All marketing resources will eventually talk about your marketing mix, but what do they mean exactly? Marketing mix is a term that the marketing world tries to hold as a private term that only the industry knows about, but as a small business owner, you need to understand how to plan and implement your marketing mix.

The marketing mix is defined as the four P's of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. These four areas make up the complete outline for product or service marketing. Once you have defined the variables for each P, you have a basis for proper marketing.

Market research will play a major role in each area of your marketing mix. You must understand what you are competing with in regards to products and pricing. Although you may have a new and unique item with an innovative type of distribution, you still must compare your product or service to existing ones.

Here are the four P's of your marketing mix for small business marketing.

P #1: Product

The product or service or selling must be defined first. What are you selling? How will it be packaged? Determine your product's features, and then build the benefits from them. At this point, you will make all of the decisions relating to your product or service: style, quality, packaging, warranty, etc.

P#2: Price

Pricing actually plays a vital role in the branding and image of your product. Determining your price can be difficult, especially if you product is in a widely-variable industry. You must determine pricing strategy, retail and wholesale pricing, possible bundling, and any type of discounts.

P#3: Place

Place refers to how you will distribute the product. Will you sell to retail stores, or will you sell directly to customers? Is your product a wholesale item? The decisions made about distribution will affect your marketing mix in terms of how you will warehouse your products, how you will process orders, what types of channels will you use, and how will you cover the market.

P#4: Promotion

Promotion is the area where you will make decisions on how people will learn about your product. What types of sales strategies and promotions will you use? What kind of sales force will you need to sell your product? How will you use public relations and publicity to support your product? There are many aspects of the promotion element of your marketing mix. In fact, the other three P's will affect your promotion strategy.

Decide on the first three P's before you tackle Promotion, but ultimately, each P will coordinate with the others. Once you complete your marketing mix decisions, review the entire plan to make sure you have a consistent and precise marketing mix plan in order to properly sell, distribute, and promote your product.

The main aim of any organization is success.  In other words, what they really look for is to  increase their profits by way of satisfying the needs of the customers  providing them with goods and services that is up to their expectations. If the customers think that the goods and services are up to what they believe is value for  money, then this will not only increase the existing customers but also  the new customers as well. Increasing  the customers means, on the other hand increasing sales which will eventually pave way to increase the profits.

Why is Target Marketing Important ?

Today, with the limited amount of resources available for the business organizations, it is indeed very vital to use all  of their  resources, capabilities and capital effectively, in order to produce goods and services that the customers desire. Having said that,  in reality it is not an  easy task to do than say. In other means, producing goods and services to satisfy the entire market is not entirely  practical, and its only a waste of money. Not all people have the same desire for a single product or service.  Different people may want different products in order to satisfy their needs. As a result, it is thus important to target the customers who are likely to buy the products manufactured by the organization and concentrate the marketing efforts on those customers.  This will on the other hand help the businesses  to increase their profits while winning the hearts of the customers.  This is where the target marketing comes in to practice.

Target Marketing and Market Segmentation

Target marketing is all about concentrating on one or few segments of the market in order to develop products to satisfy those selected segments.  In other words, rather than trying to concentrate  on the entire market as a whole, the organizations tend to identify the customers who  are mostly likely to buy their products.  Upon identifying their targeted customers, then they produce goods or services so as to satisfy the customers within the target market. Target marketing basically involves  breaking down the market in  different segments in order to help the organization to identify its selected  customers effectively. This process is called market segmentation. This is very vital in identifying the target market. Generally a market is broken down into segments such  as,

• Demographic segments - this is all about sorting the market according to the age, gender, income, education , occupation, family size, family lifecycle ( bachelor, married ), nationality etc.
• Geographic segments - this basically includes identifying the market according to the region, country, neighbourhood etc.
• Psychographic segments - this usually involves identifying the market according to their lifestyle, activities, interest, opinions and attitudes etc.
• Behavioural segments - this is basically breaking the market according to the usage, brand loyalty, user status( first time buyer, regular ), benefits sought etc.

