Marketing Mix
The 7P’s of marketing:
Successful marketing depends upon addressing a number of key issues. These include: what a company is going to produce; how much it is going to charge; how it is going to deliver its products or services to the customer; and how it is going to tell its customers about its products and services.
Traditionally, these considerations were known as the 4Ps — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. As marketing became a more sophisticated discipline, a fifth ‘P’ was added — People. And recently, two further ‘P’s were added, mainly for service industries — Process and Physical evidence.
These considerations are now known as the 7Ps of marketing, sometimes referred to as the marketing mix.
1. Product
There is no point in developing a product or service that no one wants to buy, yet many businesses decide what to offer first, and then hope to find a market for it afterwards. In contrast, the successful company will find out what customers need or want and then develop the right product — with the right level of quality to meet those needs now and in the future.
• The perfect product must provide value for the customer. This value is in the eye of the beholder — we must give our customers what they want, not what we think they want
• A product does not have to be tangible — an insurance policy can be a product
• Ask yourself whether you have a system in place to regularly check what your customers think of your product, your supporting services, etc, what their needs are now and whether they see them changing
• Beware going too far with product quality. Don’t try to sell a Rolls- Royce when the customer really wants a Nissan Micra.
2. Price
A product is only worth what customers are prepared to pay for it. The price also needs to be competitive, but this does not necessarily mean the cheapest; the small business may be able to compete with larger rivals by adding extra services or details that will offer customers better value for
Successful marketing depends upon addressing a number of key issues. These include: what a company is going to produce; how much it is going to charge; how it is going to deliver its products or services to the customer; and how it is going to tell its customers about its products and services.
Traditionally, these considerations were known as the 4Ps — Product, Price, Place and Promotion. As marketing became a more sophisticated discipline, a fifth ‘P’ was added — People. And recently, two further ‘P’s were added, mainly for service industries — Process and Physical evidence.
These considerations are now known as the 7Ps of marketing, sometimes referred to as the marketing mix.
1. Product
There is no point in developing a product or service that no one wants to buy, yet many businesses decide what to offer first, and then hope to find a market for it afterwards. In contrast, the successful company will find out what customers need or want and then develop the right product — with the right level of quality to meet those needs now and in the future.
• The perfect product must provide value for the customer. This value is in the eye of the beholder — we must give our customers what they want, not what we think they want
• A product does not have to be tangible — an insurance policy can be a product
• Ask yourself whether you have a system in place to regularly check what your customers think of your product, your supporting services, etc, what their needs are now and whether they see them changing
• Beware going too far with product quality. Don’t try to sell a Rolls- Royce when the customer really wants a Nissan Micra.
2. Price
A product is only worth what customers are prepared to pay for it. The price also needs to be competitive, but this does not necessarily mean the cheapest; the small business may be able to compete with larger rivals by adding extra services or details that will offer customers better value for