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The marketing mix is a set of tools your company can use to achieve your marketing goals.

Your marketing strategy is the way you use these tools to achieve a goal.

There are five main marketing tools, known as the five P's of the marketing mix.

Let us learn about the five P's.

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Promotion includes all the communications your marketing team has with the market in order to get people to view your brand positively.

There are many different promotional methods your company might use.

EXAMPLE  You might use a combination of advertisements, news media coverage, a company newsletter, conferences, and sponsorships to promote your company.

You'll learn more about promotional methods later.

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People are the people who are associated with your company or brand, such as employees, managers, customers, and others connected with your company.

They affect your brand image and the value of your product.

The people who are connected with your company should reinforce your marketing message.

EXAMPLE  If you are creating a fun, youthful marketing message, you should try to get fun and youthful people associated with your company and brand.

EXAMPLE  If you are creating a serious, responsible marketing message, you should get serious and responsible people associated with your company and brand.

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You will use all of these marketing tools in different amounts and ways.

It's important to create a strategy that combines each of these tools.

Make sure that the way you use each of the five P's is consistent with your marketing message.

Your product should meet the needs of your target market, be sold in places where they can get it easily, be affordable for them, and be promoted in ways they will notice it with a message they will relate to.

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The list of five P's is the traditional way of viewing the marketing mix.

Some people are switching over to using C's to define the marketing mix instead because they believe it more accurately reflects how marketing works now.

Let us learn about the five C's.

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Product = Consumer

In this way of viewing it, product is replaced by consumer.

This focuses more on the consumer's needs and wants, and how the product is satisfying them.

It helps make the marketing strategy more consumer focused, instead of product focused.

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Price = Cost

Cost replaces price, and it includes all of the costs related to the product in addition to the price.

EXAMPLE  The price of a car or light bulb would also be affected by the cost of providing the energy to run the car or light bulb.

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Place = Convenience

Place is changed to convenience, since the Internet has changed buying habits so that they are not as tied to a physical location.

Convenience includes the ease of finding, buying, receiving, and learning about the product.

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Promotion = Communications

Promotion is changed to communications. This is a broader way of defining this category than promotion.

It can include all types of communication, whether they are specifically focused on promoting the product or not.

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People = Community

Community refers to the people associated with your brand. It also includes anyone who is affected by your product.

This helps to take into account your company's role in the community.

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Your company's market share is the percentage of the total target market for your product that belongs to your company. It can be calculated in sales income or number of sales.

It's easy for you to figure out your company's sales income or number of sales, but it's not as easy to figure out the total for your market. This usually requires that you research industry or trade publications or hire a market research company.

Knowing the total size of the market helps you understand what changes to your sales numbers mean.

If you don't know the total size of the market, you will be unable to tell the difference between losing customers to competitors or losing them because the overall market is shrinking or the economy has changed.

Knowing the size of the market and your market share allows you to compare your company's performance to that of your competitors.

You can use the tools in the marketing mix to increase your market share.

EXAMPLE  You might make improvements to your product to make it more attractive and valuable to customers, change prices to increase sales, add new places where the product is sold, or spend more money on promotions.

You'll learn about advantages and disadvantages of increasing your market share next.

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Let us learn about advantages and disadvantages of increasing your market share.

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Let us learn about advantages and disadvantages of increasing your market share.

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Economies of Scale
Increasing your market share means increasing the number of sales.

With more sales overall, economies of scale may mean that selling more of your goods or services will allow you to save money per sale.

EXAMPLE  You may get better prices on materials you use if you purchase larger quantities of them.

Increasing Sales in Slow Markets
Even if your market isn't growing in size, you can increase your sales by taking customers away from your competitors.

This means even in slow periods and tough economic times, as long as you are increasing your market share, your company can be adding new customers and increasing the number of sales.

Building Reputation
A large market share is likely to improve your company's reputation and status.

It might give you more power when dealing with suppliers and other companies, and it is usually good for your brand image.

People are more likely to trust your brand if it is well known and popular.

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Cost May Be High
If the strategies you will use to increase your market share are too expensive, it might not be worth doing.

EXAMPLE  If you spend a lot of money on advertising and the increase in market share doesn't make up for the cost, it was probably not worth it.

May Invite Competition
If your market share grows dramatically, you might inspire new competitors to join the market to take away those customers you gained.

Or you might inspire existing competitors to increase their marketing efforts or lower their prices in order to win customers away from you.

If you take over too much of the market, your competitors may even claim that you have a monopoly and take you to court.