Having said that, the organizations basically  tend to focus on one or more segments of the market and thus develop  products that best meets the expectations of the consumers targeted. For example, an particular organization who tends to manufacture clothes  will want to produce cold weather clothes for both the boys and girls below the age of five and whose parents are in the middle income families. As  a result, once  they are aware of who their customers are,  the organizations are able to  use all of their resources only to produce what their customers are willing to buy. This basically minimizes the wastage which will  eventually lead to produce better quality products with cost effectiveness. This is due to the fact that, once the target market is identified  then the organizations can most probably concentrate their marketing mix to suit the customers identified.

Factors to Consider when Selecting the Target Market Segments

To say, it is not just enough to concentrate on  any one or few of the market segments  in order to form the selected target market for the organization's products. In other words, there are basically two important factors that should be kept in mind when it comes to selecting the segments for the target market. First of all,  the selected segment/s should be attractive enough with regard to the size of the segment, growth rate of the segment, competition in the segment, brand loyal customers,  and the expected profit margins. For example,  there should be an attractive number of customers( not too big or not to small) in the segment/s, an  increasing growth rate, not too much competition, brand loyal customers with good profit margins.

Likewise, there should be a fit between the concentrated market segments and  organization's objectives, resources and capabilities. This means that  the identified segment/s should be able  achieve the objectives of the organization, the organization should be able to offer value to its customers in the segments,  how accessible are the segments to their distribution channels and the organizations capital and the invested capital required to serve the segment/s. The better the market segments fits the organization and are entirely attractive, the greater the profits are.  

Finally,  it should be said that when it comes to target marketing, this however  involves only a certain proportion of the entire market. But still this helps to increase the profit of the organizations thus paving way for success, rather than trying to satisfy the entire market which is of course is not practical in today's turbulent and competitive environment. What actually means by this is that by trying to produce goods for a large market, the organizations basically have to face a lot of competition, a lot of wastage  trying to market to the wrong customers ,and is also difficult to produce good quality product or services that the customers demand for. That is why target marketing is one of the important strategies that should be taken into account and carried out properly in order to achieve success.

By Shameena Silva

Email Marketing Article

Internet marketing is a marketing strategy that when use properly, generates phenomenal results. Many entrepreneurs are taking advantage of this vastly growing market by promoting their primary business products via the internet. The process of setting up a website is only part of the solution for a successful marketing campaign. Using email marketing to promote your business or product can be a lucrative choice if you learn the correct way to market to your perspective buyers.

Email marketing is the single most effective tool you can use to make multiple contact with your prospects without consuming too much of your time. It is a fact that most customers will not make a purchase until their seventh time viewing a product, so email marketing has become the advertising of choice for many marketers. One great method is to capture a customers email address is to add an autoresponder web form to your website. The Autoresponder should send out at least 7 preset messages to keep your product fresh on your prospects mind.

The follow up messages are very important for many reasons. A good follow up message must contain more information on the products and services that your business offers. It is also important for securing repeat visitors. Informing your potential customers of future sales, discounts or new product launches can be helpful in establishing a lasting relationship. That is the reason that you should take some pride when writing your sales prospect letter. There are many components to that must be present in order to make a sales prospect letter effective, but when your letter is written correctly, your conversion rates will increase dramatically.

Writing a sales prospect letter requires that you use some thought in constructing the letter or otherwise it may be ineffective. Your letter should consist of an attention grabbing headline that strikes an emotional chord with your potential sales prospect. A headline that ask a very powerful question or makes a bold statement is recommended. It is also a good practice to briefly address your headline by answering your question in the body of your email. Most readers do not like reading blocked sentences, so limiting your sentences to no more than four in any given paragraph will hold your readers attention.

If you are an extremely busy individual that does not have much time to fully implement the use of email marketing for your business, there are several companies on the internet that provide that service. One particular company is called Reliable Contact. Reliable Contact is a company that specializes in providing their customers with email marketing plans for various business online or offline.

Whichever route you choose, it is important to make sure that your follow up emails are well targeted to you sales prospects. Email marketing has the potential to raise you overall performance by more than 50% by capturing customers that would normally be just passers by. Running a business can be a very rewarding but stressful experience, making the most of your opportunities is a must, the use of email marketing will keep you from leaving money on the table.