Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix

Owning a business, working for a multi-million dollar company, or working for non-profit organization marketing is an important aspect. Marketing is a broad subject that can be defined by many people in different definitions. How does an organization tackle marketing and where would one begin? Most marketing texts will teach of marketing mix that is important to developing an effective organization. Marketing mix is not a mixture of marketing and public relations as one may think but elements that make up an effective method to market. This paper will describe the four elements of marketing mix and relate them to an organization.

Marketing mix and target market are the two pieces that make up marketing strategy. The controllable variables the company puts together to satisfy the target group is marketing mix (Kotler & Keller, 2004). Four specific variables create the marketing mix, product, place, promotion and price. Each variable should be surrounded by a goal of customer satisfaction. Product refers to a physical product or service offered to a customer. Some examples of a product are a brand name, styling, packaging, warranty, repairs, quality and more. The product variable is responsible for creating the products customers will want. Place is responsible for knowing where the customer needs to get the product. A product will travel a channel of distribution to reach the intended customer. A channel of distribution is any series of firms that participate in the flow of products from producer of the product to final intended customer (Kotler & Keller, 2004). Place can be market coverage, transportation, warehousing, inventory management, locations of stores and more. The promotion variable is common and is responsible for telling the customer about the product and possible places to obtain. Promotion of a product can be advertising, sales, public relations, motivation, training and more. This