The Marketing Mix!!!

The 7 Almighty p's

The marketing mix was first introduced by Jerome McCarthy in 1960 who was an American marketing professor. The marketing mix provides variables that marketing managers can control in order to satisfy there desired customers in an effective way.
  
 The marketing mix or commonly known as the 4p’s consists of the following:
-Product
-Price
-Promotion
-place

Product
The product is the physical product or service offered to the customers and must be capable of satisfying the customer’s needs and wants.For example first direct offers a product of online & phone banking which offers appealing services to keep their customers happy. Some examples of first direct products and services are: Mortages, Loans, Insurance, Investments, Credit Cards,Mobile banking and updates.
Product decisions include aspects such as:
- Quality -must be of a high quality in order to satisfy the customers
- Style -must look attractive to appeal to the customers
- Packaging- packaging is important to ensure the product does not get damaged
- Durability-tells the customer how long it will work for
- Installation- gives the customer a guide plan on how to set up the product
- After sales- upgrades
- Warranty- gives the customer a chance to return it after a long period of time, for example first direct offers its customers £100 if they choose to leave their bank, after a period of 6 months they also help them with all the paperwork needed to transfer them back to their old bank.
- Features- all the interesting facts the product may include.
for example first direct has many features such as : internet banking mortages,loans etc these can also be considered as services.

Price-This involves deciding on a price strategy things which may be considered when discussing the price p are:
-Basic price- Standard price of a product without any alternations
-Discounts- money off a product
-Pricing policy-this is the procedure used by a business to set wholesale and retail prices for its products or services.
-Price variations- changes within the price of a product.
-Price discrimination-competeing with other businesses to sell product which is currently illigal e.g lowering price of products to savatage another businesses product.
-Trade in terms- can you trade in the product
-Payment terms- how a customer may pay for their product
-Credit card terms- paying for the product by card over a few years.
Price is an extremely important aspect of the marketing mix, as a business will only get customers if their price is right, which is why first direct ensure that they can offer reasonable prices and low interest rates.which wont be beaten by their competitors to their customers and potential customers. and they also offer money to customers who switch to their bank. first direct offer the bank services to only those who will be putting £1500 monthy into their account, and they will give you £100 for joining their bank

Promotion
Promotions refer to the set of activities which communicate a product, brand or service to the market. Some of the activities will include:
-Advertising -such as posters TV adverts etc
-Personal selling- selling own goods
-Sales promotion- a benefit from purchasing a product. E.g. buy on get one free
-Public relations- how your product is seen to the public, e.g. free reviews of the product in magazines etc
-Sponsorship-sponsoring a company in order to get advertisement
-Direct marketing-face to face marketing.
These activities can also be referred to as the promotional mix.An example of promoting could be first directs advertising , they advertise themselves through their online websites (e-marketing) and posters in a variety of different places, like the London underground, newspapers etc.first direct also offer many sales promotions, which attracts more customers for them, one of their recent sales promotion was, any customer will receive £100 if they switch to first direct.

Place
Place refers to the location of where a product is distributed and they ways in which it can meet the market.eg first direct's location is online however they have a Head Office Which is located at:   40 Wakefield Road
LS10 3TP - Leeds
West Yorkshire.

 
Distribution decisions may include:
-Choice of channels and outlets
-Channel distribution
-Market coverage- how much of the market the product reaches to.
-Channel variety -
-Dealer support-
-Long and short channels- what period of time it takes for the product to be distributed.
-Role of the intermediary
-Physical distribution/logistics weather the product is distributed by person eg. knocking on your door.
-Location - this is where the product is being distributed and how it reaches its customers e.g - in a shop,or like first direct it will be online and although first direct only offer their services to residents of the uk their website may be seen worldwide.-Pushing and pulling through the channels    

So thats the 4'ps what about the other 3? the 3 p's relate more to the service rather than a product.
Here they are:
-People
People refer to the customers, employees, management and everybody else involved in it. It is essential for everyone to realize that the reputation of the brand/service that you are involved with is in the people's hands. first direct ensure that their staff members and customers are alyways satisfied with their services.
-Process
this refers to how long it takes a company or organisation to delivar a service to its customers. e.g when ordering food from a resturant and getting it within 2 minutes. first direct always make sure that when any customer is calling, their call is answered within 2 minutes and you will always be speaking to a person rather than a machine. they also ask for any feedback from customers weather it be negitive or postivie, from this they can make any changes that customers may have asked for, and they wil do this as quickly as possible.
-Physical Evidence
this is all about where the service is being delivared it allows the consumer to make judgements about the service that is being deleivared.for example first direct only deliver their services to residents of the uk.

And there you have the 7p's!!!
So Overall in conclusion a business must take full advantage of each P within the marketing mix and focus on all them equally in order to be successful at marketing!

Comments

[ebitnow.com]

A few pointers...

How about breaking this up a bit with some relevant images?
Product - List some of the products? There are at list 6 or 7. Maybe a line about each one?
Price - How does FD decide what interest rates to charge? Based on competition?
Promotion - GREAT! Especially with those pics we printed last week!
Place - Doesn't FD have a call centre of Head Office? Maybe an actual address could be added? Also some of your points are missing an explanation.
People, Physical, Process all need links to FD.

Well done with this tough piece of work! Keep going Rima!

[ebitnow.com]

I can see some improvements here but we are still missing links to FD in People, Physical and Process. Price should feature how much it costs to bank with FD? aSK Thelma if unsure (also on website...go to 1st account)