Marketing Mix, Essay Example

Marketing decisions made by a company when shaping a suitable proposition for the potential customer can be organized into four major groups. These are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The actual meaning of those four is creating the right product, selling it at the right price and in the right place, with the use of the most effective promotion possible. When being in the process of bringing some particular product to the market, the organization is supposed to make choices concerning the product that will eventually influence the effectiveness of a chosen strategy. The four P’s are a sort of parameters that are under marketer’s control. “The goal is to make decisions that center the four P’s on the customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response” (Net MBA Business Knowledge Center).

The term ‘Product’ refers to both tangible physical goods and services. The choices that are made concerning the product can be: brand name, design, functionality, protection, maintenance, packaging, guarantee, accessories and services. To define what the product is supposed to represent questions may be asked like: What does the consumer want from the product/service? What requirements does it satisfy? What characteristics is it supposed to have to meet customers’ requirements? How and where will the customer exercise it? What does it look like? How is it different from the one product of your competitors?

The term ‘Price’ refers to the choice of appropriate approaches to forming the actual price of the product. It is no secret that each person pays a lot of attention to the price of the product being bought. Each customer weights benefit the product is to bring versus its cost in order to make a wise decision. It is also important to mention that while all the other three aspects of marketing mix are costs, price is the only one which creates sales revenue. Investigating consumers’ attitude toward pricing is significant since it specifies how they value what they are looking for, as well as what they would like to pay for it. Naturally, company’s pricing policy depends a lot on the circumstances in which the organization is operating. The possible decisions marketer is making concerning the price are: pricing strategy (demand-, cost-, profit- or competition- based methods), suggested retail price, volume discounts and wholesale pricing, seasonal pricing, bundling, price flexibility and discrimination, etc. The questions that can be asked in order to understand the pricing element better are: What is the value of the product or service to the purchaser? Is the client price sensitive? What discounts should be proposed to customers, or to other particular segments of your market? How will your price contrast with that of your competitors?

‘Place’ element of the marketing mix is the one being concerned with a range of methods of transferring and storing goods, and then making them accessible to the consumers. Significantly, approximately a fifth of the product’s cost goes on its distribution. What value do product’s exceptional features have if it is stored badly, or if the potential customers have no way to get it? Delivering the right product to the proper place at the right time requires creation of a distribution system. Once again, the choice of convenient distribution methods depends greatly on present circumstances.  When referring to ‘place’ marketer has to make decision on distribution channels and centers, transportation, warehousing, order processing, etc. Understanding of this particular element of the marketing mix can be obtained if giving answers to such questions as:  Where do buyers search for your product or service? In what kind of stored do they look for the product? How can you contact the appropriate distribution channels? What do you competitors do, and how can you benefit from that?

‘Promotion’ refers to the actual process of communicating with consumers. It is concerned with presenting customers with information needed to make a decision. The fact is that, even though being sometimes extremely costly, promotion can increase the sales significantly, so that advertising and other costs are spread over a larger output. If being properly organized and successfully implemented, promotion can be extremely cost-effective. Promotion is aimed at generating the positive customers’ response and deals with decisions on promotional strategy, advertising, public relations and publicity, sales promotions, marketing communication budgeting, etc. These are the questions that can be helpful when defining this particular element of marketing mix: Where and when can one get across your marketing messages to the target market? How will you reach your audience in the most effective way possible? When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? How do your competitors promote their product and how can it influence your promotional strategies?

Such a great profit-oriented company as Nike, which is the global sports shoe company and is the largest seller of athletic footwear in the world, does surely pay a lot of attention to the development of its marketing mix. If referring to the ‘product’ element of Nike’s company, we can talk about how Nike proposes broad choice of shoe, apparel and equipment products. The company also market head gear under the brand name Sports Specialties. Nike’s pricing is considered to be competitive to the other sport shoe sellers. The pricing is established on the basis of premium segment as target customers. Nike shoes are available all over the world in the multi-brand and the exclusive Nike stores. “Nike sells its product to about 20,000 retail accounts in the U.S. and in almost 200 countries around the world. In the international markets, Nike sells its products through independent distributors, licensees and subsidiaries” (Cuizon, 2009). Nike’s promotion is greatly concerned with finding reachable store locations. It also involves targeted advertising in the newspaper and generating strategic associations. For example, Nike cooperates with a number of famous athletes that serve as brand representatives. Nike’s brand image, name and the trademark swoosh, position the company as one of the most identifiable brands in the world.

Adidas, Nike’s biggest competitor, is also one of the most recognizable brands of nowadays. As well as the Nike Company is, Adidas is oriented to obtaining high profits. Nowadays Adidas has a reputation of a strong brand for sports apparels. The company supports its brand by continually advancing and improving products’ original features and quality to please and satisfy its customers. If referring to Adidas pricing policy, it uses the market skimming method, positioning itself as a shopping product with prices lower than that of its major competitors. Adidas sportswear can be found in specialized brand stores, sporting outlets and in the internet. Company’s major promotion objective is to become world number one sportswear company. Promotion is implemented mostly through advertising in the mass-medias and internet, and through supporting various sport events.

References

Cuizon, G. (2009, February 13). Audit on Nike’s Marketing Strategies: The 4Ps – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://corporate-marketing-branding.suite101.com/article.cfm/audit_on_nikes_marketing_strategies

Net MBA Business Knowledge Center. (2007). The Marketing Mix (The 4 P’s of Marketing). Retrieved July 6, 2009, from http://www.netmba.com/marketing/mix/