Price, product, placement, and promotion all represent pieces of the marketing mix that can be adjusted to create an increase in sales volume. To increase the quantity of sales, however, expenses must be incurred in one of these areas to make the product or service more desirable to customers. The goal of marketing is to determine the mix of expenditures which will yield more profit through quantity than they cost to implement.
My organization is a social-welfare department of a church. Since the greatest impediment to people receiving services is not the availability of help but access to the means by which it is provided, our efforts focus on the placement of services to the greatest number of people while staying within our budget.
New products generally require more promotion to make customers aware of their need or want for a product and of the availability of the product or service to meet that need. With established products price and placement help convince users to use the product that they already like more often.
Our organization uses both parish surveys and government census data to determine what types of people in our community most need social services. We then can design our products, which we refer to as programs, to meet the needs of our parishioners and neighbors. We also follow up on referrals and take advice from our parishioners, when possible.
The internet is excellent for examining the work of other social welfare groups in our area and well as speeding up applications for aid and government programs. It also helps us to communicate with homebound or isolated people who are not comfortable speaking on the phone. However, in our business, it is critical to keep traditional lines open so that our customers are not intimidated by technology with which they are not yet comfortable.
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