The document discusses marketing mix and its key elements - product, price, place, and promotion. It provides an overview of each element and how Soft Dot Hi-Tech Educational & Training Institute applies them in its marketing strategy. Soft Dot offers a variety of degree programs at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It uses a range of promotional strategies including advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, direct marketing and publicity to create awareness and influence perceptions of its target customers.

1. Introduction
In the sequence of strategic analysis and decisions, "marketing mix" analysis
falls after various external and internal environmental analyses such as
PESTEL analysis, Porter's Five Forces analysis, SWOT Analysis and even
formulation of competitive strategies (Porter's Generic Strategies).
Marketing mix is an imperative concept in modern marketing and
academically it is referred to as the set of controllable tools that the firm
blends to produce the response it wants in the target market, so it consists of
everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its product (Kotler and
Armstrong, 2004). It is important to realize that marketing mix strategy of any
company can have one major function, that is, strategic communication of
the organization with its customers (Proctor, 2000). It was further argued that
marketing mix provides multiple paths as such communication can be
achieved either in spoken form and written communications (advertising,
selling, etc.) or in more symbolic forms of communication (the image
conveyed in the quality of the product, its price and the type of distribution
outlet chosen). However, the key element is that the main aspects of
marketing mix that will be discussed below "should not be seen as individual
entities, but as a set of interrelated entities which have to be set in
conjunction with one another"
Main Aspects of Marketing Mix
The easiest way to understand the main aspects of marketing is through its
more famous synonym of "4Ps of Marketing". The classification of four Ps
of marketing was first introduced and suggested by McCarthy (1960), and
includes marketing strategies of product, price, placement and promotion.
The following diagram is helpful in determining the main ingredients of the
four Ps in a marketing mix.
Marketing

2. Marketing is the total system of business activities designed to plan,
prices, promotes and distribute want satisfying goods, services, And ideas to target
markets to achieve organizational objectives.
In other word we can say that marketing means entire process of satisfying the
needs of customers. It starts with discovery of needs and want of the consumer and
it continues till these need and wants are satisfied.
The old concept of marketing is product oriented concept, according to this
concept manufacturer must produce the goods and distributes them to the
consumers.
But new concept of marketing is customer oriented, according to this concept
business and industrial enterprises can achieve its object of maximizing the profit
only when it considers the need and wants of its consumers and it tries the
satisfaction of these needs and wants.
Marketing management has the task of influencing the level, the timing, and
composition of demand in a way that help the organization achieve its objectives.
MARKETING MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIALLY DEMAND
MANAGEMENT. The actual demand may be low, equal to or above the desired
level of demand
Marketing managers cope with these tasks by carrying out Marketing research,
planning, implementation and control.
Within the marketing planning the marketer must make decisions on target market,
market positioning, product development, and pricing, channel of distribution,
physical distribution, communication and promotion.
CORE CONCEPT OF MARKETING
1. Needs, wants, and demands
2. Markets
3. Exchange, transactions, and relationships

3. 4. Products
5. Value, satisfaction, and quality
NEED:- A human need is a state of felt deprivation of some basis
satisfaction. Need are basically basic like need of food, cloth, shelter. The
needs are not created by marketer but they are the unseparable part of
human biology.
WANT:- Want is desire for specific satisfiers of these deeper needs. For
example for satisfying the hunger need the person may want a Chinese food,
south Indian food etc. although people’s needs are few, their wants are
many. Human wants are continually shaped and reshaped by social forces
and institutions.
DEMAND:- demand are wants for specific products that are backed by an
ability qualification and willingness to buy them. Want become demand when
supported by purchasing power.
MARKET:- IN ORDINARY SENSE MARKET refers to place where goods
are bought and sold. Market is a physical place to exchange goods and
services.
According to Phillp kotler: a market consist of all the potential customers
sharing a particular need or want who might be willing and able to engage in
exchange to satisfy that needs or want.” so the size of the market depends
upon the number of person who have the unsatisfied needs and are
potentially capable of doing the exchange.
Product:- people satisfy their needs and wants with goods and services.
According to Philip cotler a product is “any thing that can be offered to satisfy
a need or want”. According to W.J.STANTON “A product is a set of tangible
and intangible attributes, including packaging,colour,price,manufacturer’s
prestige, retailer’s prestige and manufacturer’s and retailer’s services. The
key idea in this definition is that consumers are buying more than set of
physical attributes. Fundamentally, they are buying want satisfaction.
Product is an any thing an organization offers for exchange that
satisfies a consumer need. In marketing terms, a product may be a tangible
good or an idea that offers some benefit. For example if customer have
money for exchange, he can buy a physical goods, a service or an idea. For
an exchange to succeeds, it must lead to utility for consumer.

