The Marketing Mix

Rhiannon Fleming

Foundations of Marketing Assessment

B00302344

What is the Marketing Mix?

"A company needs to consider the Marketing Mix in order to meet their consumers' needs effectively" - BBC Bitesize, Business Studies.

The Marketing Mix is the most tactical part of marketing, which includes various different factors usually referred to as "P's". Generally, the Marketing Mix consists of the 4 P's:

• Product: The goods and/or services that an organisation offers
• Price: How much customers pay
• Place: Where the product/service is made available for customers
• Promotion: The way customers are informed about the product

However, the Marketing Mix can be further expanded by adding features such as People, Physical Evidence and Process. Ultimately making the Marketing Mix a concept of 7 P's.

• People: The people who deliver the product or service
• Physical Evidence: How an organisation product/service is perceived
• Process: How the service is delivered.

For every business establishment, the 7 P's are integrated and can be broken down to be looked at thoroughly. Throughout this blog, I will look at numerous Cosmetic Companies and evaluate how they use each stage of the Marketing Mix, highlighting how they do it and how successful it is for them.

Price

According to The Marketing Mix website (accessed 2016), Price is considered the most important factor, this is because it is what produces turnover and allows organisations to make their profit. It is also a very important factor for many customers, especially in the beauty industry. It is considered that companies that charge a higher price for their products, offer better quality and more recognisable things. However, for a lot of makeup lovers, this could be a problem - this is because leading high end brands such as MAC, Urban Decay, Estee Lauder, and so on, are favoured in the world of beauty but charge a lot more than high street makeup, so ultimately urge older people and influence people of a higher class to buy, due to having more disposable income.

For example, lipsticks from MAC are charged, starting from £16, however a lipstick from one of the most popular high street brand "Maybelline", lipsticks start from  around £7. The prices from high street brands such as Maybelline, Rimmel and L'Oreal are more suited for the younger generation as the prices cater a lot of school, college/university and part time workers. The dramatic price difference in these cosmetic companies can be seen when looking at MAC's official site, and when looking at High Street stores such as Boots.

It is said by many beauty guru's that the quality of many high street makeup brands is catching up with the higher end products, the only difference is the price. This then is leading to a more popular demand for high street makeup, with more "duplicates" of certain products being made and sold at high street prices. There are many YouTubers, Bloggers and other makeup enthusiasts promoting this, urging more people to buy the cheaper products as it has become aware that the need to spend more is not needed to get what you want. As we can see, from the above photo, the makeup done on the right is created with high street products only (including brands such as L'Oreal, Rimmel, Soap & Glory, Kiko and many more), totaling at £144.45. This in comparison to the left hand side, when products like MAC, Bobbi Brown, NARS, Anastasia Beverly Hills and more were used - the total price came in at a whopping price of £342.48! This means that a total of £198.03 was saved, to create the exact same look.