Marketing Mix (4Ps) Analysis of CUNA Mutual Group

About 4Ps Model

The 4p model of marketing comprises elements of the product, price, promotion, and place (Chernev, 2018; Kucuk, 2017). The model is commonly referred to as the marketing mix. The marketing mix of the CUNA Mutual Group allows and facilitates it in achieving its marketing objectives as well as in positively influencing the target audience (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017). The elements identified in the marketing mix are typically used by the CUNA Mutual Group for marketing its product and service, and for brand development and building activities. These elements are critically fundamental for the development and creation of marketing plans and marketing strategies by the CUNA Mutual Group – especially for developing and sustaining competitive advantage (Chernev, 2018; Stead & Hastings, 2018; Grewal & Levy, 2021). CUNA Mutual Group ensures that the elements identified for the marketing mix model work together cohesively, and complement each other in all its marketing strategies and plans (Abratt & Bendixen, 2018; Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019).

Product

The product refers to the actual good or service that is being marketed to the consumers by CUNA Mutual Group, and which will be consumed by the target audience of the CUNA Mutual Group (Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015). The product or the service being offered by CUNA Mutual Group largely aims to fulfill a market need and demand, as well as works to create demand by providing a unique and fulfilling customer experience (Stead & Hastings, 2018; Sahaf, 2019).

Quality

Product quality for CUNA Mutual Group largely refers to how well the company is able to satisfy the customers’ needs and demands through its product and service offerings (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017; Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019). In addition to this, the product quality for CUNA Mutual Group further includes the adherence of the company and its product and service offerings to industry standards and benchmarks as well as the ability of the same to serve its meaning and purpose comprehensively (Iacobucci, 2021; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Chernev, 2018).

Customer demand fulfillment

The ability of the product and service to fulfill customer demands as well as its purpose, and to work efficiently and effectively are important facets of product quality for CUNA Mutual Group (Iacobucci, 2021; Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019). CUNA Mutual Group ensures that its products are available for customers at affordable prices by controlling internal costs (Wu & Li, 2018).

Warranty

The warranty extended by CUNA Mutual Group includes the guarantee that the company to its customers regarding the functioning and the quality of the purchased food and service (Abratt & Bendixen, 2018). In addition, CUNA Mutual Group’s warranty also includes any compensation that the company has promised to give the customers in case the product and service fall short of the marketed benefits and functionalities (Išoraitė, 2016; Grewal & Levy, 2021; Kucuk, 2017).

Packaging

CUNA Mutual Group focuses thoroughly on the packaging and makes sure it includes the process of designing, evaluating, and developing a container for the products and services being manufactured and marketed (Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019; Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017). The packaging of the product and the service allows CUNA Mutual Group to highlight the product's purpose, as well as provides ease in transportation, gives room for more prolonged shelf life, and creates a unique and delightful customer experience (Kareh, 2018; Park, 2020).

Brand

The CUNA Mutual Group invests in developing brands out of its products and service offerings. This means that the CUNA Mutual Group engages in brand-building activities for its offerings i.e. associating specific designs and communications with its products to ensure differentiation, and easier communication with the target audience (Gillespie & Swan, 2021).

Building the brand

The branding-building activities undertaken by the CUNA Mutual Group ensure that its target audience is better able to relate to the offerings (Abratt & Bendixen, 2018). Through this, the CUNA Mutual Group ensures higher loyalty and repeat purchases, as well as positive perception creation for its offerings (Khan, 2014; Kareh, 2018).

Features

Product features or characteristics refer to the product traits and attributes present in the offerings of CUNA Mutual Group that allow the company to successfully deliver unique value to customers through the products and services manufactured and offered (Varadarajan, 2015; Kotler & Keller, 2021). The product traits and features also allow CUNA Mutual Group to create points of differentiation from the competition for its offering (Kotler & Keller, 2021; Park, 2020).

Product style

CUNA Mutual Group makes sure to focus on the design and the look of the product, and the ability of the same to meet the expectations and lifestyle of the target audience (Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015). The CUNA Mutual Group ensures that the product style and design complement its features and purpose.

