5. Marketing mix

-- elements of the marketing mix.

McCarthy identified the four P's of the marketing mix (40 years ago!)
	Product: Defines the characteristics of your product or service that meets the needs of your customers.
	Price: Decide on a pricing strategy - do not let it just happen! Even if you decide not to charge for a service (a loss leader), you must realise that this is a conscious decision and forms part of the pricing strategy.
	Promotion: This includes all the weapons in the marketing armoury - advertising, selling, sales promotions, Public Relations, etc.
	Place (or route of distribution): Some of the revolutions in marketing have come about by changing this P. Think of telephone insurance and the internet! A bit of lateral thinking here might reap rewards for your business.

The leap forward in thinking at the time was that it put the customer at the forefront of the company thinking. Although marketing has got much more sophisticated over the years, I still find this model a very useful way of communicating to non-marketers exactly what marketing is all about.

There are a vast array of circumstances that will dictate which elements of the marketing mix are to be employed and in which proportion. If you have put sufficient time into accurately defining your marketplace, your market segment, your product positioning, and your unique selling propositions then it becomes much easier to carry out this task.

I cannot stress this point strongly enough. Taking time to think through your marketing strategy forces you to take some very difficult decisions. The most difficult ones are those where you decide NOT to do certain things; such as deciding certain market sectors are not key to your company's success due to the difficulty in competing effectively. The benefits of taking such decisions are that it really helps you to focus on a more limited (and achievable) set of objectives. It then becomes much clearer which elements of the marketing mix need to be used, and hence you achieve profitable results from your marketing budget.

A few years ago I took on a senior marketing role within a large organisation and one of the biggest problems I experienced over the initial weeks was a constant supply of "promotional opportunities" being offered up by a whole range of agencies and promotional companies. Because I had not inherited a clearly defined marketing strategy I could not decide which of these opportunities were good and which were inappropriate. Although this is a frustrating situation to be in, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I could put together an agreed marketing strategy and then cherry pick the most appropriate of those promotional ideas.

The point is that less experienced managers can easily become totally snowed under by such an array of conflicting and costly opportunities. This then leads to a promotional campaign based on "which agency sent in the glossiest brochure" rather than on a promotional campaign that supports the marketing objectives/strategies.