Marketing Fundamentals: Product Mix and Branding

Marketing Mix: The 4Ps

• Product mix refers to the total products a business offers to its customers.
• Product lines can be e.g., Shoprite sells shoes, clothing, food, and equipment.
• Branding and packaging distinguish a particular product from others.
• A brand is a name, term, symbol, design, or combination, e.g., Samsung-Nokia, BMW-Mercedes-Benz.

First P: Product

• Loyalty of customers is the goal of professional marketers.
• Emphasis is on the brand and its uniqueness to the customer.
• Key factors include brand name, styling, quality, packaging, safety, repairs, support, accessories, and servicing or warranty.

Second P: Price

• Price is the exchange value of something that will satisfy a need of a customer.
• Price is the most flexible of the marketing mix, as marketers can change prices as quick as demand moves.
• Setting the right price depends on pricing objectives, demand, costs, and competition.

Factors that Influence Pricing

• Quality of product, e.g., fake vs original.
• Brand name, e.g., White Star vs Impala.
• Market competition, e.g., prices of other firms selling the same product.
• Product life cycle, e.g., existence.
• Demand of the product, e.g., the higher the demand, the more expensive is the product.
• Types of products, e.g., expensive/good products are priced higher.
• Overall business life cycle also impacts.

Third P: Place/Location

• Market refers to the place where customers find information about a firm or organization.
• Channel refers to the digital dimension introduced new opportunities and threats, e.g., sales have dropped.
• Objective is to identify reasons why sales have dropped.

Marketing Research

• Market research is a process that involves 5 important steps: define the problem, develop a research plan, collect data, analyze and interpret data, and report on the findings.
• Step 1: Define the problem and set research objectives.
• Step 2: Develop a research plan.
• Step 3: Data collection; primary data includes interviews, observations, and focus groups, while secondary data includes questionnaires and surveys.
• Step 4: Analyze and interpret data, including getting to know the data, data cleansing, categorizing information, identifying themes or patterns, organizing data, and interpreting findings.
• Step 5: Report on the findings and provide recommendations.

Marketing Function

• Marketing is one of the eight business functions.
• Marketing refers to the process of delivering value to customers to meet and satisfy their needs.
• The main goal of marketing is to make the right product available to the right customers at the right time and place.
• Marketing helps to attain the objectives of the business or organization.
• Marketing uses market research to find out what customers want and need.
• Marketing bridges the gap between the firm and customers.

Roles of Marketing

• Pricing: setting the right price to the products.
• Distributing and transportation: ensuring that products are transported from the warehouse to customers.
• Promotion: creating awareness of the product to customers.
• Storage: ensuring that products are stored safely in a warehouse until retailers or consumers want and need them.
• Financing: responsible for raising funds.
• Researching: collecting information about customers' needs, buying behavior, and preferences.
• Standardization: making sure products are in the same standard in terms of quality, packaging, and quantity.

Uncontrollable Factors in the Marketing Environment

• Internal factors: events that take place within the firm/organization, e.g., organizational objectives, stakeholders, resources, culture, and structure.
• Micro factors: factors that are close to the organization and affect the organization, e.g., suppliers, customers, intermediaries, and competitions.
• Macro factors: broader factors that affect an organization or business, e.g., cultural, economic, natural forces, political, technological, and demographic.

Market Strategy

• Market strategy is the broad plan formulated for achieving the objectives of the firm/business or organization.
• Importance: provides an organization with superiority over its competitors.
• Competitive advantage over rivals.
• Helps to set the right prices for organization's goods and services based on market research.
• Assists the firm to increase its sales volume, generate income, and ensure business success.

Marketing SWOT Analysis

• Weaknesses and threats: negative effect.
• Strength and opportunities: positive effect.
• Weaknesses and strength: internal factors that a business has control over.
• Opportunities and threats: external factors that a business does not have control over.

Example: James SWOT Analysis (Catering Company)

• Strengths: skilled and knowledgeable staff, cooperation between staff, friendly employers.
• Weaknesses: shortage of resources, unclear objectives, low profit.
• Opportunities: higher demand for the product, could partner with Spar, new technology.
• Threats: competitors, customers' behavior changed, negative press.