Marketing today cannot be understood from the primitive way of just making a sale or the narrow point of view of just advertising the product or service. It has a much broader definition and wider implications in the modern world.
Marketing is managing profitable customer relationship. If the marketer understands consumer needs, develops products that provide superior customer value; and prices, distributes and promotes them effectively, these products will sell easily. The process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return (Kotler, 2011).
What today is considered to be a good marketing strategy is that customers identify with a product and sells itself. Promotions have thus been pushed to corner.
Marketing mix has the following 4 components:
Product:
The process of marketing starts with the conceptualisation of the product itself. The designing and planning of the product is no more carried out keeping the marketing department out of the process. Their inputs in the first step of product formation regarding what the market wants currently can help avoid non-desirable (even if good quality) products being made.
Price:
After the product is made, pricing cannot simply be a cost-based pricing. It is very important to take the marketing department’s views into consideration about how much would a customer be willing to pay for the same. Are there many competitors or none so rather than cost based pricing can it be price based costing or competitor pricing respectively.
Place:Â
Place refers to distribution channel. No product can be successful until or unless it is distributed at the right place ensuring it reaches the right customer as proposed by the marketing team of the enterprise. The outlets where the product will be kept for sale are decided as per the placing strategy of marketing mix.
Promotion:
Conventional knowledge considered promotion as the only function of marketing. Though today it’s not the only, it is still a very important part of the marketing mix. Similar to marketing, promotion part of it has also evolved and now covers internet, mobile phones, sponsorships and many other forms of promotion.
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