to suit the needs of their different target markets. Ok so the next element that we look at is people McDonald's have lots of different people involved in the organization.
Who are helping to get their product or service to to market, these include management, administration staff and frontline customer service and sales staff.
The next element is process and McDonald's our market leader at processor engineering, they make sure that they have processes for producing their product.
The hamburger they make sure that they have processes that make it easy for the customer to get access to the food in the way they want they are a fast food industry and with having things such as the fast drive-thru section that helps their customer get food quickly.
They also have ways of making payments faster, as well for the customer such as contactless, which they have introduced in most of their branches, so overall they have extremely focused on efficient processes.
So the next thing that we've got is physical evidence and it's clear that McDonald's are extremely successful in terms of getting their products and service to market.
We can clearly see that through the restaurants, that they have through the people that serve in those restaurants with the clear branding on their clothes.
We can see that they've been successful by the fact that their organization is global by the fact, it's used in business case studies and also by the fact that there is actually a Big Mac index by which the cost of living in different countries is judged by the cost of a Big Mac in those countries.
So there we have it that looks at the application of the 7P's, as to how they're used in the real world with a global market leader.
So what are the key applications well, the key applications in terms of the certain P's are generally for strategic planning, so this is where you're looking at introducing a new product or service or maybe your business that's looking to get into a new marketplace.
You use it so that you can analyze what product or service is needed, how you fit into that marketplace, what sort of place should you be promoting your product or service in how should you be getting it to the customer.
If you look at all of the individual elements of the Marketing Mix, this helps define your strategy in a much more successful way you also have a use in gap analysis.
So say you're an existing company and you have a product or service that isn't performing as you'd like within the marketplace this is where you can look at each element of the Marketing Mix.
And see if there is an area where you have gaps or where things are failing and it helps you to correct this. okay so there we have it the extended Marketing Mix as an overview
And why do we want to have the Marketing Mix so that we can make sure that we have the right product, in the right place, at the right price, at the right time there you have it the Marketing Mix.
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