If you received only smarties on Halloween as a kid, your level of disappointment would be pretty high. Don’t get me wrong, smarties are great, but part of the fun is coming home after getting a good haul, dumping out your bucket of candy on the floor and taking inventory of your new treasure. My kids lay their stash out on the table, group each type of candy together, and then several minutes of trading ensues. 

“I’ll trade you my blue sour punch straw for whoppers!” 

“Will you take two milk duds for my Reese’s pieces?” 

 If it was all the same type of candy, it would take the fun out of post trick-or-treating!

Think of your business marketing strategy like a bowl of Halloween candy – the more variety you have, the more successful your efforts will be at the end of the day. By diversifying your marketing resources, tools, strategy, and activities, you’ll set yourself up for success. We call this diversity a marketing mix: the combination of marketing strategies that you use to make up your business’ unique marketing plan.

What is the purpose of market mix?

A marketing mix uses a variety of resources, tools, campaigns, and activities to promote your business. Diversifying these elements of your marketing strategy keeps you from putting all of your eggs in one basket – or from having only one type of candy in your trick-or-treat bowl. 

For example, if you focus solely on email marketing, how will you attract people to sign up? You have to have another activity to support it. Maybe it’s a website and SEO to drive organic traffic. And then once they get to the website, you have a free download (also called a lead magnet) to incentivize them to give you their email address. To strengthen your email marketing activities even further, perhaps you regularly speak and give presentations on your work. People who register for the event automatically get signed up for your emails. 

All of these marketing activities, resources, and methods work together to make up a marketing mix and support one another to provide success. 

Why is the marketing mix so important?

The importance of a marketing mix is founded upon your target audience. Develop data-driven customer personas and set your target audience as your north star. Let them guide you towards the right mix of activities that will resonate with them and spur them to take action with your business. If you know that your target audience hates Almond Joys, then for the sake of all that is sweet, don’t put Almond Joys in your marketing mix candy bowl!

For example, one of the customer personas for Crafted Voice is Jessica, a growing small business owner. After looking at the data that led to developing this persona, our team decided that LinkedIn, SEO, and email marketing were the marketing activities that made sense to reach her. This particular mix is simple, as our business model thrives on efficient message targeting. We use Pillar-Based Marketing for data-driven SEO, brand voice guidelines as our anchor for messaging, and have a lead magnet for attracting customers into our email funnel. These tools, resources, and activities all work together to make up our marketing mix, which directly supports our efforts to reach our target audience.

It’s imperative that you find the right marketing mix for your business’ workflow, budget, and target audience. If you’ve found this to be a struggle, Crafted Voice offers expert guidance and data-driven insights through strategic communications and marketing business coaching. We’d love to serve as your partner in planning and executing your marketing mix. Book a free consultation today to learn how a partnership can help you overcome your marketing hurdles.

What are the 4 elements of the marketing mix?

The fundamental principles of marketing in business revolve around four (sometimes more…up to 7!) key elements: product, price, place, and promotion. You are selling a product or service at a certain price, which is available at a specific place, and promoting it via specific platforms. Makes sense right? It is a simple breakdown of how you are doing business.  

The people principle (the 5th P) focuses on those to whom you are selling. It’s crucial to keep customers satisfied with your products and services, or else you won’t make any sales. 

Less obvious is that employees are included in the people principle. As a business owner, ensure all employees provide excellent support to your customers. Focusing your marketing efforts on everyone involved in your business—both customers and employees– will never end poorly. Happy customers plus happy employees is a powerful combination that will significantly contribute to your business’s success.

By leveraging the people principle alongside all the others, you can create marketing strategies and activities that align with your business goals and effectively engage your target audience. 

Let’s take a closer look at each of the other principles.

What is the product in the marketing mix?

To be captain obvious for a moment, “product” is the item or service you’re offering, whether it’s a tangible good like a hair dryer or an intangible service like consulting. 

Product in a marketing mix is all about what customers are purchasing and what makes it stand out, including its features, quality, and appearance. When you are flexing the product marketing element, you are focusing on messaging and activities that center the product.

A great example of successful product marketing is the very first iphone launch in 2007. This case study does a great job of outlining Apple’s marketing strategy. Since this initial launch, however, Apple leans towards people and lifestyle targeting rather than product.   

What is a price in marketing?

Price in a marketing mix refers to how much you’re charging for your product or service. In other words, it’s the cost customers pay to access what you offer. It’s important to strike a balance by setting a price that’s both fair for your customers and profitable enough to sustain your business.

If you focus on price in your marketing messaging and activities, you might advertise big sales. Furniture stores do this often during holidays. One Midwest store in particular comes to mind when it comes to price marketing, Big Sandy Superstore, as they leverage TV commercials during their big sales. They usually say something like, “Come in to Big Sandy Superstore for our biggest sale of the year! All Labor Day weekend, get 20% off couches and sectionals and exclusive appliance rebates up to $500!”

What is the place concept in marketing?

Place in a marketing mix centers where and how customers can access your product or service. If you focus on place, you ensure your offerings are available in convenient locations—whether online, in physical stores, or through other businesses. The goal is to make it easy for customers to find and purchase from you.

If you are selling a hair dryer, your marketing strategy may include trying to get your hair dryer into as many salons as you can across the country. That “place” makes sense because people are already focused on their hair at a salon and it provides an easy environment to make a sale. Perhaps you distribute point of sale marketing displays to further draw attention to the hair dryer in the salon amidst all the other hair products being sold. Prioritizing place is an essential part of your marketing mix.

What is promotion in the marketing mix?

Promotion in a marketing mix covers all the activities you do to spread the word about your product or service. This includes advertising, special offers, and media coverage. The aim is to generate interest and persuade people to buy what you’re selling.

Shaklee is a great example of a company that uses a multi-level marketing framework under the promotion marketing principle. They rely heavily on people who are passionate about their product to sell their products to their friends, family, and network at large. They call this an “Ambassador” program. Watch the video to see a great example of their promotion effort.

How do you write a marketing mix plan?

Writing a marketing mix plan is just as fun as going through your Halloween candy after a night of trick-or-treating! You get to sort through all of the tempting options and decide which you are going to try first. Will you go with a focus on people and lifestyle messaging, while also running ads on your upcoming big sale? Or maybe you plan to send direct mailers and have a booth at a local festival? 

To make the decision strategically, follow these steps to plan your marketing mix:

Once you decide what marketing activities you will try first, experiment! Some will not work as you had hoped, and that’s OK. Customers change, the market changes, technology changes, and the world changes. All plans and strategies have to keep evolving to serve today’s economic environment.