The term"marketing mix" means the factors that a marketer can manipulate to influence the sales for their product. Some people may think that influencing demand means only increasing demand. This is a mistake because occasions may arise when a marketing person will have to act to reduce the demand for their product. When the product is scarce, for example.
Early marketing teachers presented the marketing mix as four components: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. 4Ps in short. Later thinking held that these 4Ps are good enough for physical goods only and that there was the need to enlarge the marketing mix to care of services. Thus 3 new Ps were added to the marketing mix, making 7Ps for services. The additional 3 are Physical evidence, Process and People. An attempt will be made to relate the 7Ps of marketing to your internet business .
Product
Without a doubt, product is the most important element of the marketing mix because people buy the benefits or solutions contained in the product. In your retail store, you could see, touch, smell, even taste a product or hear the sound of a product. But on the world wide web, you cannot do this. As an e-business builder, you are limited to visual and verbal techniques for presenting your product. You can only show a drawing (static or animated) and describe the features and benefits of your product. And this must be done professionally.
Facebook, which was once only known to be used for social networking and connecting with friends on the web, is starting to look like a vast online marketplace. Retailers are scrambling to market to the enormous audience that Facebook draws in daily and turn these users into paying customers. It started with the Facebook fanpages, which allowed businesses to build a presence for their brand on the social media site. They can add an unlimited number of fans on their fanpage, and many big name retailers have already successfully created a big following. Just recently Facebook has been connected to e-commerce on an even bigger scale. Many of these businesses that are already well integrated with Facebook are beginning to create their own e-commerce apps, which allows them to directly sell their products to fans through Facebook.
If you own an online business or are thinking of launching one and you have not tried Facebook marketing yet then you better get started. The first thing you must do is create a Facebook fanpage. It's fast and easy, just look for the link on their website and complete the requested information. Once that is done, it's time to really start customizing your page in a fun way that will draw people in and get them to become fans. Below is a list of features on the fanpage and how you can use it to market your business.
Wall - have fans write comments in this area, share their thoughts, help make suggestions, ask a question, etc.
Info - write a summary of your business, make it clever and remember to speak to your audience in a way that they will like
