ENTREP. 11: Marketing Mix

Marketing

These are activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of a product or service. It is about creating and accumulating customers.

Market Positioning

This refers to the ability to influence consumer perception regarding a brand or product relative to competitors.

3 overlapping perspectives/objectives in positioning

1. Enterprise perspective

2. Competitive perspective

3. Customers’ perspective

Positioning

This helps establish your product’s or service’s identity in the eyes of the purchaser. In determining this, the enterprise should be mindful of the main value proposition to its customers relative to its competitors.

Main Value Proposition (MVP)

It is the primary benefit or unique value that an enterprise offers to its customers in comparison to what competitors provide.

Product

• It is the tangible good or the intangible service that the enterprise offers to its customers in order to satisfy their needs and to produce their expected results.

• It also refers to any goods or services that are produced to meet the customer’s wants, tastes, and preferences.

Breakthrough Products (Pioneers)

These are products that are technologically advanced and creatively superior to existing products in the market. Its characteristics are:

• They offer completely new performance benefits.

• They may double the performance at half the cost.

• They may be much more convenient and easier to use.

• They may cater to a unique set of customer needs that have not yet been tapped.

• They may create a new demand.

Differentiated Products

This a type of product or service that stands out to your target audience.

Copycat Products

It is a product that has been designed, branded, or packaged to look exactly like that of a well-established competitor; a cheap imitation. These will not make much impression on the consumer’s mind

Niche Products

These are goods or services that serve a specific customer base and product category. They do not intend to compete directly with the giants, but instead, they have lower reach, visibility, prices, and top-of-mind awareness.

Packaging

• This mainly refers to the outside appearance and presentation of a product, serving functions such as protection, containment, information, and promotion.

• However, it can also mean the bundle of products or services that are put together to attract and delight customers.

1. It identifies the product, describes its features and benefits, and complies with government rules on specifying its contents, such as its weight, its chemical composition, and its potency.

2. It differentiates the product from its competitors and even from its other brand offerings.

3. It lengthens the lifespan, physically protects, and extends the usefulness of the product.

4. It has become an environmental issue by itself; however, it is best to reduce this.

5. It increased the cost of packaging and the price of the product.

These are the purposes of packaging.

Place

Represents the location where the buyer and seller exchange goods or services. It can be a physical store or a virtual one.

• Also called the distribution channel.

1) Physical Proximity to Target Market

2) Customer Traffic Flow

3) Industry Clustering

4) Convergence of Multiple Industries

5) Population Concentrations

6) Activity Hubs

7) Growth Potential

8) Business Climate

9) Cost of Doing Business and Producing Goods and Services.

The “musts” in choosing the location for your business.

1: PRODUCER → WHOLESALER → RETAILER → CONSUMER

2: PRODUCER → RETAILER → CONSUMER

3: PRODUCER → CONSUMER

Different Stages of Distribution Channel

People

• This refers to your team, a staff that makes it happen for you, your audience, and your advertisers.

• This consists of each person who is involved in the product or service whether directly or indirectly.

Price

It is the value of money in exchange for a product or service.

Promotion

It is the explicit communication strategy adopted by an enterprise to elicit the patronage, loyalty, and support not only from its customers but also from its other significant stakeholders.

1. Advertising

2. Sales promotion

3. Personal Selling

4. Publicity

5. Public Relations

6. Direct Marketing

7. Word-of-Mouth

8. Online Marketing

The elements of the promotion mix.

Personal Selling

It is the personal interface (telephonic or face-to-face) between the prospective buyer and the seller.

Advertising

It is a kind of promotional message developed by organizations that influence the target customers to buy the offered product(s). This is done through different paid media like commercials on radio and television, billboards, ads in newspapers, etc.

Sales Promotion

This helps in improving sales by influencing the potential customer to buy the promoted product. The different techniques include sample distribution, point of purchase display, premium coupon, off-price selling, etc.

Publicity

It is an impersonal, not-paid technique of promotion, where the demand for organizational products and services is enhanced through devising editorial remark or supporting news within the print media or through finding an encouraging presentation of it on stage, TV or radio.

Public Relations

This is a promotional tool responsible for developing and maintaining the brand image of an individual, institution or organization within the eyes of the concerned public.

Direct Marketing

Organizations directly approach prospective customers for feedback or build sales.

Word-of-Mouth

This is referred to as the transmission of information from individual to individual. This covers all kinds of human interaction, such as face-to-face interaction, email communication, telephone calls, and sending texts.

Online Marketing

This is the new technique of promotion. The interactive marketing facilitates the target customers' interaction with the organization. This includes responding to promotional questions, making queries, and receiving and editing information and images.