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: MARKETING MIX The marketing mix refers to the set of actions, or tactics, that a company uses to promote its brand or product in the market. The 4Ps make up a typical marketing mix – Price, Product, Promotion and Place. However, nowadays, the marketing mix increasingly includes several other Ps like Packaging, Positioning, People and even Politics as vital mix elements. Price: refers to the value that is put for a product. It depends on costs of production, segment targeted, ability of the market to pay, supply – demand and a host of other direct and indirect factors. There can be several types of pricing strategies, each tied in with an overall business plan. Pricing can also be used a demarcation, to differentiate and enhance the image of a product. Product: refers to the item actually being sold. The product must deliver a minimum level of performance; otherwise even the best work on the other elements of the marketing mix won’t do any good. Place: refers to the point of sale. In every industry, catching the eye of the consumer and making it easy for her to buy it is the main aim of a good distribution or ‘place’ strategy. Retailers pay a premium for the right location. In fact, the mantra of a successful retail business is ‘location, location, location’. Promotion: this refers to all the activities undertaken to make the product or service known to the user and trade. This can include advertising, word of mouth, press reports, incentives, commissions and awards to the trade. It can also include consumer schemes, direct marketing, contests and prize. All the elements of the marketing mix influence each other. They make up the business plan for a company and handled right, can give it great success. But handled wrong and the business could take years to recover. The marketing mix needs a lot of understanding, market research and consultation with several people, from users to trade to manufacturing and several others. Marketing Mix – A mixture of several ideas and plans followed by a marketing representative to promote a particular product or brand is called marketing mix. Several concepts and ideas combined together to formulate final strategies helpful in making a brand popular amongst the masses form marketing mix. Elements of Marketing Mix The elements of marketing mix are often called the four P’s of marketing. 1. Product Goods manufactured by organizations for the end-users are called products. Products can be of two types – Tangible Product and Intangible Product (Services) An individual can see, touch and feel tangible products as compared to intangible products. A product in a market place is something which a seller sells to the buyers in exchange of money. 2. Price The money which a buyer pays for a product is called as price of the product. The price of a product is indirectly proportional to its availability in the market. Lesser its availability, more would be its price and vice a versa. Retail stores which stock unique products (not available at any other store) quote a higher price from the buyers. 3. Place Place refers to the location where the products are available and can be sold or purchased. Buyers can purchase products either from physical markets or from virtual markets. In a physical market, buyers and sellers can physically meet and interact with each other whereas in a virtual market buyers and sellers meet through internet. 4. Promotion Promotion refers to the various strategies and ideas implemented by the marketers to make the end – users aware of their brand. Promotion includes various techniques employed to promote and make a brand popular amongst the masses. Promotion can be through any of the following ways: Advertising Print media, Television, radio are effective ways to entice customers and make them aware of the brand’s existence. Billboards, hoardings, banners installed intelligently at strategic locations like heavy traffic areas, crossings, railway stations, bus stands attract the passing individuals towards a particular brand. Taglines also increase the recall value of the brand amongst the customers. Word of mouth One satisfied customer brings ten more customers along with him whereas one dis-satisfied customer takes away ten more customers. That’s the importance of word of mouth. Positive word of mouth goes a long way in promoting brands amongst the customers. Lately three more P’s have been added to the marketing mix. They are as follows: People – The individuals involved in the sale and purchase of products or services come under people. Process – Process includes the various mechanisms and procedures which help the product to finally reach its target market Physical Evidence – With the help of physical evidence, a marketer tries to communicate the USP’s and benefits of a product to the end users Four C’s of Marketing Mix Now days, organizations treat their customers like kings. In the current scenario, the four C’s has thus replaced the four P’s of marketing making it a more customer oriented model. Koichi Shimizu in the year 1973 proposed a four C’s classification. Commodity – (Replaces Products) Cost – (Replaces Price) involves manufacturing cost, buying cost and selling cost Channel – The various channels which help the product reach the target market. Communication – (Replaces Promotion) Robert F. Lauterborn gave a modernized version of the four C’s model in the year 1993. According to him the four C’s of marketing are: Consumer Cost Convenience Communication Conclusion of the Marketing Mix: The Art of Blending the Elements: In short, a marketing manager uses