Marketing Mix The marketing mix is used in marketing products which is basically a business to ol.

When determining a product or brand's unique selling point, the marketing mi x is often crucial, and often refers to with the 'four Ps': 'price', 'product', 'promotion', and 'place.

The marketing mix and the 4 Ps of marketing are often used for each other. "Marketing mix" is refering the concept in which the organization decide the pro cess of bringing the products and services to the market. The 4 P s is the best-kn own way of defining the marketing mix, and was first expressed in 1960 by E J M cCarthy. The 4Ps are: Product (or Service) Place Price Promotion To understand the 4 Ps in very well manner we need to define marketing mix of the organization in a proper way. Here we are going to discuss the marketing mi c(4 p s) Product A product is an item that satisfies consumer s needs or wants. It can b tangible good or an intangible service. Intangible products are service based like the hotel services .Tangible products are those that can be felt physical ly. Some questions are to be asked in offering the produts which are as follows. 1. What does the customer want from the product/service? What needs does it satisfy? 2. What features does it have to meet these needs? 3. 4. 5. How and where will the customer use it? What does it look like? How will customers experience it? What size(s), color(s), and so on, should it be? Price Price includes the pricing strategy of the company for its prod ucts. How much customer should pay for a product? Pricing strategy not only rela ted to the profit margins but also helps in finding target customers. Pricing de cision also influence the choice of marketing channels. Price decisions include: Pricing Strategy (Penetration, Skim, etc) List Price payment period Discounts Using price as a weapon for rivals is as old as mankind. but it s risky too. Consu mers are often sensitive for price, discounts and additional offers. Another asp ect of pricing is that expensive products are considered of good quality. Some questions are to be asked before setting the price of any product. 1. What is the value of the product or service to the buyer? 2. How will your price compare with your competitors? 3. What discounts should be offered to trade customers, or to other specifi c segments of your market? Place (Placement) It ensure to all those activities performed by the company to ensure the availab ility of the product to the targeted customers. Availability of the product at

the right place, at the right time and in the right quantity is defined in place ment decisions. Placement decisions include: Placement Distribution channels Logistics Inventory For the placement of offered products and services, a few Questions are there to be asked. Where do buyers look for your product or service? How can you access the right distribution channels? Promotion Promotion includes all selling activities to pursuade future prospects to buy t he product. Promotion decisions include: Advertising Budgets Sales promotion Personal selling Public relations Direct marketing Here are a few questions to be asked to facilitate the consumers with promotion strategy. 1. Where and when can you get across your marketing messages to your targe t market? 2. How do your competitors do their promotions? And how does that influence your choice of promotional activity?

Marketing Technique Above the line sales promotion ATL is a type of advertising through media such as television, cinema, radio,pri nt to promote brands or convey a specific offer. This type of communication is straight in its nature and is considered impersonal to customers. It differs fro m BTL advertising, which uses promotional strategies, such as direct mail, sale s promotions, flyers, point-of-sale, telemarketing and printed media ( for examp le brochures, ) . It is much more effective than when the target group is very l arge and difficult to define. The term comes from top business managers and involves the way in which Procter & Gamble, one of the world s biggest advertising clients, was charged for its medi a in the 1950s and 1960s. Advertising agencies made profit margins from booking media (Television, cinema, radio, press, out-of-home and magazines)..

Below the line sales promotion BTL sales promotion is an immediate or delayed incentive to purchase, expressed in cash or in kind, and having short duration. It is efficient and cost-effectiv e for targeting a limited and specific group. It uses less conventional methods than the usual ATL channels of advertising, typically focusing on direct means o f communication, most commonly direct mail and e-mail.BTL is a common technique

used for "touch and feel" products (consumer items where the customer will rely on immediate information). BTL techniques ensures recall of the brand while at t he same time highlighting the features of the product. Another BTL technique inv olves sales personnel deployed at retail stores near targeted products. This tec hnique may be used to generate trials of newly launched products. It helps marke ters establish one-to-one relationship with consumers ,That make it difficult to gauge consumer-response, except at the time of sales. Examples include tele-mar keting, road shows, promotions, in- shop and shop-front activities, display unit s. Through the line TTL is technique describing an existing process, according to Altaf Jasnaik.In the TTL approach, a mix of ATL and BTL are used to integrate a marketer's effort s and optimize returns from these separate investments. This switch in the TTL a pproach has shifted its emphasis more towards BTL. A few examples could be - bu s stand hoardings, pamphlets, small informational sheets along with the newspape r.etc. Pricing Strategies Pricing strategies for products or services entitled two important ways to impr ove profits. These are the business owner can cut costs or sell more, find more profit with a better pricing strategy. Merely raising prices is not always the answer, especially in a poor economy. To o many businesses have been lost because they priced themselves without comparin g themselves with the competitors. On the other hand, too many business and sale s staff leave "money on the table". So adopting a pricing strategy is a learning curve when studying the needs and behaviors of customers and clients. Pricing models Cost-plus pricing Cost-plus pricing is the simplest pricing method among all. The firm calculates the production cost of products and adds on a profit margin to that price to gi ve the selling price. This method although simple has two flaws; it takes no account of demand there is no way of determining if potential customers will purchase the product at the calculated price. This appears in two forms, Full cost pricing which takes into consideration both variable and fixed costs and adds a percentage profit. The other is Direct cost pricing which is variable costs plus a percentage. Price skimming In market skimming, goods are sold at higher prices to achieve break even in the early stages. Selling a product at a high price, sacrificing high sales to gain a high profit is therefore "skimming" the market. Skimming strategy commonly us ed in electronic markets when a new range, such as DVD players, are firstly disp atched into the market at a high price. This strategy is often used to target "e arly adopters" (less price-sensitive) of a product or service. Because they und erstand the value of the product better than others or simply because they are t oo rich to be affected by the high prices. Limit pricing A limit price is the price set by the monopoly system to discourage economic ent ry into a market, and is illegal in many countries. The limit price is often low er than the average cost of production or just low enough to make entering not p rofitable. The quantity produced by the firm s to enter in market is usually large r than would be optimal for a monopolist, but might still produce higher economi c profits than would be earned under perfect competition.

