Creating a Marketing Mix

Creating a Marketing Mix

By profiling customers and determining goals and tactics, you can create a marketing mix that will help you succeed in building a strong customer base.

Introduction

Value is created by increasing benefits to the customers. For this reason, “benefits” is specified in the numerator of this equation (the higher the benefits, the higher the perceived value by the customer). On the other hand, ” price ” is placed in the denominator since the higher the price the lower the perceived value.

Now you must understand how value is created for your customers. To do so, managers use a technique called the “Marketing Mix” (commonly called the four P´s):

• Product: What is the product or satisfactor that best fulfills my customer’s needs?
• Price: What should be the appropriate price for this product that allows it to compete with other products in the same segment or substitute products?
• Place: In what markets should the company offer the product?
• Promotion: How should the company promote the product or satisfactor?

Creating the Right Marketing Mix

So now you know how value is created for your customer. But how do you juggle these elements to build a customer base? This isn’t an easy task, for sure, but following the three steps listed below wil get a business off to an excellent start.

Profile Your Ideal Customers

Who is your customer? The customer profile you create will help you make product, pricing, promotion, and placement decisions.

Are you targeting consumers? Then create a customer profile which includes things like their age, income, and gender along with anything else that will help you define them.

Are you targeting businesses? Then create a customer profile that includes the type of business you’re targeting, its size, location, and who will be your main contact with them.

Determine Your Goals and Budget

What is it exactly that you want to achieve? If you want to get 50 new leads a month, you’re going to have to employ more aggressive tactics than if you only wanted to get 10 new leads a month.

Some marketing tactics are more expensive than others. Decide which ones are the most efficient considering your goals and your budget.

When looking at your goals and budget, remember that your decisions will also be based on where your product is in the product life cycle. If you have to educate your customers about the use and benefits of a product, you’re going to spend more than if you’re offering a new product in a well-established commodity category that simply sells at a lower price than its competitors.

Make Tactical Decisions

Once you have created your customer profile and determined your goals and budget, you’ll be able to make tactical decisions that will reach your customers throughout the entire life cycle of the product. The key is to choose a marketing mix that is efficient. In other words, it must reaches your customer and motivates them to buy, while at the same time stays within your budget.

Such choices can only be made once marketers have completed the first two steps.