No matter what kind of business you have, you need a marketing plan to promote it. Organizations today are competing with each other and coming up with different strategies to distinguish themselves in the market.

One of the various strategies includes creating the right marketing mix for services. For those who don’t know, service marketing is different from product marketing. While the latter involves tangible goods that can be seen, smelt, or felt by the customers, service marketing relies heavily on the process and performance to deduce results.

To understand this aspect of marketing better, let’s first see what a service marketing mix is, and what are its elements?

What Is A Service Marketing Mix?

Also known as an extended marketing mix, this marketing mix is the foundation of a business’s blueprint design. It consists of 7 P’s – with more elements added to the traditional 4 P’s of the product marketing mix ( product, pricing, promotions, and placement). The 3 extra P’s are people, process and physical evidence. These are planned additions required for the optimum delivery of services.

With the combination of these different elements, companies communicate their organizational goals and branding messages to the customers. In this case, companies treat their services like products. The four main P’s help market the products as services, while the rest three P’s are used for effective service delivery and to enhance customer satisfaction.

The Main 4 P’s Of Marketing Mix

1. Product
   The main element of any marketing mix is the product. Here, the product can be referred to as anything that the company is selling. This includes features and benefits that customers enjoy on buying goods or services. The services differ from products in terms that they are intangible and cannot be measured. However, they can be tailored to suit the users’ requirements and render services with a personal touch.
2. Place
   The placing of your product can make or break your business. Ideally, your product should be available in a place where the target customers can easily access it. This can be a popular street, a mail order, or as the current market trends go – an e-commerce platform. It is your responsibility to understand your customers’ situation and ensure that your set up is visible to potential customers. For example, attracting more customers by redesigning your retail space.
3. Price
   An excellent product or service is one that represents good value for money. However, this does not mean that it has to be the cheapest in the lot. Most marketing experts will agree that customers are usually willing to pay more for a product they really like. To decide on the right pricing, you will have to identify how much your customers are willing to pay, the mark-up you will need to handle the overheads, the profit margins, and the methods of payment. You can also gain a competitive advantage with discounts and seasonal pricing.
4. Promotion
   There are various tools and techniques you can use to promote your product. This includes advertising, sales promotions, PR, social media, and personal selling. With the help of these tools, you can easily put your branding message across to the right audience, and in a way that they would like to hear (be it through delivering the information or appealing to their emotions).

The Extended P’s Of Marketing Mix

1. People
   A successful business stands firm not only because of the vision and principles of the company but also due to its employees and their dedication. The staff working for you are the people responsible for creating happy and returning customers since they are the ones who ensure the quality of your services. Recruiting the right people and training them to develop their skills is a great way to deliver excellent customer service, which in turn creates a positive experience for your customers.
2. Processes
   How efficiently you deliver a service can directly impact how much your customer is impressed by it. For ensuring the right process for your business, you need to ask a few questions – What kind of process do I want for my business? Should it be a technique that is reliable and easy to monitor? Or should I opt for a method that is sluggish but goes through several layers of hierarchy? By creating a process of marketing mixes, you can stay afloat in the race to deliver the highest quality services.
3. Physical Evidence
   Most services include physical elements even if the bulk of what customers are buying is intangible. An example of this is a hair salon that offers a complete hairstyle service or an insurance company that provides printed assurances to customers. Here, the material (insurance) is not physically available but is still received as a physical product (papers of the insurance policy).

Whether you are looking for professional marketing services or require more information on marketing mix strategies, our experts at Adaan Digital Solutions will help you. We have years of experience under our belts and help many companies market their services efficiently. Call us today!