The success of your business will depend, not only on the product you sell, but also on how, where, and when it is presented to your potential customers. It is a mixture of these activities that will allow you to be competitive in the marketplace. This mixture is called the marketing mix.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS INGREDIENT CARD
Ingredient 2: Discover Your Market
Question:
What are the 4 p’s in the marketing mix?
Answer:
The typical marketing mix is based on the four P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
- Product: What you make or offer as a service.
- Price: The price you expect in return for offering this product or service.
- Place: The location or the way in which you are going to get your products and services to your target market.
- Promotion: The way you are going to let people know about you and your product or service.
When developing your marketing mix it is important to consider:
Product
What exactly are you selling? Remember that people only buy solutions to problems – what are you offering them? Selling shoes is selling foot protection; selling umbrellas is selling protection from rain or sun. What problem does your product solve?
Place
Where is the best place to sell the product? How should it be distributed? Ayers Rock may not be the best place to sell surfboards! Where is the best place? Are you going to distribute your product through wholesalers, retail stores, the Internet or mail order? Your decision will be influenced by the type of product you sell and your target market.
Promotion
What is the most effective way you can let people know about your product? Advertising in newspapers or magazines is one way; demonstrations at local shopping centres are another. Then there are letterbox drops, brochures at local shops, cards left on car windscreens at shopping centres, yellow page entries, trade fairs, Internet and radio and advertising. The type of product you sell and the location of your target market will help you decide on the most appropriate promotional mediums to use.
Price
What can you charge for your product? If a similar product is currently being sold you can use that price as a guide. It is most important that you are aware of the total cost of providing the product. This should be one of your first considerations when deciding on the product you want to market. Many businesses find that they cannot produce a product locally that can profitably compete with mass-produced overseas imports. Your selling price should include the full cost of producing and promoting the product as well as a reasonable retained profit. This is called cost-plus pricing.
From the understanding of market research, segmentation, target market and SWOT analysis the key idea of the business should now be starting to take on a firm direction You should be starting to realise what products and services are required to compete in your chosen section of the food business world.
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