What are the Principles of Marketing?

For any business to be successful, a good marketing strategy is vital. In basic terms marketing is about giving potential customers information about your products or services and the reasons that they should choose your company.

Good marketing educates customers so that they can find the products they want, make better and more informed choices about the products, and get the most value from them. Marketing helps facilitate exchanges between buyers and sellers for mutual benefits for both parties.

The same marketing principles have been around for decades. There are four original marketing principles known as the 4Ps or the marketing mix. By mixing these four ingredients in different ways, you can produce a synergy between all four that drives product adoption within your target audience.

They are interdependent and work together to complement and align all the parts of a marketing plan. The marketing mix is fluid, allowing the marketing team to be able to emphasise any one area as needed based on marketing conditions and what’s best for the targeted audience.

The 4 basic marketing principles are product, price, place and promotion.

Product

Product is one of the most crucial principles of marketing. The product can either be a service you provide or goods. If you want to sell a product that is going to be profitable then you need to do thorough research and understand your customer and what is likely to appeal to them. You need to consider the quality of your product, how safe the product is, and what its selling point is.

Price

This needs thorough market research, known as market-orientated pricing. It is important to understand what your customers are willing to pay and the price of the same type of product offered by your competitors. You will need to determine the market value before setting your price.

Place

This is where your products or services are available to the customer, whether this is a shop or an online website, or both. You will need to think about what is convenient for your customers in terms of location and how to connect your potential customers to your location. As more people use the internet to source products and services, a digital presence can make a huge difference to your success.

Promotion

This involves raising awareness about your company, brand, products or services offered. You should be giving information about your products and reasons to use them. It involves communicating with your target audience and making your product appeal to them. Effectively promoting your product or services is crucial for the success of any business.

There are a number of ways to promote your brand; this may include:

• Advertisement – This may include social media, television or magazine advertisements.
• Email marketing – This involves communicating or advertising through emails.
• Sales promotions – This may include short-term promotions, or deals for customers or prospective customers.
• Search marketing – Search marketing is generating leads from search engines in order to drive website traffic to your website or product.
• Direct marketing – This is when you directly reach out to your target audience.
• Public relations – This involves presenting a favourable image of your brand.

Marketing principles were extended from the 4Ps to the 7Ps in 1981, and therefore some businesses find it useful to use the 7Ps, which also include:

People

Hiring people who are skilled, and the right people for the job, is important for any business to succeed. Good customer service is also important – listening to your customers and responding to their needs.

Process

The process is the customer’s complete experience of the service or product from start to finish. This includes delivery of the product and the aftercare when a customer has received their product or service you provide. Happy and satisfied customers will help your business grow due to the good reputation you will gain, and the business from repeat customers.

Packaging

Packaging refers to how your products or services are presented to people, and what initial impression you are making to your customers. Packaging in a way that makes your product look attractive and stand out may mean that your product is chosen over that of your rivals.

Physical Evidence

It is important that the environment where your products or services are provided is attractive and user-friendly; this also includes thinking further about your packaging. It includes all of the things that the customer will see when interacting with your business.

Physical evidence will give your potential customer some knowledge of your product before they purchase, for example where they can try it out or see the results first before buying, making it more attractive to them, gaining their trust. This also includes reviews from customers and interactions staff have with them in stores.

What are the principles of marketing management?

Small business marketing management is based on a set of principles that include tasks from planning to ad creation, and long-term maintenance. This can vary depending upon the industry you are in and your target audience. A lot of small business marketing management depends on creating the interest of the consumer; it also involves ad creation and day-to-day operation of the marketing strategy.

• Knowledge – It is important to understand what consumers want, and how best to reach them. There should be an understanding of what your message should be and why, and what the short- and long-term goals of advertising are for the company.
• Organisation – The development of marketing plans is a key part of small business marketing management. Plans should outline the initiatives of each proposed campaign, outlining the cost to the customer, and the return. Developing relationships with marketing partners can lead to partial or full funding of advertisements.
• Creativity – Creativity in advertising is important for small businesses as often they do not have the funding or resources that large corporations would have.
• Efficiency – Each campaign initiative must be distributed, which involves hiring people to hand out fliers, proofs for magazines, delivery of recordings to TV and radio stations, and placing adverts in publications.
• Adaptability – It is important to have continual oversight of the progress of each campaign. This may involve altering promotions and redistributing where necessary. Constant maintenance and adaption is a principle of marketing management that will help the continued success of any small business.

What are the five principles of sports marketing?

