Marketing Mix, the Communication Process and Relationship
Marketing is simply a matter of matching customers’ needs and the products and services offered by a company. The organization, then, needs to understand how to communicate to customers in such a way as to make them want to enter into a relationship with them.
A number of factors have to be considered by an organization in communicating to the customers and prospective customers. The marketing mix is a very helpful tool in planning for the marketing communication campaign of an organization.
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The Product. In the first place, the product or service offered by an organization should be good enough and worthy of the attention of buyers and consumers. Even if promotion and price were good, if the product is substandard, customers will find out. The end result would be a marketing disaster for the company.
Product development should depend on the needs and wants of customers. This calls for careful research. Market research is essentially communication from the customers to the organization initiated by the latter. This is a means of discovering preferences, needs and potentials in the market.
Sometimes, however, a product is “imposed” upon the customers. Take a look at “Coke.” It is not really “needed” by people. But it is still in demand in the market. Coke has found its niche in the market and people found out that they want it and they are willing to spend money for it.
The Price. An organization has to ensure its profitability while at the same time making sure that the product or service is accessible to its target market. If a product were to be sold to people belong to the lower economic class in the society, it doesn’t make sense to offer a high price. Pricing is a tricky and tedious job. Yet, it should be done carefully to ensure that it works for the benefit of the organization. If pricing were haphazardly done, it can drive short-term profits up but over the long term, it may drive customers away.
Price is essentially a communication tool, too. It is a means of saying a number of things to the customer—“this product is affordable but it has good quality;” “pricey but classy;” and “just right for your budget but not so durable.” All of these things are being communicated to the customers.
To control such messages, the organization has to plan carefully for the next P in the marketing mix.
Promotion. This is where communication really makes the difference in marketing. Promotion means pushing your product or service to the prospective customers. Pushing might be too strong a word. Put simply, an organization engages in the process of making people aware!
The marketing department of an organization usually deals with promotion. Word-of-mouth marketing, advertising, point-of-sale and public relations are some of the promotion and communication strategies employed by organizations. Yet, they can also employ other means of communication such as public relations, which includes sponsorship deals, events marketing, conferences, exhibitions, trade fairs and others. If the promotion is good, it can drive sales and boost the profits of the organization.
The other P’s in the marketing mix tend to happen in the backend and they have minimal interaction with the intended customers. Promotion, however, is in the front-end and rises or falls with the response of the customers.
Place. The last component of the traditional marketing mix is place, which refers to the distribution points of the products or services. It can be a restaurant, a shopping mall, a supermarket or a boutique. The main consideration here, then, would be the traffic of people coming to the point of distribution.
Organizations have come to realize that PEOPLE were also important in the marketing mix, as well as the PROCESSES involved in the organization and marketing. So, thankfully, they made it to the marketing mix list.
At the heart of the marketing mix is a relationship! If marketing were just a transactional process, it would severely limit the way the organization engages with the customers.
In the upcoming blog posts, we’ll be exploring the individual components of the marketing mix.
What do you think is the most important component of the marketing mix? Why and how?
all businesses need market research to make sure that a product will succeed.’,*