Limited Capacity
If you have a limited capacity for producing your goods or providing your service and couldn't handle many more sales, you may not want to increase your market share beyond what you can handle.

Unprofitable Customers
If some customers in the market are not profitable, you might not want to attract them.

You might even want to get rid of unprofitable customers you currently have. This could decrease your market share but improve your profitability.

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Your market penetration strategy is your plan for increasing your number of customers and sales by getting more of the people in your target market to buy your products.

Market penetration increases the sales of your existing products to more of the people in your existing target market.

This can include the following strategies:

Getting new customers from your target market to buy your product or service

Taking customers away from competitors

Getting your past customers to buy more of your products and services

You can use the tools of the marketing mix to create and adjust your market penetration strategy.

EXAMPLE  Your penetration strategy might include lowering prices, more advertising, better store or shelf positioning, and so on.

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A marketing plan is a written statement of your company's marketing goals and plan for achieving them.

It is similar to your business plan, and many of these pieces are also included in your business plan.

The marketing plan is more detailed than the marketing sections in your business plan, with more specific research, methods, strategies, and budgets.

Let us learn about the parts of a marketing plan.

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Your marketing plan should include research into the overall market, definitions of market segments, and a description of the specific target market you are aiming for.

In addition, your research should describe industry trends, economic changes, and other factors that could affect your market.

EXAMPLE  Economic changes could decrease the spending power of your target market and make it less likely they will spend money on your products.

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In this section, you describe and analyze your company's competition.

This includes direct competitors who offer very similar products, as well as indirect competitors who satisfy the same need or desire in a different way.

This is also where you describe the competitive advantages your product has when compared to these competitors.

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This section describes your company's current brand image, as perceived by your customers and potential customers.

This is where you describe your goals for your brand image. Make a list of the main qualities you want people to associate with your brand.

Describe the market positioning you want to achieve. How do you want your product to be positioned in people's minds, particularly in comparison to your competitors?

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Set measurable marketing goals over a specific period of time, such as an increased number of customers, sales, or income.

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You may have other marketing goals that you wish to measure.

EXAMPLE  You may want to measure improvements in customer satisfaction and find out why customers are more satisfied. Did your marketing efforts create more accurate expectations about the product?

EXAMPLE  You might want to measure whether your customer demographics have shifted toward the target market you are trying to focus on.

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Discuss your strategy for determining the price of your product.

Explain how your pricing strategy will support your overall brand image, marketing message, and financial goals.

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In the budget section, you define your overall marketing budget for a specific length of time.

Then break down the budget to show where the money will be spent.

EXAMPLE  You should have a budget for each individual advertising campaign, public relations effort, and so on.

Explain how you decided on these numbers for the budget, and why you think it will be worth spending this amount.

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When you create your marketing plan, it's important to include a variety of different marketing and promotional strategies.

If your marketing strategies are diverse, that means they are a variety of different things. Your marketing message should stay the same, but the ways you communicate it can be diverse.

A diverse marketing approach helps you reach more people.

EXAMPLE  You shouldn't only run radio ads, or you will only reach people who listen to that radio station in that area at that time of day.

It's difficult to reach everyone in your target market at once, so you should consider all of the possible ways you could reach your target audience, and create a plan that includes many of these ways.

EXAMPLE  Your target market might be likely to listen to a particular local radio show and also be likely to shop at local music shops and attend concerts, so you could advertise not just on the radio, but also with posters at music shops and concerts.

A diverse marketing approach also allows you to reinforce your message with people who have already heard your message in other ways.

EXAMPLE  In addition to advertising, you might decide to sponsor a music contest or a concert. This would reach your target market in a different way and reinforce their positive view of your brand.

Your marketing plan should define the variety of diverse ways you will promote your product, and it should describe your plan for coordinating your marketing activities.

Each of your marketing activities should support the marketing message and brand image you want to promote. This helps them work together and coordinate.

EXAMPLE  A breakfast cereal company that targets people who care about fitness might market itself as a healthy meal that gives people strength and energy. The company's marketing strategy might include things like magazine ads, TV ads, sponsoring athletes, a Web site with themed games and activities, and scholarships for teen athletes.

If any of your marketing activities conflicts with the others, you may create customer confusion and lose the brand image or message you are trying to communicate.

EXAMPLE  If you are marketing your product as being affordable for ordinary people, but your pricing is too high, this will weaken your marketing message.

EXAMPLE  If you are running TV ads that show your product as a trendy product popular with young people, but your Web site looks old fashioned and out of date, your conflicting messages will confuse customers.