A01- Demonstrate how the four elements of the marketing mix influence decisions about a product is marketed

The marketing mix is how a business markets its products or services. The marketing mix is made up of four elements they are; product, price, place and promotion. These four elements are also known as ‘the four P’s’. When a business is marketing its products or services it needs to take each of these four elements into consideration in order for the marketing to be successful.

Product

The product or service in which the business has produced will determine the type of marketing they will use. It may be a physical product such as a car or chocolate bar or it can be a service such as insurance policies. The business needs to have a very good idea on what their product or service means to their customers for example a person who purchases a car they have bought it for transport purposes but if someone buys a Porsche this sends messages about the status of the buyer of the car. In order for marketing to be effective the business needs to look at every single aspect of the product or service and how it benefits the customers and consumers. The business must make sure they meet the needs of the customers so they would use market research to find out information from the public about what type of products and services they would like to be available to them so the business can use this information to their advantage and produce a product or service that there is a demand for in the market. Businesses can take out new products or use a product that is already available and change certain things about it such as the packaging or name so it can attract customers to keep buying the product.

Products can come in a variety of different ways such as convenience goods, these are products that a customer isn’t going to put much effort into looking at the different products available and choose one for convenience. Convenience products should be made readily available to customers and the product brand should be well known so customers know what to expect from the product. Another type of product is shopping goods, this is very different to convenience goods as the consumer will put a lot more effort into what product they choose, for example, if someone is buying a new car they aren’t going to buy the first car they see they will look about for the best deal they can get and what car best suits what they are looking for. Specialty goods are products that will only suit certain types o people for example industrial tools will only be beneficial to people who work in industrial sites etc.

Pricing

In some products the price can be a very important factor but for some products the price won’t have any impact on whether people buy the product or not. An example of price having an affect on the product or service is easy Jet, their motto is to offer their customers cheap, ‘no frills’ service this would be useful to customers who are only flying a short distance but if the customer was going on a long distance flight they are more worried about the actual journey and will they be comfortable so the price wont affect their decision as much as the comfort of the flight. The product image and the brand name is more important than the price of the product in most cases because research has shown that consumers very rarely buy the cheapest product available.

There are different pricing strategies that can help a business decide on the price of their product, they are; cost plus pricing, penetration pricing, skimming, psychological pricing, price discrimination, premium pricing. A business must also take consideration when determining their price if they are going to have discount on the product, the prices that other competitors charge for the products, how much it cost it the business to produce the finished product, what position is the business in the market compared to other competitors, how much of a