Marketing is a major component involved in the successful running of a business. I remember listening to T. Harv Eker, a millionaire who says that you must focus most of your business time, money, energy and learning into the arena of marketing and sales. He actually says that you must devote 80% of your time, money, energy and learning into marketing. The mere fact that this was said by a millionaire tells you how important marketing is in business. That’s why in this article I’m going to be talking about the marketing matrix. Most people either don’t know it or they know it but trivialize it.
What Is The Marketing Matrix?
Simply put, this is a framework that depicts the elements whose characteristics and interdependencies you must understand in order to come up with great products as well as rolling them out successfully.
Why Is It Important?
Already we have established and highlighted that marketing is extremely important. That’s an important first step but it’s only just a tip of the iceberg. How you’ll be marketing your products or services must be clearly thought-out and that can only happen if you know the elements you must look at in that pursuit. Understanding the marketing matrix will equip you with the knowledge that’ll help you strategize empirically. You’ll end up moving away from making gambles to making deliberate and informed decisions. All that constitutes the marketing matrix will make you grasp all the pertinent details from product formulation to the market itself.
A Note Before I Breakdown The Marketing Matrix
Most people who talk about the marketing matrix dwell mostly on the 4 Ps. Those 4 Ps are product, price, place and promotion. Interestingly, you’ll find some others dwelling on the 7 P’s namely product, price, place, promotion, people, physical environment and process. If you haven’t already noticed, the 7 P’s are simply an extension of the 4 P’s – so don’t be confused by the two. So as I breakdown the marketing matrix I shall be focusing on the 7 Ps.
Elements Of The Marketing Matrix
Product
By the term ‘product’ bear in mind that it’s in reference to either goods or services. A product denotes something developed to address a particular issue or need. What makes something a product is whether or not it’s needed by the people. Thus, in the elementary stages of market research, it must be ascertained that there’s a need for it. This is important because moving on that need is what will constitute demand which will, in turn, necessitate supply and revenue gets realized through that.
Price
The price tag is one of the most key elements of a marketing matrix. Sales will be a function of how well priced a product is whereas profitability will also be a function of how well priced a product is. How well your marketing drives fare is also a function of how much your product costs. In fact, the most asked question during marketing initiatives is about the price of the product. So there’s a balance that must be struck between affordable pricing and profitable pricing. It must be symbiotic – customers and the business must both win in the end.
Place
This element has to with your business location. The most important consideration to be made in choosing location is accessibility. Accessibility to both customers and suppliers (where applicable) is indispensably important. This factor will have a huge bearing on your distribution framework. If you’re poorly located with poor accessibility more operating costs will be incurred in your endeavour to get to where the customers are.
Promotion
Here we’re talking about initiatives that’ll increase brand awareness. This brand awareness is what’ll drive sales and customer loyalty amongst other metrics. Some of the initiatives to this end are advertising and public relations. When it comes to advertising nowadays digital channels (especially the internet and social media) are now most popular due to higher reach and the possibility to effectively target your desired market. So a healthy combination must be put together to use virtual means and also physical means to promote the brand.
People
A business involves 3 main groupings namely customers, stakeholders and shareholders. As a business, it’s important that you study and understand these people. For instance, employees are central to how the business performs in terms of creating and providing value and convenience for the customers. It’s also important to constantly engage customers to get invaluable insights from them that can enhance the business. Create healthy and symbiotic working relationships with all the people linked to your business both internal and external to your business.
Process
There are so many components that make up a business. You have several operations and departments involved in the day to day running of a business. For instance, we have things like customer care management, supply chain management, financial management, human resource management and so on. All these systems must be well-knit so that there’s a seamless flow of operations. If this isn’t worked on then satisfying customer needs will be ruined and losses will be inevitable.
Physical Environment
The apex of business success is becoming a household name or brand. The physical environment here refers to how well-established your business is on the market. So there must be physical evidence on the ground showing that you’re known and are being felt. This is usually a culmination of effective widespread branding and marketing. Simply put, a business must get to a point where there’s physical evidence everywhere that the business is active and well-established. This actually creates a public perception that you’re the real deal and that ultimately lures more customers.
If you grasp and consider all these aspects you’ll definitely build a successful business. Your strategies and frameworks as a business must be informed by the marketing matrix. By using it you can always brainstorm and even troubleshoot on anything regarding your business.
