Marketing Strategy and the 4 P’s
In the world of business, a marketing strategy is a very integral part of the business plan as this is the overall plan to find, attract and retain customers to the products or services that a company sells. In this report, we will analyze what marketing strategies exist and decide which will be the best for us to utilize as a company to attract new customers, keep old ones and allow both groups to continue investing into our company by purchasing our products. To begin one of the first marketing strategies, we will analyze is the 4 P’s which are Price, Product, Place, and Promotion.
The first part of the 4 P’s model is Product. As simple as it sounds, the product is the service you provide or good you sell. It is essential you know what your product is and what makes it stand out in the marketplace and against any competition before beginning to market that product.
Next is Price, once we know our product and what value it can bring we can start deciding on a price point for it. The price will include many different factors including the production of the item, costs for transportation, marketing, and overhead, but you will want to set a price that nets you (the company) a profit while also appealing to the customer base as something affordable and worth the investment.
The following price is Promotion; this is where the heart of marketing occurs and where we should focus a majority of our attention. Once you know, your product and the price you are looking to sell it at you will need to find the best way or ways to promote your product, whether through television, radio, billboards, newspaper, etc. Selecting the best medium to promote your product could be essential to attracting and retaining customers as well as raising your bottom line.
Finally, the last in the 4 P’s is Place; it is essential to have your product in the right place where your customer base will be able to easily find and retrieve it. Whether this is at popular stores such as Walmart, or by the ease of ordering it online and having it delivered directly to the customer’s house. The place is very important as you don’t want your customers struggling to find what they desire or need and then possibly looking elsewhere when they become frustrated.
Analyzing Promotion
To analyze the promotional aspect of marketing lets first look at the different ways to reach the customer base.
- Through Television with commercials and infomercials.
- Through Radio with commercials and promotional events.
- Through Social Media platforms such as Facebook, which could lead to word of mouth spread of the product or service.
These are just a few of the options but some of the biggest due to the reach and impact that can be made through these mediums. The question now becomes which one would be the most cost-effective yet promote the product to reach a large customer base and attract new customers and keep old ones coming back.
Television
When selecting television to advertise your product, it is usually a good choice to make as you can reach a lot of people in a relatively short time. As of Q1 2012, Television can potentially reach over 283 million people(Gleeson). Also, if your commercial is catchy enough with either a jingle or catchphrase that can become popular this just adds another layer to the potential of attracting new customers and getting people talking just based off that advertisement alone. The downside of commercial advertising on television is the fact many people channel surf and essentially avoid commercials whenever they can, this does not pertain to every single person, but during commercials, people will tend to jump from channel to channel cycling between shows or sporting events. This brings up the question of if the cost of television advertising is worth the risk. For local television stations, the average cost of a 30-second commercial is between $200-$1500 as for national coverage with an ad created by a professional agency the cost skyrockets to around $340,000(Wagner). With these considerations in mind although you may reach a large group of people you have to consider the amount your willing to spend and the effectiveness of the commercial and your product to allow a 30-second airtime to potentially capture the interest of those who are watching.
Another option in the realm of television is the infomercial. The good about the infomercial is the fact you have about a half hour to showcase your product, detail its usefulness and show it off in an environment in which it would be utilized thus allowing you a lot more time to hit the major selling points of your product and give the consumer more information to consider before purchasing. Another upside is the average cost of an infomercial is between $25,000-$250,000 considering factors such as who is hosting the infomercial, production costs, etc.(Nathanson). This price tag for 30 minutes is a much greater investment than the much steeper price tag for only a 30-second commercial, but this is where the negative aspects start to creep in. Where a commercial can occur during peak watching hours and popular shows and events, infomercials tend to occur in the dead of night when most people are sleeping and don’t reach as much of the population as commercials do. To combat this, you can opt to pay the higher price tag to have a celebrity or household name promote the product with the intent raising more interest in it while potentially still spending less than a 30-second commercial spot which will more than likely compete against other brands and companies.
Radio
Apart from television another medium which reaches a large amount of the population is radio. Think about it; people listen to the radio in their cars while they are on their way to work, stores, or even just to visit other people. People listen to the radio at work and home. Radio can reach many people in many different places at all times of the day. The cost of producing a radio advertisement typically ranges on average between $1,000-$2,500 factoring in production costs and talent costs(Aland). This cost is significantly less compared to television commercials and infomercials and can be just as effective. Like with any advertisement if you have a catchy jingle or phrase your commercial can go a long way, also a radio commercial doesn’t limit you to the talent you can utilize, many celebrities star or speak in radio commercials just as television commercials. Radio also has the biggest reach when it comes to the many mediums available to advertising. Radio is listened to by 93% of adults in the country compared to the 87% who watch television(Schoen). The only downside to radio advertising is there is no visual aspect to it compared to television advertising. Thus far, radio is a very good advertising medium to use as it can be relatively cheap and yet reach more people than television thus increasing customer awareness.
