Marketing strategies serve as the fundamental underpinning of marketing plans designed to reach marketing objectives.
It is important that these objectives have measurable results. They are also influenced by a range of microenvironmental factors. Marketing strategies are dynamic and interactive. They are partially planned and partially unplanned. In our point of view Colgate management is using very good strategies regarding its product, place price & promotion.
Colgate is very good product for the protection of teeth. As teeth is important part of the human body so they need more protection.For this Colgate is very good toothpaste and its company is trying to improve its quality with the association of doctors. Where as the price of Colgate is concerned.
It is very much affordable for every consumer. Anyone can buy it from anywhere and any kind of departmental store. The strategy made for the pricing is very good. The company keeps in view the purchasing power of the customers.
Colgate is promoted on all & every kind of media. The strategy being followed by the management is to make the people aware of its product.So, Colgate-Palmolive has promoted it on TV and print media as well. The distribution of Colgate is very intensive and it uses the channels which are very quick and sale intensive. So, every one can buy it from nearest stores. Where as the of the Colgate are concerned it provides greater protection against germs.
Its one product Colgate Gel makes the teeth well look shining & white. Colgate positions its product in the eyes of customers comparing with the other competitors’ products, that it is very useful for the teeth as well as for gums.Its positioning is very strong as many customers get attracted towards it. Product: A product is a set of tangible and intangible attributes which may include packaging, color, price, quality and brand. A tangible product that the consumer feels comfortable purchasing without gathering additional information and then actually buys with a minimum of effort is termed a convenience product. A product that is use for business is called business product.
Like if a producer produces and sell products and earn money or profit , so that product is a business product for the producer.If the middleman buys a product from producer and sell it to the end customer, so that product ll’ be a business product for the middle man and vise versa . Consumer products are the products which customer buys to satisfy his/her personal needs & wants. Like the products of our daily use i. e. toothpastes, soup etc.
A lot of customer purchases the Colgate product for their own consumption to satisfy their daily personal needs. From the marketing point of view Colgate Toothpaste is an excellent business product.Whole sellers & retailers purchase the Colgate toothpastes from its manufacturer (Colgate-Palmolive) and sell it to the end customer or consumers and earn a good business from it. Price: Colgate products are easily available on the smallest and largest retail stores. The price of its products may slightly different. Narrowly, price is the amount of money charged for a product or service.
Broadly, price is the sum of all the values that consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service.Dynamic Pricing: charging different prices depending on individual customers and situations. Price is the one element of the marketing mix that produce revenue ; the other element produce cost, prices are the easiest marketing mix element to adjust ; product features, channels and even promotion take more time . price also communicating to the market the company’s intended value positioning of its product or brand.Today companies are wrestling with a number of difficult pricing tasks •How to respect to aggressive price cutters •How to price the same product when it goes through different channels •How to price the same product in different countries How to price on improved product while still selling the previous version Many companies do not handle pricing well.
They make these common mistakes; price is to cost-oriented ; price is not revised often enough to capitalize on market changes; price is set independent of the rest of the marketing mix rather than as an intrinsic element of marketing positioning strategy; and price is not varied enough for different product item ,market segmentation , distribution channels, and purchase occasions.Place: Place plays an important role in the life cycle of product so Colgate Palmolive has placed its product at •Departmental Stores •Shopping Mall •Target retailers As they have a very strong distribution channel so it uses its network to market its product. Distribution channel helps in making available product to the customers at different parts of world. Distribution: Colgate toothpastes are available at every convenience place to facilitate its customers. So, customer purchases it with a very little shopping effort.Colgate use different channel (retailers and wholesalers) to search and delivers the prospective customers.
Colgate use the distribution channel which is very efficient, effective and which is not only meets customer needs but also provide them the valuable services. It uses the different method to design a channel of distribution. First of all Colgate specify the role of its channel of distribution. It usually adopts the offensive kind of distribution which is fast enough to sell its products rapidly throughout the country.
