Tag: customer

Marketing Mix

In every business it is important to have an efficient marketing plan or strategy to promote their product, to engage more customers or to understand consumer behaviour, to upgrade their pricing strategy. For this in 1960s, an academic and marketer E. Jerome McCarthy proposed the idea of ‘marketing mix’.

Marketing mix is basically a mixture of 4Ps to enhance business model with Price, Product, Place and Promotion. These 4Ps can be used as marketing tools by any business for achieving their market goals and targets.

Components of Marketing Mix

  1. Product

Product means anything which is for sale any physical product or any service rendered to customer.  Product should the meet expectations and demand of customers in the market.Some of the marketing decision which every seller should think of  such as branding, packaging, product range, product design, packaging and labelling, guarantees and warranties.

2. Place

In marketing mix, place refers that where seller choose to sell his product whether it is warehouse, street market, online platforms, supermarkets, etc. It depends upon the nature of the product i.e. if product is perishable, shops are preferable to sell that product and if product is non-perishable both shops and online platforms are suitable.Marketing decisions related to place includes: market coverage, inventory, transportation, location, distributors, warehousing and franchising.

3. Price

Price is the main aspect for the business and customer. Each and every customer gets affected from price of the product which consumer is selling. Price reflects the cost or value of the product. Seller should set the price as per the demand of customer and the actual cost of the product. Accurate price can change the customer’s preference form one product to another. Other important aspect of pricing is what price has been set by your competitors? This can help any business in setting their pricing strategy. Pricing strategy can make profits for the business or can cause loss to the business if it is not accurate.Price market decisions includes: payment method (card or cash), credit payment, pricing strategy, allowances for distributors and discounts for customers.

4. Promotion

Promotion means to tell or convey about the product to customers through advertising, marketing and sales promotion. It can be through offline mode such as T.V. magazines, newspapers, radio etc. and online mode like websites, ads on social media, etc. It depends upon the seller of the product which way or method he chooses to communicate about his product to customers and according to response from his customers, he should continue with that particular promotion method.Marketing decisions for promotion involves: advertising, sales promotion, public relation, direct marketing, what and how to communicate to customers.

In 1980s Booms and Bitner proposed a model of marketing mix which consist of 7Ps, generally he added 3 more Ps to marketing mix i.e. Process, People and Physical Evidence which is beneficial for Service Marketing.

5. Process

Process describes the chain of delivering the goods or services to the customer. Process examination involves the evaluation of each and every step like procedure of distribution, payment system and relationships with customer. Evaluating, modifying and improving different steps of process will help business to maintain their efforts and to check that methods are new and as per recent trend. Process related marketing decisions involves: blueprint service, process design, checking system failures, monitoring service performance, allocation of resources required.

6. People

In marketing mix, ‘people’ refer to those who all are involved in the process of delivering of goods; managing the process; handle customer relationship, etc. Employees, staff, workers or labour all are included in ‘people’, basically all those who are a part of business. For any business it is necessary to employ right people to manage all the business related process. Marketing decisions related to people includes: staff recruitment and training, attending customers, handling complaints and failures, handling social interactions.

7. Physical Evidence

 Physical evidence means evidence of the product which has been purchased by the customer. It can be receipt, brochures, tracking information, invoices, etc. It is beneficial for both customer and seller to have a record or any document of transaction. It also relates to validation of the product, authenticity of the product check by the customer through their websites, logo etc. Here, marketing decisions includes: interior design like furniture and scheme, facilities like equipment access, brochures, stationery, surrounding conditions, and signage.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix

https://blog.hurree.co/blog/marketing-mix-7ps

EFFECT OF BRANDING ON CUSTOMER PURCHASE DECISION

Branding is the process of giving a name or a sign or a symbol to a product.
One of the most important decisions that a marketer has to take in selling a product is in respect of branding. He/ She has to decide whether the firm’s product will be marketed under a brand name or a generic name.
Generic name refers to the name of the class of the product. If the products were sold by their generic names, it would be difficult for the marketers to distinguish their products from that of competitors. Therefore, most of the marketers give a name to their products, which helps in identifying and distinguishing their products from the competitors products.

As the traditional marketing tools and techniques has been replaced by the modern marketing tools and techniques and the number of factories of every good has now been increased, the producer tries to make their product different from other producer of the same product. These things give birth to a new marketing dimension and new era of marketing by the emergence of BRANDING.
In olden days, the brands were just a mark, sign or some sort of numbers to differentiate their goods. The brand then builds many function which creates the value in the mind of the customer. Like the advertisement, which is the function of the branding and it creates a unique association and memory link in the minds of customers on one side and on the other hand, it creates the demand for your goods and services as it attracts the customer, it creates awareness about your production and also educate the customer about the use of goods and services.

ADVANTAGES OF BRANDING
To the marketers

  1. Enables making product differentiation.
  2. Ease in introduction of new product.
  3. Differential pricing.
  4. Helps in advertising and display programs.
    To the customers
  5. Helps in product identification.
  6. Ensures quality.
  7. Status symbol.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD BRAND NAME

  1. A brand name should be short, easy to pronounce, spell, recognize and remember.
  2. A brand name should suggest the product’s benefits and qualities. It should be appropriate to the product’s function.
  3. A brand name should be distinctive.
  4. Chosen name should have staying power i.e., it should not het out of date.
  5. The brand name should be sufficiently versatile to accommodate new products, which are added to the product line.
  6. It should be adaptable to packaging or labelling requirements, to different advertising media and to different languages.
  7. It should be capable of being registered and protected legally.

Brand image is positive and creates many customers and build strong customers relationship with them and maintain loyalty. But if the brand image is negative, it will be harmful as there will be no customers repetition and retention. So, firm pays a huge investment on advertisement to maintain the brand image and brand equity management programs. As brand image creates perception in customer mind so after purchase, if cognitive dissonance occurs then there is a change in customer’s behavior.
Brand association will impact the consumer buying pattern and behavior. These associations will affect your decision positively if the brand image is positive. Brand loyalty reduce the cost for the firm to retain the customer forever. A loyal customer is helpful for the firm to create new customers.
Generally, brand has greater impact on consumer buying behavior. But at local level, behavior of customer also changes due to branded products and services. Consumer buying behavior is the study of actions of consumer towards planning, purchasing and consuming goods and services.
Consumer buying decision consists of 7 steps:

  1. Need recognition
  2. Information search
  3. Pre-purchase evaluation
  4. Choose alternative
  5. Purchase consumption
  6. Post consumption evaluation
  7. Feedback
    Now, market has become too much competitive due to hyper competition in the market. The best way is to compete these conditions by developing a strong brand image. Basically, the key driver of brand equity is simply brand image. By easily remembering brand , quality production increases which leads to sales increase and makes mire profit. It is the best way which leads towards maximizing market share and to sustain competitive advantage and strong position in the market.