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Archive for June, 2010

More and more people are looking to buy 4×4s, as this type of vehicle grows in popularity. Some people like to purchase them for off road use, whilst others simply use them on urban roads. One of the reasons why these vehicles are becoming more popular is because they are becoming more comfortable to drive around in. They are no longer the big, heavy duty vehicles they used to be, and there are now models available which are incredibly luxurious.

Naturally the vehicles are rising in popularity because they have excellent off road abilities. More and more people are wishing to escape the stress of every day life by going on holidays. There is no better vehicle to take on vacation than a 4×4. Firstly, it is large and powerful, so you will be able to take a lot of luggage with you. Furthermore, 4×4s have a lot of power, and are capable of pulling heavy trailers. This ability is a must for people who own boats, jet skis or other recreational vehicles such as quad bikes and off road motor cycles. With a bakkie, you will be able to pull a trailer containing any of these holidaying vehicles. Furthermore, any bicycles and other luggage which would not fit in a normal car can be brought along. This allows you to plan a longer holiday, without worrying about having enough space for all your luggage, whilst at the same time still having enough space to be comfortable in the cabin of the vehicle during the journey.

Due to modern technological advancements, 4x4s are no longer the heavy fuel consumers that they used to be! It is now possible to purchase extremely powerful 4x4s that are quite conservative on fuel. Furthermore, their care and maintenance are becoming more affordable too, as is information on how to look after them properly.

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

Firstly, it is a very rare case where a business can offer a product or service that is genuinely unique and cannot be provided by anybody else. This means that your enterprise will be contesting with other businesses that sell a similar item and you will both be trying to earn 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 organisations 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 number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that could make or break a corporation.

So where should you begin when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and every business will have its own set of advantages and flaws that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any corporation to be used as a marketing platform. It is known as the “Marketing Mix”.

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 express the fundamental building blocks of any marketing strategy. It demonstrates the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a subtle balance of different elements of business functions.

The term was later developed to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the critical elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very easy for company managers and marketers to quickly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very rapidly create a tailored and effective marketing plan. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Nearly every sector in the modern marketplace is reasonably competitive, especially conference production, where good promotional judgements can mean the success or failure of the business.

Product

Although every aspect of the marketing mix is a requirement, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is possibly 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 customers are going to spend money with you.

Many people don’t think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the actual product that your company is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the job of the marketing department to discover ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application products on the market already, and because the market is fairly well saturated it would be very tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”.

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 sought after in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development period you can prevent business dead-ends at a later time.

Once your products have been designed and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively evaluate your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is called product variation and is generally used to either extend the lifecycle of a product currently in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many customers as possible.

The motor industry uses this technique 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 incredibly competitive marketplace. Although these companies may have huge marketing budgets, the same principles can be applied to all companies.

As part of our own promotion plan, our business very carefully researched exactly what made our products stand out from the crowd.

“Product is paramount” is one of the mottos applied in our event management business and tries to emphasise to all staff that we expect high quality manufacturing.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix concerns the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of carrying out market research to figure out the highest price that your customers would pay (although that can be a useful tool to use), but rather making use of the price of your products as a strategic weapon designed to achieve any particular targets your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing plan are surprisingly substantial!

Although it may seem obvious, it’s still worth pointing out that price has always been, and likely always will be, one of the key factors that customers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the cheapest price to be the best value. Actually a price that is too low can often turn customers away.

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

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 will be prepared to spend a large amount of money to receive a product or service early on.

This pricing technique is frequently used in the consumer electronics market where customers will often eagerly await the release of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Manufacturers could set almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal core of customers that would pay it.

Penetration pricing

Penetration pricing is at the other end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that monetary rewards can be earned long into the future. It can be a high risk strategy, but when employed correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come. When setting a price for penetration it is still important to not give a bad impression of your product by aiming for too low a figure.

Yet another thing to keep in mind is that “price” is the one part of the marketing mix that will generate income for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to produce or undertake.

SEO firms are more common these days and our company employed one to make cooking times a notable key phrase for our website to attract more customers.

Place

Place is the part of the marketing mix that’s often disregarded by companies, but it is still an important part of selling your product effectively. In short, it describes the way in which you deliver your product to your consumer, and consequently how you collect money from them. It can be a great marketing approach when used correctly.

The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical locations in which your goods are sold. For the majority of consumer products, this involves the distribution network between your manufacturing plants and shops or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and modify your distribution network accordingly.

With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to consider how they use the Internet to help deliver their products. By using the Internet as a place of contact (or even as a complete distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) firms are now able to reach out to a large pool of possible customers. Effective positioning of your product or service can therefore yield impressive economic results.

Promotion

When you mention the word “marketing”, most people immediately 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.

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

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more sales directly, but goes back to one of the preliminary functions of marketing; getting customers to pick your product over those of your competitors.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned every company is unique and will have different marketing requirements. By using a mixture of the four P’s discussed above you can take an effective view of your own marketing strategy.