4. Exchange:- the essence of marketing is a transaction an exchange-intended
to satisfy human needs and want. Marketing emerges when people decide to
satisfy needs and want through exchange.
Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired product from someone by
offering something in return. Exchange is the social concept of marketing.
Whether exchange actually takes place depends upon whether the two
parties are agreed to the terms and conditions of exchange. When the
exchange is completed it is called as transaction.
Transaction: - it can be of two types: monetary transaction and barter
transaction. In monetary transaction in lieu of products or services offered
by the seller, the buyer offers cash or credit but in case of barter
transaction product or services are offered in lieu of product of services.
Relationship marketing builds relationships with valued customers, distributors,
dealers, and suppliers by promising and consistently delivering high-quality
products, good service, and fair prices.
Value: - Customer value is the difference between the benefits that the
customer gains from owning and/or using a product and the costs of
obtaining the product
Satisfaction: - Customer satisfaction depends on a product’s perceived
performance in delivering value relative to a buyer’s expectations
Quality: - Quality begins with customer needs and ends with customer
satisfaction
Marketing Management Philosophies
1. Production Concept
2. Product Concept
3. Selling Concept
4. Marketing Concept
5. Societal Concept

5. The Production Concept
The production concept prevailed from the time of the industrial revolution until
the early 1920's. The production concept was the idea that a firm should focus on
those products that it could produce most efficiently and that the creation of a
supply of low-cost products would in and of itself creates the demand for the
products. The key questions that a firm would ask before producing a product
were:
Can we produce the product?
Can we produce enough of it?
At the time, the production concept worked fairly well because the goods that
were produced were largely those of basic necessity and there was a relatively
high level of unfulfilled demand. Virtually everything that could be produced was
sold easily by a sales team whose job it was simply to execute transactions at a
price determined by the cost of production. The production concept prevailed into
the late 1920's.
The Sales Concept
By the early 1930's however, mass production had become commonplace,
competition had increased, and there was little unfulfilled demand. Around this
time, firms began to practice the sales concept (or selling concept), under which
companies not only would produce the products, but also would try to convince
customers to buy them through advertising and personal selling. Before
producing a product, the key questions were:
• Can we sell the product?
• Can we charge enough for it?
The sales concept paid little attention to whether the product actually was needed;
the goal simply was to beat the competition to the sale with little regard to
customer satisfaction. Marketing was a function that was performed after the
product was developed and produced, and many people came to associate
marketing with hard selling. Even today, many people use the word "marketing"
when they really mean sales.
Marketing concept

6. After World War II, the variety of products increased and hard selling no longer
could be relied upon to generate sales. With increased discretionary income,
customers could afford to be selective and buy only those products that precisely
met their changing needs, and these needs were not immediately obvious. The
key questions became:
What do customers want?
Can we develop it while they still want it?
How can we keep our customers satisfied?
In response to these discerning customers, firms began to adopt the marketing
concept, which involves:
Focusing on customer needs before developing the product
Aligning all functions of the company to focus on those needs
Realizing a profit by successfully satisfying customer needs over the long-term
When firms first began to adopt the marketing concept, they typically set up
separate marketing departments whose objective it was to satisfy customer needs.
Often these departments were sales departments with expanded responsibilities.
While this expanded sales department structure can be found in some companies
today, many firms have structured themselves into marketing organizations
having a company-wide customer focus. Since the entire organization exists to
satisfy customer needs, nobody can neglect a customer issue by declaring it a
"marketing problem" - everybody must be concerned with customer satisfaction.
The marketing concept relies upon marketing research to define market
segments, their size, and their needs. To satisfy those needs, the marketing team
makes decisions about the controllable parameters of the marketing mix
Product concept:-the product concept holds that consumer will
favour that product that offers the most quality, performance or innovative
features. Manager in these product oriented organisation focus their
energy on making superior products and improving them over time. These
manager assume that buyer admire product and can appraise product
quality and performance. Product oriented companies often design their
product with little or no customer input. They trust engineers who design

