When it comes to deciding what should belong in your marketing mix, there are some key ingredients to consider.
Anyone who has ever turned their hand to cooking a new dish knows that for it to turn out just as you hoped, you have to include a whole heap of different ingredients, in the right measurements, added at the correct time.
Your marketing mix is much like cooking the perfect dish – it needs to have the right ingredients and correct timings for it to be effective.
There’s a wide range of ingredients that go into creating the perfect marketing mix, all with specific roles, that come together to achieve your marketing outcomes.
An effective marketing mix can include social media, paid search adverting, billboards, newspaper ads, TV or radio, to name a few.
So, how do you decide what to include in your marketing mix? Here’s what’s essential to consider.
Define your audience first
Marketing activity is always targeted at people, and before you start thinking about how you market to them you need to know who they actually are and where they are.
Say, for example, your business designs and manufactures funky activewear. Your potential customers are probably young women and mothers, who respond to aspirational imagery and are active on social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok.
This is important to know because straight off the bat you can make informed decisions about where (probably not a ‘golden oldies’ radio station) and how (probably beautiful pictures and videos) to market to them.
Not really clear about who your target audience is? Find some tips in this article.
Determine your marketing goals
The next step in creating your marketing mix is to define what it is you hope to achieve.
It could be to increase sales, sell tickets to an event, or align your brand with a particular social cause. Every piece of your marketing mix should be chosen with your marketing goals front of mind.
The most effective marketing mix is one that has specificity attached to its goals. Instead of ‘increase ticket sales’ it should be ‘sell 200 tickets by the end of August’; instead of ‘be seen as environmentally conscious’, it should be ‘have 10 sustainability influencers share our Instagram posts’.
The more specific your goals, almost known as SMART goals, the better data you’ll get about what is working and what is less successful, which will inform future marketing campaigns.
Set a marketing budget
Sure, five TV advertisements during the most popular breakfast show would be great, but for most small businesses, that’s not realistic.
Knowing how much you have to spend will help you determine what goes into your marketing mix. Striking the wrong balance with your marketing budget can lead to an under-resourced marketing strategy that fails to deliver actual business growth, or overspending on a plan that wastes money that could have been better spent elsewhere.
Importantly, it prevents the common eggs-in-one-basket scenario, where you spend all your cash on a big-ticket item, when you may have had more success with a marketing mix that features a less expensive big-ticket item, along with a suite of lower cost options.
Review your marketing mix options
To get the most firepower out of your marketing strategy, you’ll need to employ a mix of marketing activities to build your message and reach as broad a range of customers as possible.
Digital marketing is a great way to reach a large audience at a very low cost, and includes things like social media, website articles, email marketing, search engine advertising, and paid social media advertising.
Each platform and asset plays a different role, which needs to be considered in a marketing strategy. Social media paid advertising, for example, is a great way to let people know what you offer and generate leads, while email marketing is perfect for encouraging casual customers to repurchase, via special deals and promotions.
Businesses are also discovering that traditional marketing also plays a role an effective marketing mix. Printed advertising such as letterbox flyers and outdoor posters, for example, are great for reaching customers in a local area, or for bolstering your digital marketing efforts.
Television and radio ads also remain popular, due to their broad appeal and ability to really elevate brands.
Focus on brand loyalty
There’s a finite number of people in the world and a finite number of those people who will become your customer – that’s why, with every piece of your marketing mix, you need to focus on your relationship with your customers, ensuring they return to your business time and time again.
Loyalty is important in marketing because it can save you time and make money. Repeat customers are those who don’t need to be generated and converted.
Loyal customers also don’t need to be educated about your brand or your products because they’ve already tried them; and they don’t need to have trust created, because it’s already there
A marketing mix created especially for your business
A marketing mix that yields the maximum number of leads, has the highest conversion rates, and creates loyal, repeat customers isn’t just about choosing marketing tactics – it’s about messaging, timings, and bringing all the pieces of the strategic puzzle together.
There can be a lot of moving parts that need to work together for a truly effective marketing campaign to take off.
Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne that can create the perfect marketing mix for your business.
To find out how we can help, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or send us a note via the contact form below.