The meaning of marketing mix strategy
The marketing strategy of an enterprise is the combination and application of various controllable factors related to the realization of marketing goals. There are many factors that affect the realization of the marketing goals of an enterprise, including product design and manufacturing, product packaging, brand selection, price formulation and adjustment, intermediary selection, product storage and transportation, advertising, personal sales, business promotion, public relations, etc. These marketing activities can be carried out separately, but they will inevitably affect each other.
Therefore, many enterprises have realized in marketing practice that the various marketing strategies of the enterprise must be organically combined around a unified marketing goal in order to make marketing activities successful and reduce marketing costs.
In 1960, American marketing expert Jerome McCarthy attributed various factors to a combination of four main aspects, namely product, price, place and promotion. As a result, the marketing strategy of the enterprise has formed four different types of combination strategies around these four aspects.
The development of marketing mix strategy
After the 1990s, with the development of the new economy, the dominant position of consumers in marketing has been increasingly established, and some people have proposed a marketing mix theory oriented towards customer satisfaction. For example, Schultz, a famous American scholar, proposed the “4C” theory, namely: Customer, Cos, Convenience, and Communication. Among them, “customer” refers to the needs and expectations of customers, “cost” refers to the price paid by customers to obtain satisfaction, “convenience” refers to the saving of customers’ time and energy, and “communication” refers to the exchange of information and emotions between customers and companies. Some people even believe that in the marketing activities of the new era, “4C” should replace “4P”. However, many scholars still believe that the proposal of “4C” only further clarifies the basic premise and guiding ideology of the company’s marketing strategy. From the operational level, it must still be operated through marketing activities represented by “4P”. Therefore, “4C” only deepens “4P”, rather than replacing “4P”. “4P’s” is still the most concise and clear interpretation of the marketing strategy combination so far.