How A Change Of Product Mix Could Transform Your Marketing Strategy

Product mix is one of the strategic tools that constitute the 4P’s in the Marketing mix.

Once you have chosen a target market, you must try to attract customers to your target market, and you will achieve this by adopting a right marketing mix, which will appeal to customers in your chosen target market.

This brief introduces to you the four main ingredients of the product mix, one or all of which may be the best fit for your marketing strategy .
These are:

• Range


• Quality


• Brand


• Packaging

Range

This may be wide or narrow depending on how you perceive the requirements of your customers, and how many market segments the company wishes to target.

Many car companies will offer a wide range of cars in their products in order to target different market segments.

e.g Mercedes C180: the target market is the “would be” Mercedes owner who wants a Mercedes but is on a lower income and can only just afford the cheapest model.

e.g Mercedes 500 SL :- the target market is the higher income type customer who is looking for style and can afford to pay.

Quality

Although most customers would request high quality products if asked, the actual quality of the product may be high or low depending on the income levels in your target market, the nature of competition and how much your customer is prepared to pay.

If you are selling high quality products such as a the Rolex watch, your may target the high-income customer who can afford to pay a premium for superior product quality.

Brand

Branding is a way of giving identification to your company and its goods and services.

Branding is actually a very general term covering brand names, designs and trademarks, which you may use to distinguish one product mix from another.

The benefits of having a strong product brand are as follows:

• It allows your company to charge a premium price for the product.


• They promote customer loyalty and are associated with a particular image.


• Branding may lead to ready acceptance by wholesalers and retailers.


• It gives you an opportunity to include other in the brand range which “piggy back” on the articles already known to the customer on the back of existing brands.


• Your company may also introduce new flavors, shapes and sizes for its branded goods. Eg Mars bars. This is known as brand extension.

Packaging

Packaging is used at a basic level to safeguard the product mix as follows:

• The design color of contents of the packaging can attract potential buyers.


• It reinforces the brand image and point of sale attention of the buyer.


• It may create a competitive advantage for your product by having its packaging in a unique shape


• Packaging should be as small in space as possible to save on warehouse and retail space, as well as distribution costs.


• The packaging can also promote an environmentally friendly image by being reusable or by being made of recycled paper.

After sales service:
This will include guarantees, warrantees, and after sales service.

Return from product mix to marketing strategy.