Social Media
With the expansion of technology, companies now have another outlet to reach the masses and can do so at little to no cost. With social media, companies can reach the customer base by the likes of Facebook, which has over 1 billion users. Another popular platform companies can utilize twitter which has over 330 million users. With platforms like these, companies can showcase and hype their products all the while interacting with the customer base. Customers can recommend improvements, discuss flaws, and provide feedback which can help the company in many different areas including their marketing plans. With social media, companies can now develop and nurture a personal connection to the people who follow them and purchase their products creating a different bond which most other platforms cannot create. With this personal connection, marketing teams can utilize this to increase the likelihood of creating and retaining customers who then become brand loyal. The costs of social media for a company are relatively cheap as well, you just have your IT department and some marketing employees create and maintain the platform, providing daily updates and new happenings around the company and any updates on current or future products around the company, all the while reaching millions of current, potential, and future customers at a low cost. This also allows you to communicate effectively and quickly with everyone to keep things constantly up to date.
Product Placement
Once you have the product you want to sell, the price you want to sell it at, and your mode of communicating what your product is and how it can benefit your customer base, it is essential you place your product where it can be easily seen and retrieved. You don’t want your product hidden on the shelf or at the back of the store where it would be deemed out of sight or out of the way. Therefore, you want your product to have an impact that causes demand, and you want to communicate and dictate with stores and shopping centers where the best place for your product is to be displayed. Having your product at eye level or on end caps is the best place to be located at the customer and potential customers will easily locate it without any grief. Also, this shows the customer the store has confidence in the product to place it in prime locations.
Conclusions and Recommendations
After a deep discussion, it is concluded that the importance of an effective marketing strategy is unparalleled in the business world. Innovation in product design, great prices and high availability of the product are important factors, but may be rendered useless if not integrated with an effective marketing strategy. It is nevertheless important that companies understand their product and especially understand the audience for whom the product is being developed. In doing so, they can develop an effective strategy to reach the intended target audience. Similarly, companies should be aware of the average social class of their audience since this will determine the price they set for their product. It is important for companies to make sure that their product is useful and affordable for their target market.
The various forms of promoting a product and reaching various customer bases have been discussed in the report. With Television, Radio and Social media, there are multiple ways of marketing a product and reaching the intended target market. All the mediums have their advantages and disadvantages, but it is important for a company to understand what medium their target market uses the most. For products that are intended for adults, television and radio represent the highest share of the audience while for products intended for teenagers and young adults, social media and other forms of advertising on the internet represent the most efficient method of reaching the customer base. It is also important that companies make their products accessible to their target audience to be successful in the long term in the market. As discussed in the report, it is important for companies to make sure that their products are well placed and accessible. For many companies, online marketing and selling products online have also gained massive importance over the years since it allows customers to buy the product and receive it through delivery all in the comfort of their homes.
In the end, Recommendations for implementing an effective marketing strategy for companies include research and development of the products and especially the target market of the audience. Once a company is informed about the kind of audience they are targeting, and they understand what sort of communication medium the audience uses, they can then develop a very effective marketing strategy where instead of just advertising blindly, they can actually look to effectively get their product message to the people who are going to be using it. An effective marketing strategy can make all the difference for a company, so it is important that companies spend a significant amount of time in understanding their target audience and effectively market their product to reach their audience. Some other factors that company should consider while designing their products and resulting marketing strategy are some people that are going to be using it.
The size of the target audience affects what scale the company has to launch its marketing campaign to effectively reach a large portion of their intended target market. For smaller companies marketing on the internet is the best strategy for reaching a significant number of the customer base since internet advertisements are relatively much cheaper as compared to television or radio. It is therefore important that companies make sure to research their intended customer base to find out the most effective marketing strategy to reach them.
Works Cited
Aland, Maggie. “Radio Advertising Costs – And How To Negotiate Lower Rates” Fit Samll Business. Fit Small Business, 28 October 2016. Web.9 November 2017. https://fitsmallbusiness.com/radio-advertising-costs/.
Gleeson, Brent. “TV Advertising VS Digital Marketing”. Forbes. Forbes, 20 November 2012. 9 November 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bren Web. tgleeson/2012/11/20/tv-advertising-vs-digital-marketing/#561d13ef37f8.
Nathanson, Jon. “The Economics of Infomercials”. Price Economics. Price Economics. 14 November 2013. Web. 9 November 2017. https://priceonomics.com/the-economics-of-infomercials/.
Schoen, Doug. “Radio: The All-But-Forgotten Medium With The Biggest Reach”. Forbes. Forbes, 28 July 2015. Web. 9 November 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2015/07/28/radio-the-all-but-forgotten-medium-with-the-biggest-reach/#7aa502123a89.
Wagner, Nancy. “How Much Does Television Advertising Really Cost?” Small Business. Chron, 2012. Web. 9 November 2017. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/much-television-advertising-really-cost-58718.html.
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