A Proposed Marketing Mix for Innocent Company
Innocent is a manufacturing company that major in the production of cooking oil products globally in which its mission is to supply and sell its products to its consumers. The company’s market has been realized to have dropped in the last one year, and as a company, we have decide to undertake a decision making process that is meant to define the actual tactics to be utilized in achieving our goals.
This process is known as the marketing mix that carries four elements which include; product this is where the company’s aim will be to define the characteristics of its products that will enable the goods to meet the consumers needs; price this is the decision on how the company should price its products; promotion this is a process through which we should make our products known to our customers and lastly the place element which is the mechanism through which the goods of our company will be moved from the company to the consumers.
For our company to achieve recognition of the products through which our marketing opportunities have chances to increase, then we should be able to have our target consumers.
This is normally achieved depending on the following factors; the consumers’ desires and preferences for our products, geographical factors, location, gender and also age, these factors should be determined before we make a decision on a particular market segmentation which will later give our products a marketing opportunity. This segmentation should match differences in the buying behaviour of our customers under which we should also consider the product competition in the market by stating plans on how our company is going to overcome the competitors’ strength through which we should analyze the number of competitors, their size, location and their strengths and weaknesses in the market.
Under market segmentation, we should be able to state what the customers seek in our products whether it is the quality, price or convenience, through this we will be able to identify the needs and the benefits that our customers will gain from our products.
For the company’s marketing mix, we should have a look at the following elements applied in the marketing mix: product-we should ensure that before the product is promoted into the market, the characteristics of the products should be well defined to meet the needs of the consumers, the packaging of the product should be attractive to entice the customers to buy the product, the quality of the product should be perfect, that is it should be the quality that matches with the prescription of the product in the market so that it can maintain its consumers who are not misled with the misrepresentation of the qualities with its competitors.
Pricing-the company should decide on the following pricing methods to enable product reach its marketing standards. Premium pricing is where the uniqueness of the company product is defined. This pricing is normally high and is totally used where there is a substantial competition of the product in the market. For the company to be able to gain the market share, we should therefore apply the penetration pricing whereby, once the company achieves the market share, it increases the price of its product.
In a situation where the company’s need to promote the product in the market, then we are advised to use the promotional method of pricing in which a consumer is asked to buy a product and the purchase is accompanied by a free sample of the product.
For the company to capture our consumers, we are advised to use the captive product pricing method which is used where the product contain complements and immediately the consumer is captured, then the premium price will be charged by the company.
Under the psychological pricing method, the company will have an aim of wanting the consumer to respond to its product emotionally rather than rationally. Also price skimming may be applied in our company whereby the company will charge a high price due to a substantial competition, this high price is normally applied to bring new competitors in the market and then after they appear in the market then the price falls thus attracting the consumers to buy a product charged with a low price.
The place or the channel of distribution, this is the activities that is to be used by our company to move its product from the production to consumption. Innocent has to come across various channels of distribution to enable our products reach the targeted market. This means that we should choose either to use the direct or the indirect channels that is it may be to the consumers directly or through wholesalers.
We should consider the following in order to decide on the type of the distribution channel we are to use; we should know the market segment that the distributor is familiar with in which the distributor must be familiar with our company’s target markets. We should also know if our company policies, strategies and image match with that of the distributor, we should also check on the qualification of the distributor by establishing his experiences and deciding on how much training and support we should give the distributor.
There are various types of channels that we can decide on which one to apply in the distribution of our products, and this include: wholesalers, these are said to be buying goods in bulk from our company and selling them in smaller packages for resale by the retailers, they can also provide storage facilities for our products, wholesalers will offer our company a reduced physical contact cost between us the producers and our consumers.
The second channel that our company may use is the agents who are normally used in international markets; they may be used to widen the international market for our goods. We can also use retailers, they will have a strong personal relationship with our consumers through whom the products will be exposed to our consumers, they will be offering credits to our customers thus promoting and merchandising our products.
The other alternative is the use of the internet through which the company will have a geographically wider market thus enabling our products to reach a wider audience. This channel has a low costs set up due to its low barrier in the entry to the products market.
The other element is promotion, this is the marketing communication that should be used by our company to get our products in the market, pushing the consumers to the point of purchasing our products, we are advised to use the following methods in promoting our products:
Personal selling, this is a way of maintaining personal customer relations in which the sales person will be acting on behalf of our company, these person should be trained and should be having the personal selling techniques, though hiring them is expensive we should use them when there is a genuine return on investments.
Public relations-this should be applied in applied in our company which will lead to a sustained and a planned effort in establishing and bringing understanding between our company and our consumers.
Lastly, we can use the exhibitions to make new contacts and renewing the old contacts. This will be used to increase the awareness of our products to the consumers thus giving our company an opportunity to meet both the trade and consumers.
Advertising may also be used in creating awareness of our products to the consumers so that we may gain responses from our target markets, under this there many advertising mediums including, print (newspapers, journals and posters.) and electronic(television, internet and radio) mediums of communication which we may choose to create awareness of our products to our consumers.
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