The basic elements of marketing

The marketing mix is comprised of the 4P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These define the elements of marketing and will help anyone working in the field to ascertain and develop a comprehensive marketing strategy. Apart from the 4P’s of marketing, there are other factors to be taken into consideration while working in marketing.

Understanding your target audience

Before working on any marketing plan or strategy, it is essential to research your target audience in detail. Target audience demographic research can include factors such as age, gender, and education. However demographic factors are not the only ones which can define your target audience, it is vital to consider psychographic factors like personality, attitudes, values and lifestyle aspects.

By understanding your target audience, and the factors that define them, a marketer will be able to personalize their strategy.

Reaching your target audience

As part of research into your target audience demographics, it is also important to research how the target audience communicates and consumes information. To create a fully personalized marketing strategy, and design the individual communications effectively, you need to understand the most commonly used communication mediums.

What makes your company unique?

Once your target audience is defined, it is essential to focus on the product portion of the marketing mix. Look at your product, or service, and find out what makes it different from other products. Apart from what makes your product unique, it is essential to find out what makes your company unique, one way to do so is to ask your customers what they believe makes your company unique. This research will help you to understand what differentiates your company from the rest.

Solving your customers’ problems

Good customer service is integral for any organization. From a marketing standpoint, being able to solve your customers’ problems is pivotal, especially in a time where social media is heavily ingrained in our everyday lives. From purchasing products to using services, customer reviews often play a significant role in swaying new customers to either try or not try, a particular product or service.

However, solving the customers’ problem is only the first step. Analysing customer feedback will help an organization grow and adapt. Marketers should examine the feedback received from customers to ensure that the problem is dealt with permanently as not dealing with the issue itself could affect the reputation of the product or service.

Collaborate and plan

The final stage of the basic elements of marketing is the first stage. It is when the marketing team comes together with their research, their creative ideas, and their unique perspectives to develop a personalized and effective marketing strategy.

Collaboration and planning should be an engaging experience where the team can not only share ideas and their different perspectives but can work together to create the best possible strategy.

The basic elements of marketing will allow marketers to utilize the 4P’s of marketing to create engaged, compelling and unique marketing strategies that will help distinguish their product or service in the market. These elements, however, emphasize the importance of research and the constant incorporation of customer feedback as a marketing strategy needs to adapt continuously to the environment and the customers.

Check out our marketing roles here. For more information on marketing, see our blog posts on what is digital marketing, and what is social media marketing.