Sports teams and franchises operate in a very similar way to large corporations. They employ financial experts and operational leaders to help keep the organisation running as efficiently as possible. Sports marketing involves building a highly identifiable fan base from fans who are passionate, and with sponsors and media to promote and support the organisation.

Effective ways to do this include:

• Fan identification – Creating high levels of fan identification. Customers may identify with branded goods and services that represent who they support.
• Branding – Branded goods and services that emulate sports-related marketing practices is what builds highly identified customers. Social networking can generate a high level of fanatical support so that users form clubs and meet for social benefits associated with membership.
• Alignment – Brands seek property alignment through their ownership of an active and avid fan base.
• Context – The context in sports marketing is formulated using a foundation of a thorough understanding of how the buyers will respond to each property, for example organisations, teams, athletes and artists. Sports sponsorships also play an integral role as both patrons and supporters.
• Framework – All property within the framework consists of highly identified fans who have developed passionate connections with those properties. This happens as a result of consumption of events, meeting with fans, media and merchandise.

Cornerstones of (Sports) Marketing will provide you will further in-depth information about sports marketing.

What are the principles of a market economy?

A market economy is a system in which the laws of supply and demand direct the production of goods and services. Demand includes the purchases made by customers, and supply includes natural resources, capital and labour. Private and public ownership of a business is normal. Labourers and workers work for the company.

Land, buildings, material and resources are owned by consumers and businesses. They can conduct business with each other as and when they want to. Businesses will aim to sell their products and services at the highest price customers are willing to pay, and prices are also determined by the competition of other businesses.

Employers will seek to get the highest skilled workers at the lowest possible wages. For tips on how to reduce employee turnover, please see our knowledge base.

For a market economy to work there must be at least 6 characteristics present:

Private ownership

Most goods and services are privately owned. Owners can profit from this by selling or leasing property, products or services.

Freedom of choice

Owners are free to produce, sell and purchase goods in a competitive market. A buyer must be willing to pay the price they set for their goods or services, and their success is determined by the cost to produce and sell their goods, and the price they can sell them for.

Motive of self-interest

A market economy gives people an opportunity and a chance to work for themselves. Self-interest is one of the biggest factors behind a successful market economy.

Competition

Competitive pressure helps to keep prices low and ensures goods and services within society are produced more efficiently. If demand increases for a certain item then the prices will rise. Competitors produce the same product, adding to the supply of that product.

This reduces prices to a level that only the best, most stable competitors remain. Competitive pressure also exists between workers and consumers, as employees compete with each other for the highest-paying jobs, and buyers compete for the lowest prices for the best product.

A system of markets and prices

A market economy relies on an efficient market in which to sell goods and services. A market is thought to be efficient when all buyers and sellers have equal access to the same information about prices, supply and demand. Supply and demand are what drives the shift that occurs within the market system.

Demand includes:

• Product price.
• Buyers’ income.
• Consumer taste.
• Prices of goods.
• Buyers’ expectations.

Supply includes:

• Level of technology used in production.
• Number of sellers in the market.
• Amount of regulation, subsidies or taxes.
• The expectation of future prices.
• The price of other goods.

Limited Government

The government should ensure that everyone has equal access to the market – regulating agencies ensure that no one is manipulating the markets – and that people have equal access to information. The government’s role is to ensure that the markets are open, stable, working, safe and fair to everyone. Regulating agencies ensure that products are safe for use and that businesses are not taking advantage of consumers.

There are pros and cons to a market economy:

Pros

• Successful businesses invest in each other.
• The competition encourages efficiency.
• Innovation is rewarded with profits.
• Supply and demand are driven by consumers and businesses.
• People work harder to prevent them from losing their jobs.
• Wider variety of consumer goods is available.

Cons

• Self-interest tends to take priority over concern for the bigger picture.
• Competition leaves out the disadvantaged.
• Caretakers of the disadvantaged tend to be left behind.
• Not everyone will have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

What do you learn in the principles of marketing?

Marketing involves understanding how to communicate with the consumer. You will learn how to create products and services that serve consumers, and deliver products and services in a way that optimises value. By studying the principles of marketing you will learn about being responsible for making money for the company and delivering satisfaction to your customers.

Having a good understanding of this process will help to ensure the success of your business. You will learn about the marketing process and the range of marketing decisions that an organisation must make in order to sell its products and services. It will help you learn to think like a marketer and understand that the focus of marketing should be on the consumer.

Marketing is one of the fastest-growing industries, and it is a chance to be creative and strategic. The end goal is to have a happy and satisfied customer. By aligning the marketing principles to the target customer market, you’ll be able to achieve this goal and grow your business.