Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the primary objective of earning money. This is generally done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging customers money for it.

First of all, it is a very rare case that a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided by anybody else. This means that your enterprise will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to make money from the same shoppers, who only want to spend their cash once. So how can you boost the chances of them spending money with you?

Marketing is the primary tool used by modern firms to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great deal of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that can make or break a corporation.

So where should you begin when constructing a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every company will have its own set of strengths and weak points that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing principle that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing framework.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a phrase that was first coined in the 1950's and is a phrase that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business tool, but rather a subtle balance of different aspects of business operations. It got its name because it is similar to the ingredients checklist for a recipe.

The term was later developed to include the concept of "four P's" that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P's made it very easy for company managers and marketers to quickly relate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly form a tailored and efficient marketing system. The four P's are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

There are multiple income avenues for bed duvet cover products and our own organisation applied marketing ideas to open new paths to our customers.

Product

Although every aspect of the marketing mix is a requirement, the "product" element mentioned as one of the four P's is perhaps the most critical of all. It describes the physical product or intangible service that your business will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that buyers are going to spend money with you. If this element is not correctly managed then your organisation will find it hard to survive.

Many people do not think that marketing has any role to play when it comes to the physical product that your company is selling. In fact, the typical train of thought very often bears the exact opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the other way around - your manufacturing department creates an item for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right?

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application products in the marketplace already, and because the market is relatively well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to "take on the big boys". So how can the principles of the marketing mix help in this situation?

Rather than developing an operating system and then attempting to craft a marketing strategy to take on the likes of Microsoft or Apple, it would be far more effective to look at what types of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how viable it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development period you can avoid business dead-ends at a later stage.

Once your products have been fashioned and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to identify the reasons why a customer would buy your product rather than a competitors'.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is typically used to either prolong the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.

The car industry uses this approach very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to great effect to sell their own goods in an extremely competitive marketplace.

It might seem evident that marketing is vitally important to a physics text books producer similar to ours, although the suggestions still must be put into practice, which isn't always easy.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This is not a simple case of performing market research to figure out the top price that your customers would pay (although that can be a handy tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any specific goals your company has.

Whilst it may seem obvious, it is still worth pointing out that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the crucial factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers do not always consider the lowest price to be the best price. Actually a price that is too low can often turn customers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, key amongst which are the price sensitivity of your customers, what your rivals are doing and how can pricing maximise your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and also penetration pricing.

Price skimming

The principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on. Not only can this technique yield great financial benefits, but it can also promote an exclusive and high quality image of your item.

This pricing strategy is very often used in the consumer electronics market where customers will often eagerly await the release of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Makers could set nearly any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it. By making use of this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own money flow.

Penetration pricing

Penetration pricing is at the opposite end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary benefits can be earned long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can setup revenue streams for many years to come.

Yet another thing to keep in mind is that "price" is the one part of the marketing mix that will generate revenue for a business. The other members of the four P's will all cost money to create or undertake.

SEO companies are more common nowadays and our company used one to have cooking times a dominant phrase on our website so we can attract more customers.

Place

Place is the component of the marketing mix that is often overlooked by companies, but it is still a significant part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and subsequently how you receive money from them.

The most common ramifications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution infrastructure between your manufacturing plants and retailers and other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is important to determine your own priorities and modify your distribution network accordingly.

With the growing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to take into account how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a point of contact (or even as a whole distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers. Effective placing of your product or service can therefore yield impressive financial results.

Promotion

When you say the word "marketing", many people instantly think of the promotional side of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is only one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication tool, and whilst it can be a costly undertaking it is often an important one. The primary concern of promotion is to deliver a certain message that will increase sales.

Advertising is one of the most typical forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, creating short clips for TV and radio or by physically handing out flyers or leaflets to potential customers. With the coming of the information age we have seen a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or simply as targeted advertising materials posted through your door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which will not necessarily yield more sales directly, but relates back to one of the preliminary functions of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your rivals. When all other pieces of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that swings a customer's decision.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned every company is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P's discussed above you can take a good view of your own marketing plan.