Il mix di marketing

Do you think marketing mix is the distribution of budget among different possible promotional activities? Wrong! Promotion is just one of the 4Ps of the marketing mix. We also talk about 5Ps, 7Ps, 8Ps, and 4Cs, but let's go step by step.

When we talk about marketing mix, we are always within the strategic marketing, but we get there only after in-depth analysis where we have clear opportunities and threats (have you ever heard of SWOT analysis?), defined target markets, and segmented the target (and your portfolio, of which we talk about here on RFM analysis). Developing a marketing strategy at this point requires positioning the product or service against the competition by defining its differential characteristics (ever heard of USP?).

Once the overall marketing effort has been defined, that is, the investment that the company wants to make, it is necessary to delve into the details of the various marketing levers. The marketing effort of a company compared to that of competitors determines its market share. In determining how much to invest in marketing actions, the company must therefore refer to the objectives of maintenance, growth, or divestment it wants to pursue in each market segment.

What is the marketing mix?

Implementing the marketing effort means working on the marketing mix levers:

• product or service offered
• price
• distribution
• communication

These 4 levers are at the base of classical marketing theory extensively discussed by Kotler (if you don't know him and are interested in marketing, start with him). Why do we talk about the 4Ps of the marketing mix? Well, obviously all the theories are in English, so these 4 levers in English are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Product

The first problem in defining and positioning commercial offerings against competition is to establish what is being sold, i.e., the characteristics of the product or service that the company offers to its potential customers.

The product or service is the central element in the marketing strategy since it is around and in coherence with it that the other levers of the marketing mix develop, from price, to communication, to the choice of distribution channels.

What do we mean by product? The term product can be used in very different ways depending on what is the object of the marketing action: physical goods, services, experiences, places, geographical areas, people, organizations, or ideas. Even though the boundary between the different categories is increasingly blurred and barely recognizable. To delve further into the subject, we refer to the concept of a "product system," where especially in the field of design, there have been numerous studies.

When we talk about the product within the marketing strategy, we generally do not refer to the individual article but rather to a set of different codes with different characteristics in common. Generally, the term product family is used to indicate all those products that satisfy a certain type of need. Within the family, product classes can be identified, i.e., products that have similar or related functionalities. Finally, articles belonging to the same product line not only have similar or related functionalities but also have a common positioning with respect to the competition.

Product decisions within the marketing offer therefore concern not only the single product but also the set of products sold by the company, i.e., the assortment of products, determined by the breadth and depth of the range. Range breadth refers to the number of product lines sold by the company. Range depth refers instead to the number of different items for format, size, formulation, variant that make up a product line.

Price

Defining the price is one of the most delicate marketing decisions. Not only because it directly and explicitly influences revenues and profitability of the business, but also because it is the most directly visible, comparable, and objective element of the entire marketing mix.

Price decisions significantly influence the level of demand and consequently also the level of unit costs. Finally, the price is often considered a representative element of the image and level of quality of the product, and therefore influences the perceived positioning compared to competitors.

For all these reasons, price decisions must be made accurately and consistently with the marketing