Dell 4 Ps

Marketing Program, Strategy, and Tactics (4 Ps):

Product: Dell Inc. provides a wide variety of both business class and home/consumer class products and services. The company markets specific brand names to different market segments. Some examples of Dell products typically sold to corporate clients are Dell PowerEdge servers, Power Vault, Dell EMC storage systems, and PowerConnect switches. A few examples of products for individual and professional customers are Dell Precision workstations, OptiPlex desktops, Dimension desktops, and Inspiron and Latitude notebooks. In addition to these Dell also offers printers, projectors, and LCD televisions, to name a few. Dell’s obvious cash cow is its PC business. Dell has always been associated with the ability to customize their products and services in order to satisfy a wide range of customers, including individual consumers, corporate businesses, and retailing businesses.

Price: Because Dell products are so customizable, the price is largely dependent on the options and services added to the product. Businesses and individual consumers are able to tailor their products and services to meet their needs. The price increases as more options are added, but it gives the consumer the ability to customize the computer with the options that are most important to them and still get the computer within their price-range. Dell used to rely heavily on mail-in rebates as an incentive for people to purchase their products; however, in 2006 Dell drastically reduced the use of mail-in rebates. Instead Dell reduced the selling prices of its products and services so customers received the lower prices immediately instead of having to wait on a mail-in rebate. This was done in response to reductions in selling prices by many of Dell’s competitors. In addition, Dell is a direct supplier, meaning the consumers can order their computers directly from Dell instead of going through a retailer. Normally, computers are sold to retailers who resell them to the public. This adds cost to the computers. Since Dell is a direct supplier, their customers do not pay this extra cost that comes from going through a retailer. Finally, since Dell builds computers on a just-in-time, built-to-order basis, it does not have to keep a stock of components and ready-made computers. Keeping a stock of parts and pre-built computers costs money, which ultimately gets passed on to the customer; since Dell doesn’t do this, they are able to sell their computers at a lower price. The ultimate result is that Dell’s customers are able to get high-quality products for a reasonable price.

Promotion: Dell uses several different methods to advertise its products. Advertisements can be found in newspapers, computer magazines, and on the internet and television. In addition to commercials on television, Dell uses two main avenues to get its advertisements to potential customers: direct mail and online. Direct mail includes and promotional material sent through the post office. For example, Dell publishes a variety of 24-page monthly catalogues describing their available products. Different catalogues are geared towards different market segments вЂ" one for small businesses and one for domestic customers. The catalogues are then mailed to current and prospective customers on Dell’s mailing list. Online advertising includes any promotional material posted on the web. The internet offers many advantages to advertising because the product can be shown and described in detail. The customer can usually get much more information about the product through the internet than they could get in a printed or television advertisement.

Place: Until fairly recently, Dell computers were only available to be ordered on their website or by phone. There was not a physical place that a customer could go to purchase a Dell computer. While this gave Dell’s customers the ability to customize their order to meet their needs,