Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix Paper

Jermaine Singleton

MKT/421

December 24, 2012

Kenyetta Rivera

Introduction

This research paper is to observe and analyze the marketing mix and its elements that make it. The four elements of marketing mix consist of product, place, price, and promotion. This paper will describe the importance of the organization's product in marketing, the importance of have the proper place to sell the product, price element, and the importance of the promotion for the product for the selected product. Lastly, this paper will describe how the marketing mix can be applied to E-commerce Company.

The marketing mix is known for the 4p's (product, place, price, and promotion) of marketing and obtains the outcome of a company. These elements are a process to help increase the product sales. An organization must do a lot research and experiments to get good results for the outcome. The four elements are required in order to obtain a favorable outcome. Time Warner must convey its message to their consumers and client's wants, which the organization must take advantage of the marketing mixture. The internet lowers entry barriers dramatically for the new competitors. Some companies enter into e-commerce, because the need for sales and investments are not worth it. The competition will increase for online business in the industry as well as the customers with internet access.

Product

A product is an item, which a business, company, or organization advertises to gain sales from the consumers. The consumer's needs and wants have increased as the world transformed into a technical globe. E-commerce provides many kinds of service to customers which consists of internet service. The main focus will be on the internet services. The internet changes by altering service offerings, and cost structure. The power balance of the suppliers and buyers relationship has changed from the highs and lows of the internet. The consumer collects information off of the internet for products and services, which they do not need to leave their homes to analyze prices or observe products. When going out to the stores to find or buy a merchandise, this can be time consuming and costly. The product supplier and retailer that assist the consumers to find products would charge higher prices (Allen and Fjermestad 2000; Viswanathan 2000). Even though the product suppliers and retailers assisted the consumer with the searches, the consumer do not find what they were looking for, but pays the product supplier and retailer a lot of money. The search for products on the internet is easy and with less cost. AOL, joined up with Time Warner to strengthen the marketing strategy by getting demand and interactive television, email, and music. The company was able to advertise the internet service for a costly price. The use of direct access to consumers from the internet helps collect information and helps find products for consumer needs.

Price

The internet lets the consumers interact with suppliers to compare different prices for products and services. The consumers can compare prices and find a lot of product features by logging onto the internet to look at sites for comparing prices. The search lower cost in marketplaces with internet helps with the price challenges with sellers. The internet intervenes with the competitions and price challenges can make the seller's profits disappear. Companies can make the right strategy decision for pricing to sell products on the internet. Sellers can employ a price discrimination strategy that makes it difficult for buyers to compare the prices of alternative product offerings (Bakos 1998).

Companies protect their profits by gaining leadership of costing in a company or organization. The sellers may not price discriminate, but the cost of production is brought at the lowest from the sellers. The competition of the companies may lower their cost of the production to protect their finances. The improvement of the company's product and services will raise the cost of the customers.

Promotion

There are many dot.com companies that spend a lot of money for mass marketing their e-brands to consumers and do not realize profits. One television executive recently said, "The dot coms spent like drunken monkeys trying to build their brands. They were willing to pay any price. They were unsophisticated and in a hurry" (Elliott and Rutenberg 2000). When an organization tries to promote a product, using television commercials, coupons, and sweepstakes is not a successful way if using the internet market. The customers feel that the company's cost reflects on them and this is the reason why the sale promotions cannot help gain loyalty from the customers. The customers look at the competition when promotions are done at the company they buy products from, because prices are reasonable (Sinha 2000). The companies bring on promotion strategies that are different from the traditional marketing to manage e-brands. The company put together a link to communicate with consumers, this allows the company to provide information about products and meet customers. This link will help companies know what customers need from products made by the company and offer promotions that certain customers can use. This communication between the company and the consumer builds a