In our video on Marketing Mix, the first of the 4 Ps was Product.
Product is the goods and services that you offer to your target customers. It needs to solve a problem, scratch an itch, or create desire in your customers.
So, this element of the marketing mix is about addressing what your customer needs, prefers, and desires… whether they know it consciously, or not.


Watching this video is worth 2 Management Courses CPD Points*.
See below for details

Marketing for Managers
This video is part of course module number 8.3.3
Program 8: Managing Customers & Clients
Course 3: Marketing for Managers
Section 2: Marketing Mix

Other videos in this section include:
What is the Marketing Mix - The 4Ps? https://youtu.be/gsp72V0W8Uw
Marketing Mix: Price and Pricing Strategy https://youtu.be/0U9NhG4I0uw
Marketing Mix: Place https://youtu.be/DVaYT7zU7rE
Marketing Mix: What is Promotion? https://youtu.be/n552xtFOV2Q
Marketing Mix: What is Positioning? https://youtu.be/4_wIDOKJS2Q
What is the Marketing Channel Mix? https://youtu.be/pH6Zjrd3IB4
What is Public Relations (PR)? https://youtu.be/2Nc2gDAaxzY
Guy Kawasaki: What is Enchantment? https://youtu.be/8exdRE6gp8k
Seth Godin: What are Tribes? https://youtu.be/INKI-FRUNcA

LESSON NOTES
Differentiators among products are between:
• Consumer (or Retail) Products
• Business (or Trade, B2B) Products
and:
• Physical goods
• Services

Within each of these, there are many variations and categories.

Important parts of the Product component of the Marketing Mix are:
• New Product Development (NPD) [https://youtu.be/uKGFP2qxKm0]
• Design ethic and detailing
• Product Management [https://youtu.be/XIwfHnW3kQI]
• Product support
• The way you will package and sell the product

Important roles in Product Marketing are to:
1. Define customer needs or problems that the product should address, and therefore craft the messages that communicate your product’s benefits to the target market
2. Identify which market segments you will target in promoting your product.
3. Create customer personas that describe the personality, behavior, and desires of buyer types. These will feed into your promotional and advertising materials.
4. Carry out a competitive analysis to understand the range of offerings in the market. This helps determine which marketing pricing, promotion, and placing will work best to differentiate and sell your product.


RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
1. Think about a product or service your organization produces and markets. What customer needs or problems does it address? If your organization doesn't produce a product or service, then pick one you are familiar with either through your work or domestic life. (2 MC CPD Points)
2. What market segments is it targetted at? (2 MC CPD Points)
3. Who are the typical customers and what are their interests? (2 MC CPD Points)
4. What products does it compete with and how is it differentiated from them? (2 MC CPD Points)

DOWNLOADS
Free Resources
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Paid resources
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RECOMMENDED READING
Very quick overview
Marketing: A Very Short Introduction https://geni.us/ozSJF
Good general overviews
Kotler on Marketing https://geni.us/JNeVHy
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind https://geni.us/kGj4KCA
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing https://geni.us/RVU1
Marketing For Dummies https://geni.us/sZXAw
Small business marketing
The 1-Page Marketing Plan https://geni.us/Xb4wBk
For a textbook, you can’t go wrong with Kotler’s name on it!
Marketing: An Introduction https://geni.us/q4gzVOw
Principles of Marketing https://geni.us/gsFeMT5
Marketing Management https://geni.us/i3FO

⭕️ Links to our book recommendations are affiliated through Amazon

Managers Need a Basic set of kit to do your job well. Here are my top recommendations: https://kit.co/MikeClayton/manager-s-work-kit (the links are affiliated)

MANAGEMENT COURSES CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) POINTS
You can record your Management Courses CPD points on our free, downloadable CPD record log.
Download it at: https://gum.co/MC-CPD
Each video has two levels of MC CPD points. For this video:
- If you simply watched the video, record 2 MC CPD points
- If you also carried out all of the recommended exercises, score a total of 10 MC CPD points

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