Course: SLF 130 Marketing Practices for the Small Business

Unit 2 Reading

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- Unit 2
- Table of Contents (Selected)
- Unit 2 Glossary (Selected)

The 4Ps of Marketing page_3

The challenge of marketing SERVICES

Customers can see, touch, smell, and examine tangible products.  Services can be harder to market because customers have to imagine or picture in their minds what a service encompasses. For this reason, it can be difficult to market services.
Smart marketers CAPTURE the essence of a service through creative communication methods.
The scenario of a family walking into a clean, tidy house SELLS the benefits of a housecleaning service.
A happy dog running into the arms of a returning family SELLS the benefits of a good boarding kennel.
A healthy looking patient being praised by his/her doctor for weight loss SELLS the virtues of healthier, unprocessed food choices.

and a final concept about PRICING
Elasticity of demand refers to the degree to which demand for a good or service varies with its price.

As a rule, appliances, cars, luxury items and other non-essentials show elasticity of demand. (If prices rise, demand is affected and demand goes down.)
Necessities, such as food, gas, medicine, basic clothes, enjoy inelastic demand and do not sell significantly more or less with changes in price.

Households vary in terms of what items are considered “necessities.” A marketer that can develop a product or service that is considered a necessity can enjoy INELASTIC DEMAND and its products can weather the storm of economic downturns!