7. or improve the product even not considering and examining competitor’s
products.
Societal concept: - in recent years people have questioned
whether the marketing concept is an appropriate philosophy in an age of
environment deterioration resource shortage, explosive population growth
etc. these situations called for the new concept called as societal
marketing concept.
Introduction of marketing mix
Marketing Mix is a major concept in modern marketing and involves
practically everything that a marketing company can use to influence
consumer perception favorably towards its product or services so that
consumer and organizational objectives are attained, i.e. Marketing mix is
a model of crafting and implementing marketing strategy.
In this assignment, I will discuss the major marketing mix variables as
classified by Prof. E. Jerome McCarthy which are:
i. Product
ii. Price
iii. Place (Distribution)
iv. Promotion.
Product:- A product can be either a good or a service that is sold either to
a commercial customer or an end consumer. A customer buys a product,
and a consumer uses it. Sometimes these are one and the same, as an
industrial firm can also be a customer and a consumer. For example,
British Airways might buy aeroplanes from British Aerospace, so it is a
customer. It won't sell on the planes to another buyer, as BA needs the
planes to provide its service, so it is also a consumer. Sometimes a wide
product range covers both (Mercedes produce lorries for haulage
companies, and cars for domestic use).
More commonly, there will be a number of sellers forming a chain of
distribution. For example, a gold mine may sell gold to a jewellery
manufacturer, who in turn will sell on rings to wholesalers and retailers,
before we get to buy them in the high street. Each is a customer, but only
the final user is the end consumer. A marketing manager will identify who

8. his/her target market is, what they want, and sell it to them at each stage
in the chain.
Price:-
No matter how good the product is, it is unlikely to succeed unless the
price is right. This doe’s not just mean being cheaper than competitors.
Most people associate a higher price with quality, so you would expect to
pay more for a Rolls Royce than for a Lada. On the other hand, is one
cola worth more than another, and if so, how much?
As a rule, a producer of luxury or medical products will use skim pricing or
premium pricing initially, in order to maximize its profits. This is useful, as
it helps them to recover expensive research and development costs
quickly.
For fast moving consumable goods (fmcg's) like colas, penetration pricing
is usually used. The firm will want a large share of the market, so will
settle for a small profit on each item. In the long term, they hope that the
turnover, and therefore their profits, will be high.
The simplest method of all is cost-plus pricing , where a firm adds a profit
mark-up to the unit cost.
Promotion
The main aims of promotion are to persuade, inform and make people
more aware of a brand, as well as improving sales figures. Advertising is
the most widely used form of promotion, and can be through the media of
TV, radio, journals, cinema or outdoors (billboards, posters). The specific
sections of society (market segments) being targeted will affect the types
of media chosen, as will the cost. If you were a toy manufacturer, you
might want an advertising spot during children's TV. If you ran a local
restaurant, you might choose a local paper or radio.
A small or local business would not usually advertise on TV, because it is
very expensive. Sales promotion is designed to encourage new and

9. repeat sales. Loyalty cards, free gifts, competitions and voucher schemes
are the most popular.
Companies use sponsorship and public relations to improve their image,
notably through financing sports, the arts and public information services.
Place
Distribution channels are the key to this area. A firm has to find the most
cost-effective way to get the product to the consumer. Direct marketing
through catalogues, via a TV shopping channel and through the Internet
have become popular, because the consumer can shop from home.
For the firm, they can cut out the middleman in the process, and can
therefore make more profit. Going through wholesalers and high-street
retailers, however, is the most popular form of distribution, as that is still
where most people shop.
Limitation of Marketing Mix Analysis (4Ps of
Marketing)
Despite the fact that marketing mix analysis is used as a synonym for the
4Ps of Marketing, it is criticised (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004) on the point
that it caters seller's view of market analysis not customers view. To
tackle this criticism, Lauterborn (1990) attempted to match 4 Ps of
marketing with 4 Cs of marketing to address consumer views:
Product – Customer Solution
Price – Customer Cost
Placement – Convenience
Promotion – Communication
Conclusion

10. 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.
Throughout the assignment I will prefer to use my reference to Soft dot
Hi-Tech Educational & Training Institute . I will refer to this Institute how it
has diversify its market products, the price range, places for distribution
and the promotional strategies they have used to promote their products.
Soft dot In Brief
A harbinger of quality education, Soft dot Hi-Tech Educational & Training
Institute is an innovative Educational and Training organization. With
professional expertise under the belt, the institute offers excellent
education in various streams viz.
• Management
• Mass Communication
• Insurance
• CA Coaching
• Information Technology
• Travel & Tourism
• Hardware & Networking Computer Courses
Soft dot Products