Market-oriented pricing Based upon analysis and research compiled from the target market the marketers s et their prices. This means that marketers will set prices depending on the resu lts from the research. For instance if the competitors are pricing their product s at a lower price, then it's up to them to either price their goods at an above price or below, it depends on what the company wants to achieve. .Penetration pricing Setting the price low in order to attract customers and gain market share. The p rice will be raised later when this market share is re gained.It is the pricing technique of setting a relatively low initial entry price, to attract new custo mers. The strategy works on the expectation that customers will switch to the ne w brand because of the lower price. Price differentiation Price differentiation exists when sales of identical goods or services are tran sacted at different prices from the same provider. In a theoretical market with perfect information, perfect substitutes, and no transaction costs to prevent a rbitrage, price differentiation can only be a feature of monopolistic and oligop olistic markets, where market power can be exercised.in simple words, Setting a different price for the same product in different segments to the market is pric e differentiation. For example, this can be for different ages or different clas ses. Premium pricing Premium pricing is the practice of keeping the price of a product or service art ificially high in order to encourage favorable perceptions among buyers, based s olely on the price. The practice is intended to exploit the tendency for buyers to assume that expensive items enjoy an exceptional reputation, are more reliabl e or desirable, or represent exceptional quality and distinction. Predatory pricing Aggressive pricing also known as "undercutting" intended to drive out competit ors from a market. It is illegal in most of the countries. Contribution margin-based pricing Contribution margin-based pricing maximizes the profit earned from an individual product, which is based on the difference between the product's price and varia ble costs (the product's contribution margin per unit), and on one s assumptions r egarding the relationship between the product s price and the number of units that can be sold at that price.

Psychological pricing Psychological pricing or price ending is a marketing implimentation based on the theory that certain prices have a psychological impact. The retail prices are o ften expressed as "odd prices": a little less than a round number, e.g selling p roducts at Rs.1999 instead of 2000. Dynamic pricing A flexible pricing strategy made possible by advances in information technology, and employed mostly by Internet based companies. dynamic pricing allows online companies to adjust the prices of identical goods to respond to a customer s willi ngness to pay. By responding to market fluctuations or large amounts of data ga thered from customers .ranging from where they live to what they buy to how much they have spent on past purchases.The airline industry is often using dynamic p ricing stretegy. In fact, it employs the technique so artfully that most of the passengers on any given airplane have paid different ticket prices for the same

flight. Target pricing Pricing method from which the selling price of a product is calculated to produc e a particular rate of return on investment for a specific volume of production. The target pricing method is used most often by public utilities, like electric and gas companies, and companies whose capital investment is high, like automob ile manufacturers. Target pricing is not useful for companies whose capital inve stment is low because, the selling price will be understated. Absorption pricing Method of pricing in which all costs are recovered. The price of the product inc ludes the variable cost of each item and fixed costs and is a form of cost-plus pricing. High-low pricing Method of pricing for an organization where the goods or services offered by the organization are regularly priced higher than competitors, but through promotio ns, advertisements, and coupons, lower prices are offered . The lower promotion al prices are designed to bring customers to the organization where the customer is offered the promotional product as well as the regular higher priced product s. Marginal-cost pricing Setting the price of a product to equal the extra cost of producing an extra uni t of output refers to the marginal cost pricing strategy. By this policy, a prod ucer charges for each product unit sold.. Businesses often set prices close to m arginal cost during periods of poor sales. If, for example, an item has a margin al cost of Rs 1.00 and a normal selling price is Rs 2.00, the firm selling the i tem might wish to lower the price to Rs1.10 if demand has waned. The business wo uld choose this approach because the incremental profit of 10 paisas from the tr ansaction is better than no sale at all. Value-based pricing Pricing a product based on the perceived value and not on any other factor. Pric ing based on the demand for a specific product would have a likely change in the market place. Odd pricing In this type of pricing, the seller fixes a price whose last digits are odd numb ers. This is done so as to give the buyers/consumers no gap for bargaining as th e prices seem to be less and yet in an actual sense are too high. A good example of this can be noticed in telephone promotions of some countries where instead of writing the price as Rs 40000, they write it as Rs 39999.