four marketing tools — decision areas — that ineract with one another. These are product, promotion, distribution and price. The blending of these four tools is referred to as the marketing mix. A manager’s selection of an marketing mix is very important. Different combinations of ingredi-ents may be used. In marketing, there is no standard formula for a successful combination of marketing elements. Marketing mixes will vary from company to company, depending upon the kinds of markets Benefits of Marketing Mix An analytical study and interpretation has some benefits that are made available to the business firms. These are: 1. It provides a valuable guide for resource allocation: Every marketing effort warrants the judicious allocation of resources both human and financial. As one is aware, these resources are limited and precious and should be used in an effective manner. These needed resources depend on the nature of marketing mix that maximizes not only consumer satisfaction or delight on one hand and profit to the firm. 2. It helps to allocate the responsibilities: The creative and challenging job of marketing is a team work and part of marketing process entails the allocation of responsibilities to members of this marketing team. By virtue of specialization some are accountable for product management, others for selling and still others for physical distribution. As the marketing manager has the perfect mix on his hand and in mind, it is realty easy and logical to allocate the individual and group responsibilities; it is because, before arriving at ‘perfect mix’ good deal of house-work or punch practice is done based on logic and empirical findings. 3. It provides an opportunity to analyze cost benefit elasticity’s: Resources which are limited having alternative uses are to be judiciously allocated to the requirements of the mix input make that are designed to pay out. On illustrative basis, it can be said that one can increase the number of sales-personal in order to increase sales; or by increasing the ad budget. One must be aware of behavior of costs and revenues with the change in situation. Coming to real life situation, one has to consider the cumulative effect of these multiple tools on one another. These alternative tools are known for varying degree of elasticity’s and it is the accepted marketing-mix concept that assists to analyze such a proposition. As a “perfect-mix” is based on total recognition of relationship between the cost and revenue. This helps to determine that you can go on increasing the expenditure so long as it brings in positive revenue or results. Such an exercise is possible only when there is a marketing program that has identified the components and tents of that mix guaranteeing encouraging market response. 4. It facilitates communication process: Each business unit has its internal organization which is the framework of relations from top to bottom whether flat and slim or high-rise and tapering. Coming to each department, division, section; different units use differing terminologies for the marketing positions and sub-positions. This leads to confusion and conflict so far as meaning of each position is concerned. The titles given are so confusing that they fail to convey the contents of job titles. Thus, there can be “Marketing and promotion manager” along with “Brand managers” or “Promotion and publicity manager” side by side with “Sales and contract-manager”. If, this is the story of one company, another company speaks of “Market-research and promotion manager”.
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TOPIC: PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE A product life cycle is the length of time from a product first being introduced to consumers until it is removed from the market. A product’s life cycle is usually broken down into four stages; introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Product life cycles are used by management and marketing professionals to help determine advertising schedules, price points, expansion to new product markets, packaging redesigns, and more. These strategic methods of supporting a product are known as product life cycle management. They can also help determine when newer products are ready to push older ones from the market Stages of the Product Life Cycle Generally, there are four stages to the product life cycle, from the product’s development to its decline in value and eventual retirement from the market. THERE ARE 4 STAGES OF A PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE. ———– 1,INTRODUCTION 2,GROWTH 3.MATURITY 4.DECLINE 1. Introduction Once a product has been developed, the first stage is its introduction stage. In this stage, the product is being released into the market. When a new product is released, it is often a high-stakes time in the product’s life cycle – although it does not necessarily make or break the product’s eventual success. During the introduction stage, marketing and promotion are at a high – and the company often invests the most in promoting the product and getting it into the hands of consumers. This is perhaps best showcased in Apple’s (AAPL) famous launch presentations, which highlight the new features of their newly (or soon to be released) products. It is in this stage that the company is first able to get a sense of how consumers respond to the product, if they like it and how successful it may be. However, it is also often a heavy-spending period for the company with no guarantee that the product will pay for itself through sales. Costs are generally very high and there is typically little competition. The principle goals of the introduction stage are to build demand for the product and get it into the hands of consumers, hoping to later cash in on its growing popularity. 