Marketing Mix Case Study

What is the Marking Mix?

The recipe for effective marketing: The 4 P's (price, product, place, promotion)
Decisions about these are based on the result of Market Research.

Product

Marketing is about providing the correct bundle of benefits to the audience.
'Anything is capable of satisfying customers needs'

Price

Cost Plus Pricing

This is the simplest pricing strategy and is aimed at ensuring the business covers its costs and makes and acceptable profit; covering your costs and adding on the make of a product.
E.G. Water.

Competitive Pricing

Where the amount of competition in the market is so strong so customers have a wide range of suppliers to buy from so business match the competition or make their prices better.
E.G. Supermarkets.

Penetration Pricing

The products price is set significantly lower than any competitors prices, usually to capture a larger share of the market. The price is usually raised later.
E.G. Primark.

Price Skimming

A new product that is likely to generate a high volume of intake sales and a high price may be charged in order to maximise profits.
E.G. Apple Products.

Destroyer Pricing 

A destroyer pricer involves setting a price so low that competitors cannot match it. The price can then be raised without threat of competition.
E.G. Sky TV

What is the importance of the Marketing Mix?

To meet customers' needs a business must develop proper market mix for them. These entails products to satisfy them, charge the right price get the goods to the right place, and it must make the existence of the product known through promotion.

Our Chosen Product: Topshop

Product

Topshop is a high street fashion retailer that specialises in fashion clothing, shoes, make-up and accessories. Their target audience is young, fashion conscious women, it meets this target market by taking inspiration from the catwalks and fashion weeks to keep with the latest trends. 

Topshop's main USP is to offer a wide range of fashionable, young and trendy clothing at affordable prices. If you walk in to any Topshop store you can see straight away who they market their products at.

Another USP is their ranges for example the Kate Moss Topshop range; launched in 2007, this was highly successful as everyone knows Kate Moss as being high up in the fashion world.

Price

The pricing strategy Topshop use is Price Skimming; where the product is likely to generate a high volume of initial sales because of their high quality of clothes, shoes and accessories etc. The price will then be reduced when the initial high demand has subsided. People are going to pay regardless because of the name and quality. 

These Topshop jeans are £60.                                                            These New Look Jeans are £22.99

Place

Topshop is a high street store with over 300 stores across the UK, so customers are always going to find a store near them; this is an advantage. 

Promotional

Topshop use high end promotional methods such as creating different lines such as Tall and Petite they also have celebrities or designers create lines that people will buy into because of the name or the brand for example Kate Moss created a line for Topshop in 2007 that has become a worldwide collection.