ENTREPRENEURSHIP MARKETING PAPER

Entrepreneurship Marketing Paper

Entrepreneurship Marketing Paper

Introduction

New products and new services offered by any company demand an overall marketing strategy to ensure the utmost success. A company's marketing plan should not stop there, however. The next step companies should take towards completing their marketing plan is to plan the details of the marketing mix. The marketing mix, or the 4 P's of marketing, are “the variables that marketing managers can control in order to best satisfy customers in the target market” (QuickMBA, n.d.).

The marketing mix is a critical step in any company's overall marketing strategy; it can create a perceived value and generate a positive response in the target market if the company utilizes the mix appropriately for the market. The information that follows describes the elements of the marketing mix and demonstrates how the elements impact development of an organization's marketing strategy and tactics by utilizing CIGNA HealthCare as an example.

The Marketing Mix

Product, price, place, and promotion these are the 4 P's, otherwise known as the marketing mix. A marketing manager's goal should be to make decisions regarding the marketing mix that revolve around the customer. As noted previously, if the appropriate decisions are made concerning the marketing mix, then the company will create a perceived value in the marketplace, creating a demand for its products and services. When consumers believe that one company's product is the best on the market, that company utilized its tools and resources to create the best possible marketing mix and generated a positive response in the target market.

The marketing mix should be consistently reviewed and revised to meet the changing needs of the consumers. If a company becomes complacent and doesn't review its marketing mix for revisions needed, other companies will surpass it in the future and the demand will shift. It is critical for marketing managers to have a clear understanding of the 4 P's, what their customers want and need, and how to translate the information received into usable data.

The first 'P' is product. The product is the tangible, physical products and/or services that a company offers to consumers (QuickMBA, n.d.). There are many product based decisions that marketing managers need to consider when determining the best marketing mix.

The second 'P' is pricing. When marketing managers make pricing decisions, they should take into consideration the company's desired profit margins and the probable pricing response deployed by competitors (QuickMBA, n.d.). There are a wide range of decisions that should be made regarding pricing. The following are examples of the pricing decisions that need to be considered to determine relevancy.

The third 'P' in the marketing mix is place. Place decisions are made after identifying the available and feasible options for distributing the company's product to its customers (QuickMBA, n.d.). Place, or placement, decisions are important because this is typically the last area the product sits prior to it being sent to the customer. Often times, companies lose customers to competition because of frustrations experienced with order back logs, on-time delivery, timing of ...