Marketing mix

The term marketing mix was developed by Neil Borden who first started using the phrase in 1949. Marketing mix 7 Ps - process, people, physical evidence, product, place, price, promotion.

The marketing mix (known as the 4 Ps) is a foundation model . The marketing mix has been defined as the "set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target". Thus the marketing mix refers to four broad levels of marketing decision, namely: product, price, promotion, and place. Marketing practice has been occurring for millennia, but marketing theory emerged in the early twentieth century. The contemporary marketing mix, or the 4 Ps, which has become the dominant framework for marketing management decisions, was first published in 1960. In services marketing, an extended marketing mix is used, typically comprising 7 Ps, made up of the original 4 Ps extended by process, people, and physical evidence. Occasionally service marketers will refer to 8 Ps, comprising these 7 Ps plus performance.

In the 1990s, the model of 4 Cs was introduced as a more customer-driven replacement of the 4 Ps. There are two theories based on 4 Cs: Lauterborn's 4 Cs (consumer, cost, communication, convenience), and Shimizu's 4 Cs (commodity, cost, communication, and channel).

Given the valuation of customers towards potential product attributes (in any category, e.g. product, promotion, etc.) and the attributes of the products sold by other companies, the problem of selecting the attributes of a product to maximize the number of customers preferring it is a computationally intractable problem.

The correct arrangement of marketing mix by enterprise marketing managers plays an important role in the success of corporate marketing: (1) develop strengths and avoid weaknesses (2) strengthen the competitiveness and adaptability of enterprises (3) make the internal departments of the enterprise work closely together .

Product refers to what the business offers for sale and may include products or services. Product decisions include the "quality, features, benefits, style, design, branding, packaging, services, warranties, guarantees, life cycles, investments and returns.

Price refers to decisions surrounding "list pricing, discount pricing, special offer pricing, credit payment or credit terms". Price refers to the total cost to customer to acquire the product, and may involve both monetary and psychological costs such as the time and effort spended in acquisition.

Place is defined as the "direct or indirect channels to market, geographical distribution, territorial coverage, retail outlet, market location, catalogues, inventory, logistics and order fulfilment". Place refers either to the physical location where a business carries out business or the distribution channels used to reach markets. Place may refer to a retail outlet, but increasingly refers to virtual stores such as "a mail order catalogue, a telephone call centre or a website.

Promotion refers to "the marketing communication used to make the offer known to potential customers and persuade them to investigate it further. Promotion elements include "advertising, public relations, direct selling and sales promotions.

Digital Marketing Mix

Digital marketing mix is fundamentally the same as Marketing Mix, which is an adaptation of Product, Price, Place and Promotion into digital marketing aspect. Digital marketing can be commonly explained as 'Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies.

Product

Thanks to the interaction and connection of the Internet, Product has been redefined as 'virtual product' in the digital marketing aspect, which is regarded as the combination of tangibility and intangibility. Through the form of digital, a product can be directly sent from manufacturers to customers. For example, customers could buy music in the form of an MP3 rather than buy it in the form of a physical CD. As a result, when a company is making strategy for Internet marketing, it is necessary to understand how to vary their products in the online environment. Here are some indications of adapt the product element on the Internet.

Modifying the core product: In this case, it particularly refers to the products that can be remodeled into digital forms including movies, music, books and other publishing etc. Take Netflix as an example. The wide use of Internet has changed its form of products from selling and renting DVDs through retail stores into selling and renting video online.Providing digital products: In order to gain market shares in the Internet, companies need to widen its product range. For example, a psychological counseling could offer online consultation via video calls.Building the whole product: Apart from selling products online, Amazon.com also provides a paid subscription service called Amazon Prime, with which customers could enjoy free delivery and videos on Amazon.Conducting online research: The Internet offers a low-cost and convenient way of making marketing researches, which is helpful for companies to find out what products or services do customers prefer.

Price

Price concerns about the pricing policies or pricing models from a company. Due to the widely use of the Internet, many applications could be found in both consumer's and producer's perspective. From consumers' side, the Internet enables people to make a comparison to a real-time prices before they make a consumption decision, which is time-saving and effort-saving for the consumers. As for the suppliers, they can adjust prices in the real-time and provide higher degree of price transparency with customers. Besides, the Internet is more likely to ease the pressure on price because online-producers do not have to put budget on renting a physical store.Hence, making new or adjusting pricing strategies is essential for the company that wants to enter the Internet market.

Pricing strategies and tactics see also: Pricing

Place

With the application of the Internet, place is playing an increasingly important role in promoting consumption since the Internet and the physical channels become virtual.The major contribution from the Internet to the business is not only making it possible to selling products online, but also enabling companies to build relationships with customers.Furthermore, since the convenience of navigating from one site to another, place from the digital marketing perspective is always linked with promotion, which means retailers often uses third-party websites such as Google search engine to guide customers to visit their websites.

Promotion

Promotion refers to select the target markets, locate and integrate various communications tools in the marketing mix. Unlike the traditional marketing communication tools, tools in digital marketing aim at engaging audiences by putting advertisements and contents on the social media, including display ads, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimisation (SEO) etc. In order to help in making online marketing campaign, Chaffey and Smith suggested that they can be separated into six groups.

Searching marketing, including search engine optimisation(SEO), pay-per-click(PPC).Online PR, enlarging good comments on one's products or services while reducing negative comments.adverse comments Online partnerships, building relationships between third-party webs to promote products or services.Interactive advertisingOpt in e-mail advertising Social media marketing, starting and participating in customer to customer, customer to company interaction through social media.

#brainstorming #intheoffice