Functionality

CUNA Mutual Group makes sure that the product manufactured fulfills its purpose, and meets customer expectations (Abratt & Bendixen, 2018). CUNA Mutual Group focuses on the product design, and how well it is able to fulfill the demands of the customers, as well as fill in the market gap (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017)

Experience

CUNA Mutual Group products provide the customers with an exceptional and unique experience upon consumption (Kotler & Keller, 2021). This experience includes interaction with the products that leads to different unique and positive customer feelings and helps the CUNA Mutual Group maintain differentiation from the competition (Varadarajan, 2015; Kotabe & Helsen, 2020).

Availability

CUNA Mutual Group ensures that its product and service offerings are available for its target consumers at various retail setups. The easy availability ensures that consumers are able to purchase the offerings of CUNA Mutual Group from various locations, allowing the CUNA Mutual Group to create an advantage over competing players (Kotler & Keller, 2021; Chernev, 2018).

Convenience

One point of focus for CUNA Mutual Group in its product offering is convenience. The CUNA Mutual Group ensures that its products and service are easy and convenient to use. The factor of convenience allows CUNA Mutual Group to enjoy a higher consumption rate, as well as increased sales and trials (Kotabe & Helsen, 2020; Kucuk, 2017).

After-sales service

CUNA Mutual Group caters to after-sales queries and demands of customers, which also includes processes of returns as well as exchanges. The after-sales service of company CUNA Mutual Group is detrimental and critical in determining customer satisfaction with its offerings (Iacobucci, 2021; Chernev, 2018).

Sizes

CUNA Mutual Group has different SKUs in the product available. CUNA Mutual Group has its products available in various SKU sizes which helps the company boost its sales, as different customer groups have different demands for the product quantity – depending on their usage, income as well as lifestyle (Grewal & Levy, 2021; Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019).

Price

The element of price in the marketing mix refers to the value that customers pay for the service or the product offered by CUNA Mutual Group. The pricing strategy and the price of the offerings are critical because it determines three success for CUNA Mutual Group by directly influencing the profit levels and revenue for the company (Kotabe & Helsen, 2020; Kotler & Keller, 2021; Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019).

Discounts

One of the ways through which the CUNA Mutual Group influences its pricing strategies is through offering discounts on its product and service offerings. Discounted pricing for the CUNA Mutual Group means that CUNA Mutual Group decreases the price of the product and service in order to generate interest, or even unload excessive inventory and stock; as well as for boosting sales (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017).

Margins

CUNA Mutual Group makes room for margins through the additional value charged in price over the cost – which allows the CUNA Mutual Group to build profit for its offerings (Kucuk, 2017). The margins available to the CUNA Mutual Group largely depend on the offering and its quality itself, in addition to the brand equity and brand value of the company.

Payment method

A significant factor of the pricing element of the marketing mix for the CUNA Mutual Group includes the payment methods that the company offers (Kotler & Keller, 2021; Abratt & Bendixen, 2018). Since the CUNA Mutual Group largely operates distribution to retail via agents and retailers, it ensures the inclusion of different payment methods. This includes digital payment, cash payment, as well as credit allowances (Grewal & Levy, 2021; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015).

Pricing strategy

Penetrative pricing strategy

For CUNA Mutual Group, the penetrative pricing strategy is adopted as it allows the company higher trial generation of its products and services in the desired target market, as well as allows the building of a broader reach for its product offerings by ensuring easier affordability (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017).

Introductory pricing strategy

For new products that the company launches, CUNA Mutual Group ensures to adopt an introductory pricing strategy. This means that the company prices its products and service offerings at relatively lower prices than the competition. This introductory pricing strategy allows the company to increase trial generation, achieve higher penetration, as well as lead to the generation of increased brand awareness and recall (Kucuk, 2017).

Aggressive/competitive pricing strategy

For existing products, CUNA Mutual Group uses a competitive and aggressive pricing strategy. This ensures that the products are available readily at competitive prices. Aggressive and competitive pricing strategies allow the CUNA Mutual Group to experience high rates of growth and experience by allowing the buildup of consumer loyalty and following based largely on product attributes and quality instead of price– leading to the generation of higher brand equity and value for CUNA Mutual Group (Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019).

