The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market. McCarthy classified these tools into four broad groups that he called the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. (Kotler. P, 2003)
The marketing mix of product, price, promotion and place for ‘soap soccer’ are as described below:
Product
The product mix of a company, which is generally defined as the total composite of products offered by a particular organization, consists of both product lines and individual products. (Product mix, Encyclopedia of Business and Finance)
Our product consists of offering of a soccer playing facility to the young people in a soapy environment where the playing of the game will be a challenging affair.
Price
The pricing of a particular product depends on a number of factors such as the demand for the product (higher the demand, higher the price and vice versa), the positioning of the product (weather the product is positioned as a premium brand or an economy brand), the price at which the competitor is offering the same product etc… The pricing strategies should be in line with the pricing objective.
Our main aim is to make Soap soccer popular among the young people and to make a large number of young people to make use of our product. In order to attain this objective, we’ll have to price the product at a low price so that younger population who tend to have a lower disposable income could afford to avail our gaming facilities at ‘soap soccer’. More over the marginal cost of allowing one extra person to play in soap soccer will be very less and by pricing our product low, more number of people will be making use of our facilities thus we’ll have a higher revenue.
Promotion
Specific combination of promotional methods such as print or broadcast advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, point of sale display, merchandising, etc…, used for one product or a family of products.
Promotion of a product or a service could be done through various means such as advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, public relations etc… While promoting, either pull strategy where the customer is pulled to the product or a push strategy where the product is pushed to the customer can be used.
To promote our product, pull strategy is to be used and this promotional campaign should be in line with the Government’s health campaign initiative. The product should be promoted for the kind of health benefits that it offers.
The Government’s health campaign makes the youngster more health conscious and our health campaign will attract those health conscious people. Promotional campaigns could be run on collage/ university news papers, hoardings near the colleges/universities. Sports events in the colleges could be sponsored by soap soccer to gain millage through good public relations.
Place (distribution)
Place refers to the means by which your customer acquires your product. This includes the actual place it is purchased (the shop, the telephone, the web page, the warehouse) as well as the actual route of distribution. (Marketing Mix – Place)
Soap soccer should be located in such a place which is easily accessible to the youngsters. It will thus be located near to colleges and schools so that students can have easy access to soap soccer. It can be located near public parks or public play grounds where people come to play. This not only gives accessibility to the place but also increases the number of visitors to the center.
References
- Kotler P, (2003). Defining marketing for the twenty-first century, Marketing Management (P 15). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
- Marketing Mix – Place. Retrived May 16, 2009, from http://www.consultancymarketing.co.uk/place.htm#.WPChG_mGPIU
- Product mix. (n.d.) In Encyclopedia of Business and Finance.
- Promotion mix, (n.d.) In BusinessDictionary.com.