11. The first market mix element is Product. A product is anything that can be
offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that
might satisfy a need or want.. These product attributes can be
manipulated depending on what the target market wants. Also, customers
always look for new and improved things, which is why marketers should
improve existing products, develop new ones, and discontinue old ones
that are no longer needed or wanted by the customer
Soft dot has a variety of products ranging from
BACHELOR’S DEGREE COURSES
BBA - Bachelor of Business Administration
BCA - Bachelor of Computer Application
B.com- Bachelor of Commerce
BMC - Bachelor of Mass Communication
B.Sc. (IT) - Bachelor of Science in Information Technology
MASTER’S DEGREE COURSES
MBA - Master of Business Administration
MCA - Master of Computer Application
MBA (IT) - Master of Business Administration in Information Technology
M.Sc. (IT) - Master of Science in Information Technology
M.Sc. (CS) - Master of Science (Computer Science)
M.Com. - Master of Commerce
Soft dot Promotion
Promotion is a key element of marketing program and is concerned with
effectively and efficiently communicating the decisions of marketing
strategy, to favorably influence target customers’ perceptions to facilitate
exchange between the marketer and the customer that may satisfy the
objective of both customer and the company.
A company’s promotional efforts are the only controllable means to create
awareness among publics about itself, the products and services it offers ,
their features and influence their attitudes favorably
The major elements of promotion mix include advertising, personal
selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. Soft Dot has used
all of these marketing communication mix
Elements.

12. Sales Promotion
Sales promotion is a marketing discipline that utilizes a variety of
incentives techniques to structure sales – related programs targeted to
customers, trade, and/or sales levels that generate a specific, measurable
action or response for a product or service.
Sales promotions for example includes free samples, discount, rebates,
contents and sweepstakes, premiums, scratch cards, exchange offers,
early bird prizes, etc.
Soft dot has promoted its products through different sales promotional
strategies. For example: - Providing scholarships and concessions etc.
Advertising
Advertising is any paid form of non-personal mass communication
through various media to present and promote product, services and
ideas etc. by an identified sponsor
So far, Soft dot has advertised its products through many different ways
and media. Through Newspapers and Radio we have seen different
advertisements of its products. Also through posters, hoardings and
canopies it is advertising its products.
Public Relations and Publicity
Public relations is a broad set of communication activities employed to
create and maintain favorable relationship with employees, shareholders,
suppliers, media, educators, potential investors, financial institutions,
government agencies and officials and society in general.
Through its website, Soft dot has its provided contacts for those
customers who will be in need of any information from the institute. In this
way it can create a mutual relationship with its customers and ensure that
it serves the wishes and demands of its customers.
Soft dot Place
Decisions with respect to place focus on making the product available in
adequate quantities at places where customers are normally expected to
go for them to satisfy their needs.

13. Depending on the nature of the product, marketing management decides
to put into place an exclusive, selective or intensive network of
distribution, while selecting the appropriate dealers or wholesalers.
Soft dot has used it in following ways
• All the Institutes are located at prominent locations well connected with
all modes of transport .they are located at :-
• CORPORATE OFFICE-CUM-INSTITUTE
K-16, South Extension Part-I, New Delhi-49
Ph. : 24601315, 24601316, 24601330, 24601347
• Institute : 3rd Floor,NDM I, (Near Bikanerwala)
Netaji Subhash Place, Pitam pura
New Delhi-34
Ph.: 47047478 / 9
• Janakpuri
• Admission Office cum Institute : 8th Floor, Jaina Tower-II
District Centre, (Adjacent to Satyam Cineplex), Janakpuri
New Delhi-58
Ph: 41588840 / 41 / 42 /43
• Preet Vihar
• Admission Office cum Institute : E-367, Nirman Vihar
Near Nirman Vihar Metro Station, Opp. V3S Mall, Preet Vihar
New Delhi-110092
Ph: 43018620 / 21/ 22 / 23
• SOFT DOT Price
• Pricing decisions are almost always made in consultation with
marketing management. Price is the only marketing mix variable that
can be altered quickly. Price variables such as dealer price, retail price,
discounts, allowances, credit terms etc. influence the development of
marketing strategy, as price is a major factor that influences the
assessment of value obtained by customers. Customers directly relate
price to quality, particularly in case of products that are ego intensive of
technology based.
• Soft dot being an educational institute which emphasize product
quality, it tends to sell its products with price range from moderately-

14. high to high-prices. Fee structure of soft dot is about 2.95 lacs for P.G
courses and around 2 laces for U.G courses