What makes a good marketing mix?
A typical marketing mix is based on the four Ps:
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Product – the product or service you are selling
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Price – what it will cost the customer
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Place – where you will sell it or how the customer will receive it
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Promotion – what communication techniques you will use to inform the public about your business.
Other factors you must consider when developing your marketing mix will increase the number of Ps to eight, and add one S. The next P is:
To position your business, ask yourself what is different or unique about you, compared with your competitors. Do you provide better quality, more product and value for the price, or do you simply fill an underserved need in the community?
These are some of the ways to position your business. This can also be considered as part of your differential.
The next P is:
The last two Ps are:
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Profits – what you plan to make, and
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Politics – those laws and regulations that will govern the way you do business.
The S is probably the most important area for continued business with your customers, sometimes categorised as repeat business, but many companies seem to forget about it. It is:
You cannot and certainly will not succeed today without providing excellent customer service.
We discussed earlier how you must know who your customers are, what they need, want and expect, what you must do to satisfy those needs and wants while exceeding their expectations, and then have a system in place to resolve any customer complaints easily.
It is even suggested that your customer service should not necessarily be planned just for the customer “complaint”, but that you should have a plan for customer service to be commenced at the first point of contact with the customer before they actually purchase.
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