Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix

Lance Vandegrift

University Of Phoenix

MKT/421

August 12, 2007

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Marketing Mix

"Product, price, promotion, and place the four P's of the marketing mix. This mix recognizes that marketing is customer focused and products are developed to meet the desires of groups of customers. Management of the product and product marketing are the specification of the goods or service and how it meets the customer's needs and wants. What product does the company sell? The answer to the question should speak about a customer desires and wishes not what research and development have come up with" (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005)

The portions of the marketing mix are product, place, promotion and price. A product is the service or good sold to suit a customer's needs. "Place involves all of the decisions required to make the product or service available in the target market, or customers, place.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft parked on...

English: View of the front of Southwest Airlines F...

Title: 737-3H4 Description: Southwest Airlines Boe...

Promotion is the process of informing the target market of the product. Finally, the fourth element of the marketing mix is price. Price setting includes components such as analysis of price setting by the competition as well as analysis regarding acceptance or rejection of prices by the identified market" (McCarthy & Perreault, 2004).

The United States airline industry is very competitive. Following the attacks on September 11th, there have been several airlines that have gone out of business or have filed bankruptcy. Southwest Airlines has been able to stay in business and out of bankruptcy, "Southwest Airlines is the only major airline to be profitable for the past 20 years" (McCarthy & Perreault, 2004). This level of success has been achieved in part because of their tremendous marketing efforts. Southwest Airlines is an airline with a creative marketing department.

The airline industry in the...