Developing an Integrated Marketing Mix

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Developing an Integrated Marketing Mix
After determining its overall marketing strategy, the company is ready to begin planning the details of the marketing mix, one of the major concepts in modern marketing. The marketing mix is the set of tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. The marketing mix consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its product. The many possibilities can be collected into four groups of variables—the four Ps. Figure 2.5 shows the marketing tools under each P.

• Product means the goods-and-services combination the company offers to the target market. Thus, a Ford Escape consists of nuts and bolts, spark plugs, pistons, headlights, and thousands of other parts. Ford offers several Escape models and dozens of optional features. The car comes fully serviced and with a comprehensive warranty that is a much a part of the product as the tailpip
• Price is the amount of money customers must pay to obtain the product. Ford calculates suggested retail prices that its dealers might charge for each Escape. But Ford dealers rarely charge the full sticker price. Instead, they negotiate the price with each customer,offering discounts, trade-in allowances, and credit terms. These actions adjust prices forthe current competitive and economic situations and bring them into line with the buyer’s perception of the car’s value
• Place includes company activities that make the product available to target consumers. Ford partners with a large body of independently owned dealerships that sell the company’s many different models. Ford selects its dealers carefully and strongly supports them. The dealers keep an inventory of Ford automobiles, demonstrate them to potential buyers, negotiate prices, close sales, and service the cars after the sale
• Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade target customers to buy it. Ford spends more than $1.5 billion each year on U.S. advertising to tell consumers about the company and its many products.13 Dealership salespeople assist potential buyers and persuade them that Ford is the best car for them. Ford and its dealers offer special promotions—sales, cash rebates, and low financing rates—as added purchase incentives.

An effective marketing program blends each marketing mix element into an integrated marketing program designed to achieve the company’s marketing objectives by delivering value to consumers. The marketing mix constitutes the company’s tactical tool kit for establishing strong positioning in target markets. Some critics think that the four Ps may omit or underemphasize certain important activities. For example, they ask, “Where are services?” Just because they don’t start with a P doesn’t justify omitting them. The answer is that services, such as banking, airline, and retailing services, are products too. We might call them service products. “Where is packaging?” the critics might ask. Marketers would answer that they include packaging as one of many product decisions. All said, as Figure 2.5 suggests, many marketing activities that might appear to be left out of the marketing mix are subsumed under one of the four Ps. The issue is not whether there should be four, six, or ten Ps so much as what framework is most helpfulin designing integrated marketing programs.  There is another concern, however, that is valid. It holds that the four Ps concept takes the seller’s view of the market, not the buyer’s view. From the buyer’s viewpoint

 

in this age of customer value and relationships, the four Ps might be better described as the four Cs

Thus, whereas marketers see themselves as selling products, customers see themselves as buying value or solutions to their problems. And customers are interested in more than just the price; they are interested in the total costs of obtaining, using, and disposing of a product. Customers want the product and service to be as conveniently available as possible. Finally, they want two-way communication. Marketers would do well to think through the four Cs first and then build the four Ps on that platform.

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