The traditional merchandising mix used by businesses comprised of 4 key elements thought to be vital to the winner of any business. However, with the passage of time and the variations in the rather products and services offered, there are 7 key elements now in the merchandising mix that require constant evaluation to ensure the best possible results. These 7 P's are:
- Product
- Price
- Placement
- Promotion
- Physical Evidence
- Process
- People
In this article, we will discuss all the 7 elements in detail and will explain how businesses can make constant variations in their product mix to maximize their goals.
AHREFS DATA STUDIO
Product
What distinguishes your product or service from other products? While there are standard quality and service components to establish performance, the product or service necessarily to be somehow unique, some way better than its competitor. This "unique marketing proposition" is mission-critical to the business's winner. Customer satisfaction with your product or service is of utmost importance. Though it's important to offer a superiority or a more economical price, better accessibility or faster delivery time, it is also essential to make a point that your product or service has something that is unique and that sets it apart from the competitors in the market.
Price
Consider if the target market sees the price of your product or service as affordable. If the target market is not willing or able to buy, there is no chance to build your business winnerfully. If the price of your products is higher than competition, it is imperative to convert the market the value of the price premium.
Placement
In order to capture the market, make your products and services accessible and easy to buy. If the client can't find you, they can't buy from you. If you offer online gross sales, cautiously consider the process clients must go through to buy online. A difficult buying process is a roadblock to gross sales. Know where your target audience lives and shops in order to put your product ahead where they can see and learn about it.
Promotion
Promoting your product through the right channels to ensure highest exposure is essential to the merchandising process. A promotion on broadcast TV or radio is dearly-won compared to other channels; they will reach people who may have no interest or not be qualified to buy your products. The costly reach of broadcast media can waste valuable merchandising dollars with little return. If the channel is online, use the net - and search engine optimisation - to your advantage. Find out the keyword search terms that will bring the most amount of traffic. Leverage the content and position of the websites that feature your product to its best advantage. If promotion is direct mail, give careful consideration to a targeted posting list. Direct mail can be more focused and waste less resources, resultant in a more exacting approach to your target market.
Physical Evidence
Think about all aspects of your organization that your prospective client encounters. From the cleanliness of the marketing floor and lavatories in a brick and trench howitzer location to the ease of website navigation, the visit should be a pleasant and hassle-free experience for the client. Polite, courteous and well-trained staff should be a priority to convey an image of quality from the product to the people who help sell and re-sell the product. The primary and secondary promotion can elevate a simple useful product and make it more desirable. Everything that the client comes in contact with comes under the physical evidence.
Process
A lead generation process happens from the time your merchandising is seen or detected by the client until they take advantage of your call to action. The gross sales process starts from that call to action until the product or service is winnerfully delivered and paid for. Is the process well-tested and reliable? Is the experience the same from the client's viewpoint each time they interact with your company? How efficient is the gross sales process? If the process can be delivered from lead to gross sales in the best amount of time, protective resources and expense, it can be replicated again and again to build more gross sales revenue.
People
From the people who answer the phone, recognise the client, handle problems, process payments, go throug on the sale, and manage the team to the president of the company, all actions contribute to an image of quality and service. It's common to hear companies say we have great client service in now's world, but how they deliver the great service is what holds great significance to the client.
How Companies Use the Marketing Mix
The merchandising mix experiences a lot of variations throughout a product's lifecycle stage. For example, if we look at the category of health supplements, a lot of the brands started off as delivering biological process supplements to men and women in the market. However, in the development stage of the product's lifecycle, brands were focusing more on gaining exposure through lower introductory prices and different promotional packages. As the brands crossed the Introductory stage and touched on to growth stage, businesses started catering to more specialized categories such as Teens, Men, Women, and the above 50 and began developing more products for each category. These line extensions are typical of a business in the growth stage. When a company is in the mature phase of their lifecycle, it is common to re-launch their products with innovation to capture the surge of business experience in the development stage. In the category of health supplements, many brands legendary the chance of attracting clients looking exercise and athletic supplements for enhance performance. This new market segment opened the doors of a entirely new merchandising niche for businesses that focused on diversifying the market and on increasing the market for this new category.
Conclusion
Experienced merchandising consultants such as 1st Straw Marketing ask a lot of questions to dive deep into the different aspects of business. Getting to know the perception of the market and the internal workings of the company marketing products and services is essential to developing a strategic and military science plan that can be winnerful. Depending on each stage of the product's lifecycle and the influence of the market, business leadership and professional marketers are constantly evaluating their merchandising mix and making changes to serve their target market better. Planning, review, evaluation and research goes into decisive every element of the merchandising mix and is vital to the overall winner of a business.
