overview
Marketing Mix- Like Baking a Cake
What is a Marketing Mix and why do I care?
The Marketing Mix is probably the most famous marketing term. The term became popular after Neil H. Borden published his 1964 article, The Concept of the Marketing Mix. Borden began using the term in his teaching in the late 1940’s after James Culliton had described a marketing manager as a “mixer of ingredients.”
Marketing Mix Overview
The marketing mix set a set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that work together to achieve company’s objectives. These controllable tools are the four Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. These four Ps are the parameters that the marketing manager can control, subject to the internal and external constraints of the marketing environment.
The goal is to make decisions that center the four Ps on the customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive response. Think of it like baking a cake. Flour, eggs, sugar and butter are the ingredients for the cake. Mixing them with the right measurements will produce a not-too-sweet soft moist cake. But if you add more sugar or separate the egg whites and make soft peaks, the cake will turn out different – a sweeter and lighter cake.
Over the coming weeks I will go more in depth of each aspect of the Marketing Mix. I actually took a cake decorating class recently and have been experimenting with different cake icing flavors and what to decorate. Just when you think you have the “right” mix, your can add something different and see how your customer (target market) reacts to it. These split tests can help your marketing mix to better match your intended audience.
Marketing Mix It Up,
Samuel Carrara
The Journey of a Product
Have you ever wondered how a product is created? Can you think of a product that was a big hit back in the day but not available now? Some say that a product has a life cycle like Mother Nature. A bird drops a seed on the ground; the seed starts to sprout; shoots out leaves and roots; the plant matures into a big tree and after years of stormy weather and sunny spring the tree dies.
In theory, it’s the same for a product. After a period of development, it is introduced or launched into the market (bird drops the seed on the ground); it gains more and more customers as it grows (shoots out leaves and roots); eventually the market stabilizes and the product becomes mature (little seed became a big tree); then after a period of time the product is overtaken by development and the introduction of superior competitors, it goes into decline and is eventually withdrawn (death of tree).
Product Life Cycle
To say that a product has a life cycle is to assert four things:
- That products have a limited life,
- product sales pass through distinct stages, each facing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller,
- profit rise and fall at different stages of product life cycle, and
- products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human resource strategies in each life cycle stage.
However, you must remember that a product life cycle even under normal conditions, to all practical intents and purposes often do not exist. Dhalla & Yuspeh in 1976 criticizes the product life cycles states that:
…clearly, the PLC (Product Life Cycle) is a dependent variable which is determined by market actions; it is not an independent variable to which companies should adapt their marketing programs. Marketing management itself can alter the shape and duration of a brand’s life cycle.
So, the life cycle may be useful as a description, but not as a PREDICTOR; and usually should be firmly under the control of the marketer. The important point is that in many markets, that product or brand life cycle is significantly longer than the planning cycle of the organizations involved.
For more about the product life cycle visit: http://www.samcarrara.com/marketing/product-life-cycle-overview/
The Product Journey,
Samuel Carrara