2. Growth By the growth stage, consumers are already taking to the product and increasingly buying it. The product concept is proven and is becoming more popular – and sales are increasing. Other companies become aware of the product and its space in the market, which is beginning to draw attention and increasingly pull in revenue. If competition for the product is especially high, the company may still heavily invest in advertising and promotion of the product to beat out competitors. As a result of the product growing, the market itself tends to expand. The product in the growth stage is typically tweaked to improve functions and features. As the market expands, more competition often drives prices down to make the specific products competitive. However, sales are usually increasing in volume and generating revenue. Marketing in this stage is aimed at increasing the product’s market share. 3. Maturity When a product reaches maturity, its sales tend to slow or even stop – signaling a largely saturated market. At this point, sales can even start to drop. Pricing at this stage can tend to get competitive, signaling margin shrinking as prices begin falling due to the weight of outside pressures like competition or lower demand. Marketing at this point is targeted at fending off competition, and companies will often develop new or altered products to reach different market segments. Given the highly saturated market, it is typically in the maturity stage of a product that less successful competitors are pushed out of competition – often called the “shake-out point.” In this stage, saturation is reached and sales volume is maxed out. Companies often begin innovating to maintain or increase their market share, changing or developing their product to meet with new demographics or developing technologies. The maturity stage may last a long time or a short time depending on the product. For some brands, the maturity stage is very drawn out, like Coca-Cola ‘ 4. Decline Although companies will generally attempt to keep the product alive in the maturity stage as long as possible, decline for every product is inevitable. In the decline stage, product sales drop significantly and consumer behavior changes as there is less demand for the product. The company’s product loses more and more market share, and competition tends to cause sales to deteriorate. Marketing in the decline stage is often minimal or targeted at already loyal customers, and prices are reduced. Eventually, the product will be retired out of the market unless it is able to redesign itself to remain relevant or in-demand. For example, products like typewriters, telegrams and muskets are deep in their decline stages (and in fact are almost or completely retired from the market). EXAMPLES OF PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE Many products or brands have gone into decline as consumer needs change or new innovations are introduced. Some industries operate in several stages of the product life cycle simultaneously, such as with televisual entertainment, where flat screen TVs are at the mature phase, on-demand programming is in the growth stage, DVDs are in decline and video cassettes are now largely redundant. Many of the most successful products in the world stay at the mature stage for as long as possible, with small updates and redesigns along with renewed marketing to keep them in the thoughts of consumers, such as with the Apple iPhone. Here are a few well-known examples of products that have passed or are passingthrough the product life cycle: 1. Typewriters The typewriter was hugely popular following its introduction in the late 19th century due to the way it made writing easier and more efficient. Quickly moving through market growth to maturity, the typewriter began to go into decline with the advent of the electronic word processor and then computers, laptops and smartphones. While there are still typewriters available, the product is now at the end of its decline phase with few sales and little demand. Meanwhile, desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets are all experiencing the growth or maturity phases of the product lifecycle. 2. Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) Having first appeared as a relatively expensive product, VCRs experienced large-scale product growth as prices reduced leading to market maturation when they could be found in many homes. However, the creation of DVDs and then more recently streaming services, VCRs are now effectively obsolete. Once a ground-breaking product VCRs are now deep in a decline stage from which it seems unlikely they will ever recover. 3. Electric Vehicles Electric vehicles are experiencing a growth stage in their product life cycle as companies work to push them into the marketplace with continued design improvements. Although electric vehicles are not new, the consistent innovation in the market and the improving sales potential means that they are still growing and not yet into the mature phase. 4. AI Products Like electric vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI) has been in development and use for years, but due to the continued developments in AI, there are many products that are still in the market introduction stage of the product life cycle. These include innovations that are still being developed, such as autonomous vehicles, which are yet to be adopted by consumers
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