The Essentials of Marketing Mix Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Essentials of Marketing Mix - Essay Example Therefore, the marketing mix for each of these product categories also needs to be different. It seems that marketers use different marketing mix strategies even for goods under the same product category. This paper will analyse the marketing mix strategies of two existing brands that market luxury goods. Theoretical Concepts of the Marketing Mix Elements The term ‘marketing mix’ was firstly used by Neil Borden in 1953. The theory of marketing mix contains four main elements called 4 P’s of marketing; product, price, place, and promotion. These four elements constitute the entire promotional campaign; and â€Å"when these are effectively blended, they form a marketing program that provides want-satisfying goods and services to the company’s market (Spiro, Stanton, and Rich, 2003, p.10). The term marketing mix reflects a broader concept that includes several marketing aspects which all work toward a similar objective of creating awareness and customer loyal ty. Every firm considers marketing mix as a vital strategy as the elements of marketing mix play a significant role in each stage of product life cycle. In the modern days, ‘people’ is added as the 5th P to the marketing mix elements in order to represent the target people. The 4 P’s of marketing are briefly described below. 1. ... Product is a crucial element that has the ability to lead the whole business operations to success or failure. Hence, in order to retain product competitiveness in the market, marketers usually employ product differentiation strategy as a tool to differentiate their products from those of its competitors. In short, while marketing a product, the marketer must take specific product decisions regarding ranges of factors like brand name, functionality, packaging, warranty, styling, and quality. 2. Price Simply, price determines the numerical value of the product or it is the amount that a customer pays for the product. A marketer may increase or decrease the price of his product according to its demand in the market. Different pricing strategies are used to price a product in various situations. Premium pricing is a most common pricing strategy by which a higher price is charged for the product; it is practiced if the product possesses a substantial competitive advantage over the compet ing products. In addition, penetration pricing, economy pricing, price skimming, psychological pricing, geographical pricing, and numbers of others pricing strategies are used to price a product. Marketers must take price flexibility and price discrimination into account while formulating pricing decisions. 3. Place Place represents a location where a product is marketed. It may either be a physical store or be a virtual store on the internet. According the theory of marketing mix, the place also refers to channel, distribution, or intermediary. In other words, place is the channel through which goods and services are moved from the marketer to the ultimate consumers. The marketer has to formulate clear decisions on distribution channels; for instance, he has