Place

The element of place within the 4Ps model of the marketing mix largely refers to the locations where company CUNA Mutual Group stocks its product and service offerings for consumers' accessibility and purchase. CUNA Mutual Group ensures to include all possible placements which are easily accessible to and available for the company's target audience (Iacobucci, 2021; Išoraitė, 2016). With the advancement of technology, CUNA Mutual Group has expanded the placement of its products beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar retail spaces, to include modern Omni channel retail platforms as well (Iacobucci, 2021).

Physical stores/retail

The physical retail and stores i.e. the traditional brick and mortar spaces continue to be the prioritized locations for product placement by CUNA Mutual Group (Iacobucci, 2021; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Abratt & Bendixen, 2018).

Retail types

These include hypermarkets, upper markets, and smaller grocery stores - all of which allow increased accessibility and availability of CUNA Mutual Group’s products and services to its target audience. Physical retail has a higher footfall and allows direct interaction of the CUNA Mutual Group brand and its product offerings with the consumers (Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Chernev, 2018).

E-commerce

E-tailers

The CUNA Mutual Group also stocks its products on e-commerce retail shops – such as amazon. This allows the CUNA Mutual Group higher access and penetration in other markets, as well as in secondary consumer groups. Moreover, e-commerce retailing is more cost-effective for the CUNA Mutual Group (Wu & Li, 2018; Chernev, 2018; Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017).

Company-owned website

In addition to stocking products with other e-trailers, the CUNA Mutual Group also manages orders through its own website, where consumers can place orders for CUNA Mutual Group’s products directly. This allows the CUNA Mutual Group greater control over stock and inventory management, as well as distribution networks – allowing the buildup of stronger relations with consumers.

Lastly, the CUNA Mutual Group also takes limited orders through social media pages and platforms (Wu & Li, 2018; Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017).

Aggregators

Another way through which CUNA Mutual Group uses e-commerce is by stocking its offerings with aggregators (Kucuk, 2017). This allows the CUNA Mutual Group to maximize its reach and increase penetration. At the same time, it also allows increased trial generation and repeats purchases for the CUNA Mutual Group product offerings (Išoraitė, 2016; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015).

Specialty stores

Interestingly, the CUNA Mutual Group also stocks its products with specialty stores (Grewal & Levy, 2021). This gives the company direct exposure to its target market and audience and allows the consumers to directly interact with the brand and its offerings- without too much clutter (Kotler & Keller, 2021; Gillespie & Swan, 2021). The specialty stores are located in prime locations, and allow CUNA Mutual Group higher penetration and reach, leading to increased brand awareness for its product offerings (Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Išoraitė, 2016).

Direct sales

The CUNA Mutual Group also has a trained sales team for making direct sales (Kotler & Keller, 2021). CUNA Mutual Group targets not only B2C consumers but also B2-B consumers (Chernev, 2018; Grewal & Levy, 2021). Both these categories, also make use of direct marketing whereby the sales agents and teams visit the target audience and business directly and detail the product features and benefits (Kotler & Keller, 2021; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015).

B2B and direct sales

CUNA Mutual Group’s team makes sales instantly during field visits for the company (Sahaf, 2019; Stead & Hastings, 2018). The target audience is carefully profiled and selected by the CUNA Mutual Group so that the sales representatives are able to filter out the clutter (Gillespie & Swan, 2021; Išoraitė, 2016). CUNA Mutual Group is able to easily contact and communicate with the desired business groups only (Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015; Abratt & Bendixen, 2018).

Inventory management

CUNA Mutual Group effectively manages its inventory and fulfills the retailer's demand in time to ensure that it manages customer relations efficiently – and does not lose any customers. CUNA Mutual Group has also introduced automation in inventory management which allows it to improve efficiency and speed, and reduce error rates (Park, 2020; Gillespie & Swan, 2021; Kucuk, 2017).

Transportation

For CUNA Mutual Group, this includes choosing cos effective transportation means for inventory handling, as well as order deliveries to customers, as well as retailers. The company uses third-party transportation, as well as manages its own in-house transportation networks for ensuring on-time order deliveries (Abratt & Bendixen, 2018; Chernev, 2018; Grewal & Levy, 2021).

