Describe the marketing mix
Posted by Ripon Abu Hasnat on Thursday, September 4, 2014 | 0 comments
Marketers deal with the marketing mix, which was
described by McCarthy as the four Ps of
marketing. These are:
• Product. The product should fit the task the target
consumers want it for, it should work, and it should be what the consumers
expected to get.
• Place. The product should be available from wherever
the firm’s target group of customers find it easiest to shop. This may be a
high street shop, it may be mail order through a catalogue or from a magazine
coupon, or it may even be doorstep delivery.
• Promotion. Advertising, public relations, sales promotion,
personal selling and all the other communications tools should put across the
organization’s message in a way that fits what the particular group of
consumers and customers would like to hear, whether it be informative or appealing
to the emotions.
• Price. The product should always be seen as
representing good value for money. This does not necessarily mean that it
should be the cheapest available; one of the main tenets of the marketing
concept is that customers are usually prepared to pay a little more for
something that really works well for them.
The 4-P model has been useful when applied to the
manufacture and marketing of physical products, but with the increase in
services provision the model does not provide a full enough picture. In 1981
Booms and Bitner8 proposed a 7-P framework to include the following additional
factors:
• People. Virtually all services are reliant on people to
perform them, very often dealing directly with the consumer: for example, the
demeanor of waiters in restaurants forms a crucial part of the total experience
for the consumers. In a sense, the waiter is part of the product the consumer
is buying.
• Process. Since services are usually carried out with the
consumer present, the process by which the service is delivered is, again, part
of what the consumer is paying for. For example, there is a great deal of
difference between a silver service meal in an up market restaurant, and a
hamburger bought from a fast-food outlet. A consumer seeking a fast process
will prefer the fast-food place, whereas a consumer seeking an evening out
might prefer the slower process of the restaurant.
• Physical evidence. Almost all services
contain some physical elements: for example, a restaurant meal is a physical
thing, even if the bulk of the bill goes towards providing the intangible
elements of the service (the decor, the atmosphere, the waiters, even the
dishwashers). Likewise a hairdressing salon provides a completed hairdo, and
even an insurance company provides glossy documentation for the policies it
issues.
You can subscribe by e-mail to receive news updates and breaking stories.
0 comments for "Describe the marketing mix"
Leave a reply