Is the right mix of quality in your marketing?

OK, so it’s nearly Christmas; and I guess many of us will have the odd chocolate treat around to tempt us and indulge our sweet tooth.

The quality street tin is synonymous with Christmas in our house, and it can be a real battle to get to your favourite sweet first, before they all disappear. My favourite is the purple hazelnut in caramel.

There is a good variety in the tin, some hard, some soft, some gooey, some with different textures. The colour palette is also varied, and some people just choose their favourite colour when offered a sweet, sometimes with no real knowledge of the content or flavour.

It occurred to me that this is quite similar to the marketing mix.

One thing isn’t enough, and just like the “purple one” I don’t want to eat it all the time. Sometimes I like the caramel cup and the hazelnut triangle too.

On the shelves, you do see specific boxes with just one sweet in, but the good old variety mix still beats all the statistics on total sales for Nestle. 

Which is why I constantly discuss with my clients that carrying out a single marketing activity just isn’t enough. 

Consumers, people from all walks of life, no matter what they do or where they are from,  are all different, and we all like to consume our marketing content in different ways.

Definition

The Marketing mix has been defined by the guru of marketing Philip Kotler as

the mixture of controllable marketing variables that the business uses to purse the sought level of sales in the target market.”

Knowing what works in your business

However, the biggest challenge is knowing WHICH marketing variables work for YOUR business.

There is no definitive answer or ‘secret formula’ for any business.

Marketing is all about testing, analysing, re-testing and continuous development of the available marketing channels, outputs and collateral.

The four Ps

The marketing mix is made up of the four P’s – Product, Price, Place and Promotion – and was created in the 1960s by the expert E Jerome McCarthy.

The right marketing mix should work well together, and each component of the marketing mix should complement the rest. For example, the right price will be attributed to the right product placed in the  desired market.

Conclusion

This isn’t an article aiming to teach you about the four P’s, so if you need more detail, please refer to some good references such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

What this article is trying to embrace is that your marketing shouldn’t be about one or two elements. Just like the quality street tin, marketing is all about variety. 

Understanding who your target audience is, what issue your product or solution solves, where your target audience look for their information, how they want to disseminate that information, what price they are willing to pay etc. is key to getting the mix right for your  business.

Remember – the ‘purple ones’ are great; but taken alone they become boring and get left on the shelf. The overall mix is tastier, more exciting to look at and achieves a stronger sales result.

Here’s to the mix!

Karen Howell is an outsourced strategic marketing consultant helping businesses who have yet to implement their marketing, define and implement their strategy. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss your marketing requirements or for more information visit the website for Zebroid Marketing.