Post #2: The Marketing Mix

Hello again,

I hope you enjoyed the week. The marketing concept that I want to give a self-oriented twist this time is the marketing mix, which most marketers know as "The 4 P's". The P's are Product, Promotion, Place and Price. Companies use this mix of tools to produce the response it wants in the target market. So, before I explain the 4 P's, my first question is, "What response do you want in the target market?" Personally, I want my research (a product in some sense) to be found interesting in the academic community. After that, I want graduate admissions offices to respond by admitting me - but the academic community is my first target market, and my first priority (patience, Tim, patience). At any rate, I hope you have a target market in mind before reading the next section.

Product

The goods and services combination the company offers to the target market.

What are you trying to sell? What do you have to offer?

You really need to know what you have to offer - maybe even before you know what your target market is. You need to know it from front to back, side to side, from every angle or perspective you can think of. For the people that you talk to about your product (or service, or idea, or talent), you will be remembered by what you say - so get it right the first time!

Promotion

The activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade target customers to buy it.

How can you best promote your product, service, or self? 

This is a very essential step because no one wants to waste time. Particularly in promoting yourself, I think of steps like using social media, dressing well, and being prepared for small talk (elevator pitch). I employed all three of those last week. I posted links to this blog on Facebook and LinkedIn, I dressed professionally (I think I wore a tie three times), and I shared my research project during small talk with around half a dozen people. These are small steps, but they add up. Through my interactions, I've been asked to present my research at Board of Trustees meeting! What approach do you think is best for you?

Place

The activities that make the product available to target consumers.

Where do you want to be known? What groups and audiences do you think need you? How can you best make yourself available to put your promotion strategies in place?

Social media is an answer for this, but I don't think it is a very good one. If you have something that a certain community, field, or company needs, you must make yourself available in person, too. Attend meetings, join groups, subscribe to newsletters, do research - something that will show your interest to your target consumers (potential employers, graduate schools, etc.). For instance, if I want to go to a particular graduate school, I can't just take a tour. I need to research it, contact potential faculty mentors, and ideally make some connections before I apply. This is perhaps the most difficult step because you must have confidence in what you offer in order to feel confident in making yourself available to promote it.

Price

The amount of money customers must pay to obtain the product.

I think the question here is, "What compensation do you deserve for your product, service, or what you have to offer?"

I almost left price out because it isn't a top concern at this point for me, but it is one of the 4 P's, so I kept it in. The compensation could be monetary, it could be recognition, it could even be financial aid. Focus on the first three P's and then we'll worry about it later.

I think that applying the marketing mix to personal branding is a good way to approach the way you market yourself. I hope that you will think about what you have to offer, where you can promote it, who you can promote it to, and how you can promote it. I'll be back in a week.

Truly,

Tim

Post #1: Welcome

Welcome,

My name is Timothy (Tim) Nagy, a junior at Saint Michael's College, and this blog is going to track my journey through BU 215, a course in Marketing. I'll make sure to add more about me throughout my posts, and here's a link to my LinkedIn account if you really need to know more now, but I want to jump right in and tell you what I hope to communicate throughout this blog. My main mission is to tell you "How and Why to Capture Value," and hence the title. However, before I can do that, I'm going to engage in the process of critical reflection so that I can show you the concepts that I encounter in class, assess their validity based on 'real-life' experiences, and then identify how they have altered my perspective on marketing. My perspective has already changed after one week, so I am excited to keep changing and hopefully start changing your perspective as well.

The first change that I have had regards my view of myself. After reading BrandingPays: The Five Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand, by Karen Kang, assigned over winter break, I began to think of myself as a product of sorts, complete with many different features, a certain style, and, most importantly, something to offer. The BrandingPays system is a way of marketing oneself, and that system has already helped me one week into the semester.

As I continue though this course, this new view is going to be with me the whole time because, as I plan to pursue graduate school, I will be focused on marketing myself and not products or services. One term that we have already come across in class is target market. I will simply define it as the groups or regions of people that will benefit most from your product, service, or, of course, your self. One 'real-life' experience that I can think of is Subaru. While they have dealerships across the United States, Subaru's target market is clearly New England because, due to the driving conditions, particularly in the winter months, their cars meet the area's needs. If they tried to sell their cars in Texas, it probably would not go so well. Therefore, it is important to identify who you should market to. In my case, the target market is the graduate schools that will benefit most from me. So, I will need to identify programs, potential faculty mentors, and degree offerings. What is your target market? As always, that can be for your product, service, or self.

One more term I want to add is marketing itself. Marketing is defined as the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return. And so, traditionally, capturing value from customers is really the main objective of marketing. Capturing value from customers is getting to the point where customers become loyal to a certain product or service, and they begin to market the product for you through their loyalty in their everyday interactions. Essentially, when you have captured value, your products and services begin selling themselves. There are fourteen more weeks for me to figure out how to master this art, but for now I think the 'why' is clear. The next post will be in roughly a week. In the meantime, I hope you can identify what you have to offer and who you think needs it most, then we'll keep plugging away at the 'how'. Enjoy the week. -Tim