Promotion

The element of promotion in the marketing mix for CUNA Mutual Group largely refers to the tactics and activities of communication that the company has adopted for promoting its products and services – including the brand, and its offerings, as well as other product features, characteristics, and activities (Varadarajan, 2015; Gillespie & Swan, 2021). The communication is largely targeted toward the CUNA Mutual Group's target audience and is aimed to increase brand awareness, brand loyalty as well as sales of the company (Wu & Li, 2018; Grewal & Levy, 2021).

Direct marketing

For its more specific products and offerings, CUNA Mutual Group uses direct marketing. CUNA Mutual Group directly emails potential customers- especially its B2B consumers for detailing its product offerings and features. CUNA Mutual Group uses personalized messages and captures new clients and customers for the business. In addition to direct emailing, the CUNA Mutual Group also makes use of telemarketing and direct mail for targeting audiences through direct marketing (Chernev, 2018; Sahaf, 2019).

In-store promotion

CUNA Mutual Group also focuses on in-store promotions for appealing to the customers, and boosting sales as well as raising brand awareness and profile of its offerings (Baines, Fill, & Rosengren, 2017). For CUNA Mutual Group, the in-store promotions include offering price discounts, loyalty points, and flash sales for its products. In addition, the company also invests in building up the POS within the store locations (Stead & Hastings, 2018; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015).

Social media marketing

One of the more contemporary forms of marketing and promotion for CUNA Mutual Group includes social media marketing. The company has an official presence and profiles on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and regularly uses these platforms to promote its offerings, and product features and characteristics (Stead & Hastings, 2018). In addition, these platforms are also used by CUNA Mutual Group to inform consumers about using sales and discounts to increase in-store footfall.

Traditional advertising

The CUNA Mutual Group continues to use traditional marketing tactics and promotional platforms as well – largely for mass marketing purposes. The company especially focuses on TV advertisements, ad print media advertising for this purpose (Išoraitė, 2016; Iacobucci, 2021).

TV

TV advertisements are generally placed in prime time for higher visibility and reach by CUNA Mutual Group. The TV advertisements use functional as well as emotional appeals to communicate the message of the CUNA Mutual Group to the audiences (Iacobucci, 2021; Stead & Hastings, 2018).

Print

Print media and advertisements are published in newspapers and magazines – both of which are generally consumed in high proportion by the broader target audience of the CUNA Mutual Group (Chernev, 2018; Iacobucci, 2021; Stead & Hastings, 2018).

Radio

The CUNA Mutual Group also places advertisements on the radio to appeal to a segment of the target population. The radio communications by the CUNA Mutual Group are usually shorter and focus on functional appeal only (Park, 2020; Išoraitė, 2016; Groucutt & Hopkins, 2015).

Integrated marketing communications

The advertisement and promotional messages by CUNA Mutual Group for all mediums and channels however are built on an integrated plan, and ensure that they reflect messages and communication that is similar to the overall campaign to void confusion and discrepancies (Gillespie & Swan, 2021; Kotler & Keller, 2021). The use of integrated marketing and integrated media has allowed the CUNA Mutual Group to build strong relations with the consumers through prompting conversations and discussions directly with them (Deepak & Jeyakumar, 2019; Sahaf, 2019; Stead & Hastings, 2018).

Conclusion

The 4p model or the marketing mix is an important aspect of brand building and development for the CUNA Mutual Group and significantly guides the company in the chalking out of its strategic marketing goals and plans. The marketing mix model or the 4P model has helped the CUNA Mutual Group in increasing its products’ and services’ reach and penetration and witness high levels of expansion and growth. The model has also led CUNA Mutual Group towards a better understanding of its target audience and consumers. This understanding, in turn, has fostered strong emotional relations and increased loyalty on part of consumers towards the company – leading to an overall increase in the brand value and brand equity, as well as higher levels of brand affiliation, brand awareness, and brand recall. Together, the marketing mix has helped the company boost its sales and revenue by aligning its offerings with the needs and demands of the consumers, and the market more effectively and efficiently.

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