It’s not unusual to hear small business owners say that they “don’t believe in marketing.” I usually find that this translates directly to the fact that they have been disappointed with the results of their advertising. Sales and advertising are just two components of the larger ‘marketing mix’ for success. small business promotion.

According to Wikipedia, the term “marketing mix” was first coined in 1953 by Neil Boden, who took the recipe idea a step further and coined the term “marketing mix.” Traditionally there are 4Ps, or four promotional elements to a ‘marketing mix’. These include Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. With the rapid rise of social media, two more P’s are now getting more attention as part of this formula. They include People and Persistence.

Each ‘P’ is defined as follows:

PRODUCT: A physical object or an intangible service such as tourism and hospitality. The product has a life cycle, which can mean ongoing research and development to ensure it meets constant customer demands.

PRICE: how much the customer is willing to pay for your product or service. The price is not only affected by market conditions, but also by the perceived value determined by the customer.

PLACE: Simply put, the place is where the product is located. Does the customer have to travel to the product, can they buy through a retail outlet, or is it something that can only be purchased online?

PROMOTION: Refers to how you promote your product or service. The ways you persuade your customer to buy, or how you make sure your audience actually knows your product is available in the first place. Potential customers may know your company exists, but you need to tell them about each individual product, and you do that through promotion.

PEOPLE: anyone who consumes your product, for example; consumers, vendors, suppliers, wholesalers, staff, etc.

PERSISTENCE: A degree of persistence is always required in the marketing and promotion of your product. Since nothing really happens overnight, your persistence pays off.

To a large extent, the marketing mix is ​​controllable. It consists of everything that a business owner or manager can do to influence consumer demand for a product. The key is to combine all the components of marketing into an integrated campaign that adds value to the customer and achieves their small business promotion goals