Bath and Body Works' recent redesign of marketing mix strategy

Bath and Body Works

Marketing Mix Analysis

The concept of the marketing mix includes the factors price, product, promotion, and place. Generally, understanding where the company is positioned in regards to these factors will serve as the basis for a comprehensive marketing strategy. This analysis provides a brief introduction to the marketing mix concept and then uses The Bath and Body Works to illustrate the marketing mix of a specific company. The Bath and Body company has actually just recently redesigned its marketing mix to better match the external environment and as a result has seen tremendous success. The changes they made included changes in the product mix and the promotional strategy and these changes have already proven to drive more revenue for the company.

Marketing Mix Overview

Most organizations develop their marketing strategy and marketing program on what is referred to as the marketing mix. The concept of the marketing mix includes the factors price, product, promotion, and place. Generally, understanding where the company is positioned in regards to these factors will serve as the basis for a comprehensive marketing strategy. The marketing mix is frequently used as the foundation for a marketing strategy because it allows marketing managers to promote their products or services in relationship to the external environments and it also serves as a useful framework for decision-making (Manktelow, N.d.).

The marketing mix is directed towards the consumer and the consumer is the recipient of all marketing efforts. There are many possible ways to understand and satisfy different needs and desires of a target market. The needs and desires of the consumer can be thought of in terms of the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. The Product is concerned with developing the right "product" for the target market. The needs of the consumer are in constant flux and evolve with changing conditions. Consumers may demand one thing one day and another the next day. Much of these demands are dependent with changes in the external environment.

Place is concerned with all the decisions involved in getting the "right" product to the target market in the right place. This could include selling it through traditional brick and motor stores, online, through direct mail, and many other "places." A product cannot satisfy a consumer's demand if the consumer does not have access to the product. The third P. In the marketing mix is referred to as Promotion and considers how to best introduce the product to consumers to the product. Examples of this could be television commercials, print advertisement, online advertisement, or even traditional word of mouth advertisement. Promotion primarily focuses on acquiring new customers; however it can also work on customer retention as well.

The last and one of the most important aspects to the marketing mix is the products price. Price setting must consider the competitive landscape that the target market has to choose from as well as all of the other variables in the marketing mix. Not only must the product satisfy the consumers demand but it also has to be priced in a way that the value that the consumer perceives outweighs the costs of the product they intend to purchase. That is, the consumer must get an equal or greater value from the product than they are purchasing otherwise they would not make the purchase.

Product -- the good or service that the company intends to produce.

Price - The price is the amount of money that is charged for a good or service

Place -- Where the product is going to be sold and how the distribution channels are established.

Promotion - Promotion is the act communicating information about the product to potential consumers.

Each of the 4 Ps in the marketing mix must be coordinated to have the most effect. When the Ps are working in harmony then this can produce an effective marketing mix to base an overall marketing strategy upon. Therefore the marketing mix is also directly related to identifying the target market. In many cases selecting a target market and developing a marketing mix are interrelated and can be developed simultaneously. When the comprehensive marketing strategy is based off of complimentary marketing decisions then the marketing message will be the most effective.

Place

The network of 1,600 retail locations are spread throughout the country and generally located in shopping malls. There also have an extensive ecommerce operation that can ship products directly to most of North America.

Price

The Bath and Body Works sells their products at a slight market premium. They position themselves higher than similar products that can be found at big box stores. However, their products are also less expensive than other specialty retailers.

Promotion

The company relied primarily on word of mouth advertising to drive sales in the initial development. However, over the course of the last few years the company has introduced more promotional channels including television advertising.

Marketing Mix Discussion

The Bath and Body Works marketing mix has just recently changed. The company has added additional products to expand their product lineup. They changed their focus from providing bath and shower gels to a product mix that is more geared towards health and wellness. Furthermore the company has also introduced many new promotional activities to further engage a wider target market. They have also introduced many lower priced items that will appeal to more price sensitive shoppers. Furthermore, all of these changes in the marketing mix have proven to be beneficial for the company and the brand has been an important piece of Limited Brands brand holdings. Therefore, it is difficult to make recommendations to the marketing strategy other than to continue developing the new strategy with more force as the macroeconomic conditions continue to improve.