Here Colgate keeps in mind the marketing objectives and all the marketing mix.It then specifies the role of product, price and promotion. It decides that what type of middlemen should be used either retain whole seller an agents. Colgate set the intensity of the distribution, it uses the very intensive kind of distribution, and it means that its sale volume is very large. The channel of distribution which Colgate-Palmolive is using is : Producer Agent Retailer Consumer It shows that the services of different agents which provide Colgate-Palmolive’s product line to different retails and then retailer further provide them to the ultimate consumers.In Pakistan, Colgate provide its products to agents who may or may not take the title of the products, in the big cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad where there are retailers who are running large stores, the agents provide them the products.
The (retailers) may also get directly from company outlets. But in smaller cities where the traditional retailing system, agent took the owner’s ship of products and sell them further to the traditional retailers. The reason behind is that the traditional retailers in the smaller areas usually make the payments late.But the traditional retailers can collect the payments from them after sometime because they had to pay the company.
Another reason is that they have good relation with the traditional retailers. Colgate also use multiple distribution channels to hit different target markets. For example for large retail store in the area where people are of upper class, they can acquire the products directly through the company office but for other markets it has hired the services of some agents. Colgate as it is a product which is included in the convience products.So, it has to be distributed on a large volume of scale, so that the consumers can get the products from the nearly and easily available outlets or stores.
There are large number of retailers which usually get the Colgate-Palmolive’s products directly. In these retailing departmental stores comes first. They keep breath and depth of products assortments. These stores are settled on a large scale so they play an important part in the increasing the volume of sale of Colgate-Palmolive products.
There are many factors which effect the choice of the distribution channels. These channels include the type of market, geographic location and order size. Colgate may use different channel of distribution for both business and consumer markets. Geographic location also effect the distribution channel. For example if it is a very remote location companies may chose to take the help of the agents where as in the developed market it may directly deal with the retailers.
Similarly the order size also affects the distribution channel.If the total volume of order is big it is useful for the company to directly sell to the retailers otherwise it uses agents and then retailers for the sale of product. Promotion: Promotion is one of the most important “P” of marketing mix. Promotion plays an important role in the progress of a product. Promotion in the marketing is like a tool which helps a company to let the people know about the product. The main purpose of the promotion is to Create Awareness, Persuasion, Education, Information, Emotion, Brand Loyalty, Understanding, etc.
Colgate-Palmolive informs its customers about its new products as well as the product that is being used by the customers. Colgate-Palmolive persuades and convinces its new as well as old customers to purchase its new product. Adopting a good promotional strategy Colgate has succeeded to retain its customers and image. By this Colgate strongly focuses on different promotional strategies i. e.
mass selling, advertising, publicity and sale promotion etc. Colgate-Palmolive has proved itself as a keen observer of the market and the culture all around itself.Colgate has done in the past and still doing at the moment. It is producing & introducing the products specially for the kids. Colgate is very popular among young kids just because of its perfect promotion.
Colgate-Palmolive is promoting kids products by labeling the cartoon Characters like Looney tunes, Barbie, Barney and many more which are being loved by the children. It also educating Children by slogan “Stronger say bhe Strong, Mera Colgate” Colgate-Palmolive has list of products for the children like: Oral health for children. Toothpastes. Toothbrushes. Great Flavor.
Games,Track for Brushing. Through the strong promotion by the media i. e. TV, radio, newspaper etc. It is rightly successful to capture the mass market. So, we can say that the Colgate is the product of mass selling.
Colgate is not only using the traditional advertising media for its Promotion. However it is also using the electronic advertising media i. e. internet etc.
Because a large number of people are using the internet. So, Colgate also advertises on the different websites with its required information for its customers and has a specific website to promote each Colgate product.Colgate also promotes its product by sales Promotion to attract its customers to use the product. Some times, Colgate introduces the product at low prices according to the quantity and to facilitate its customer. Which effect positively on the Colgate’s end customer or consumer. Colgate’s positive Promotion effect on the product as well as company.
Which helps a lot to establish the product image as well as company image in the minds of customers. By using the idea of AIDA and IMC, Colgate’s promotional activity not only became strong but also helps to convincing the customers to adopt the product for using.So, we can say that the Colgate’s proper promotion makes new room in the market for establishment. Conclusion: Marketing mix analysis is a fundamental step towards effective strategy. Where other analysis are more related to environment and feasibility analysis, the 4 Ps of marketing including the product itself, pricing, placement and promotion are the four wheels of the vehicle on which the path of an organisation's marketing success is actually dependent.
