A very warm welcome to all of you , WELCOME TO MY POST,
In this post, I'll share a secret with you. A secret about a thing that you always thought it's not part of your daily life, rather it's only limited to the textbooks of business students...
Are you excited to know it ?
Well, to cut the story short, I'm going to explain how do we interact with the concept of Marketing in a daily basis. How is that ?
for explanation sake, take this simple example as a model for our discussion. Assume that you are on your monthly grocery trip at Wall-Mart, you'll find on each aisle hundreds of products & brands with a
huge variety of prices, functions, taste, and appeal. how would you make your decision ? is it only your intuition ? or you've been provoked by something that made you decide which brand to choose ?
Here where the concept of Marketing arise . What actually happened, is that marketers have hijacked our mind, by getting the know-how of how do we make our purchase decisions. Then, they have split the info they've acquired into 4 general attributes (categories). These attributes considered now the cornerstones of the Science of Marketing.
Now let me explain those categories by using the Wall-Mart trip example I mentioned earlier. The First one is, Price. At your trip, you found too many different price points for certain products within a certain category, these differences accrued because of Marketers, whom they established certain price point for their brand to compete against other brands and to gain consumers attention. Example, Floggers is offering their Classic type filtered coffee for 10 $ while Maxwell House offer it for 11.5 $ ? which one is more likely to be purchased ?. On this example a Marketer have used the Price attribute to compete on the maker and gain consumers loyalty.
The second attribute is, Promotion. This particular attribute is very wide, it actually started way before you enter a store to buy a product. It starts while you are sitting on your couch watching your favorite movie channel or reading a magazine or driving your car to work... How is that ?
Well, simply through an ad, on TV or Magazine or Billboards on streets or even an ad segments on the Radio.
This ad might arouse a need or a desire to buy or just to raise an awareness about the advertised product. Follows that usually, a certain activity in store. such as, promo-offers or price-offs. It's worth mentioning however, that this aspect is the most costly one to companies, yet it's the most paying off one, as it does affect consumers decision after all.
Thirdly, Place. This one is a very basic concept, which means that, products should be available at a convenient location (reachable) for consumer at the right time. Back to Wall-Mart example, assume you are looking to buy Floggers filtered coffee, and you went to the coffee aisle but you couldn't find it, what would you do ? More likely, you are going to buy the next available brand. Which on another end, Floggers company lost an opportunity to gain one more consumer and gave their rivals a golden opportunity to switch one more consumer. In other words, Floggers lack on the Place aspect, which caused them a lost in sales.
Finally, Product. This attribute is more concerned about the pre-offering phase. It take place on the manufacturers and research & development labs. Product development based on consumers research of they want and how would they like to consume it. Example, Floggers asked their consumers what are the missing aspect in order to make the product superior. They have mentioned couple of points include, it should be in Plastic jar and it should have a variety of flavors. This called "Responsive approach" in which a brand will respond to a consumer need and develop what they've asked for. In this example, a brand applied the Product attribute to win the in the marketplace.
One final note to add is that, those attributes are never used solely, they are usually mixed together in one strategy . This is why they are called "Marketing Mix strategies"
As you might noticed, we usually encounter these attributes everyday, in one form or another. Yet, we rarely realize that it's something that has been designed by some hidden minds, whom they have studied consumers closely, to an extent where they know their next move and they would be ready with the right action to attract them.
Watch out, Marketers are watching you on every aisle you pass
let me know your thoughts/feedbacks
Enjoy
By Hardy
ReplyDeleteHey Abdulaziz, thanks a lot for this article. I didn't know that reality about the marketers. It's interesting to know how they process to sell their products. According to me, it's a win-win situation for both consummers and marketers. On the one hand, consummers get upgraded products that meet their expectations, and on the other hand marketers can run their business becauses consumers buy their products and for that they have, in a certain way, "to spy" our habits without being intrusive in our private lives.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Marketing Mix Model helps people put the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time. People use that model in order to plan a new attempting which becomes accomplished. It is the most important thing that marketers know exactly what we need.... That's why that strategy is very common in this millenium.
ReplyDeleteBy Rahman
Often times we want to be affected by marketing. There are millions of products for us to choose from, but one person cannot know the existence of all of them. For example, Viagra is heavily marketed. Many old men with ED probably won't even mention it to their doctors, but if one see's an advertisment for it then he can ask his doctors about treating his ED.
ReplyDeleteBy Junyang Wu