Is your marketing mix balanced?
The marketing mix is an expression of a company’s efforts to provide good products and services, offer them at an acceptable price, place them in distribution channels, and promote them well (4 Ps). Effectively balanced, these elements meet customer needs and produce sales results. Each of the 4 Ps in the mix is equally relevant for attaining results, and one without the other has limited value. You can’t sell a great product if nobody knows about it. Better prices won’t bring you higher sales if customers can’t find your products to buy.
You can put a lot of effort into developing products and improving services. When planing a market success strategy, it’s usual to focus on the features of your offer. But it’s not uncommon to neglect equally relevant marketing mix elements that can make your market position more competitive.
How to test your marketing mix
Market share is the percentage of total sales in an industry that a company makes in a given period. This metric is showing a general strength and the company’s position compared to its market competitors.
To test your marketing mix, start with last year’s results. You should know the total industry sales, so it’s easy to determine your market share. The funny part is in grading your 4 Ps. Think carefully and grade each of the elements on a scale of 1 to 10. If the calculated figure matches the value of your realized sales, your grading is accurate. Now you can repeat grading for the current year or do the calculation for the next one.
Balance your 4 Ps
By testing your marketing mix structure, you can clearly understand what you are doing well and where you have room for improvements. Based on these indicators, you can plan further marketing activities to improve your marketing mix and gain a higher market share. Try to figure out what would happen if you strengthen your product usability and how much you should invest. Compare it with the costs and benefits of the increasing recognizability and brand awareness. You may find out, for example, that some improvements in product availability can compensate for the price increase.
