Mass Marketing

Mass marketing is a process that involves appealing to as many potential customers as possible instead of focusing on customers' requirements, niches, and demographic differences. It aims to get products and services to the entire market to boost sales volume and return on investment or ROI.

This approach is crucial for businesses as it exposes brands to a higher number of customers and an unsegmented market at a lower cost. Hence, it becomes easier to introduce a new product or service. Apart from promoting a new product or service, businesses can utilize the mass marketing strategy to boost brand recall efforts or establish their brand image.

• Mass marketing meaning refers to the process of promoting a product or service to the widest range of consumers. Businesses opt for this strategy to increase sales and improve return on investment.
• Common mass marketing techniques businesses use are guerilla marketing and the shotgun approach. Low price points, enhanced brand awareness, and mass production are key features of this strategy.
• There are various advantages of mass marketing. For example, it is a cost-effective option for large-sized businesses and produces faster results than a targeted approach.
• This marketing strategy does not consider the changes occurring in the market.

Mass marketing means companies use a marketing strategy to appeal to the highest number of potential customers instead of focusing on a particular market segment. Organizations use identical prices, promotions, products, and distribution to reach out to all consumers in the market.

This strategy involves selling products or services at low prices to generate a high sales volume. It can be highly effective when advertising necessities such as water, medications, basic food, etc.

Let us look at these four points to understand how this concept works.

#1 - Market Homogenization

In the case of this strategy, companies perceive the market as homogeneous and ignore segmentation. As a result, they do not think handling and adapting products per consumers' tastes and preferences in every segment are essential.

#2 - Production

In the case of this marketing strategy, organizations are usually production-oriented. They utilize undifferentiated marketing techniques to appeal to the widest audience possible. This way, they can increase sales volume and support higher economies of scale, reducing unit costs. Lastly, they decrease their product's selling price compared to their competitors to boost demand.

#3 - Single Marketing Mix

Businesses standardize their products, promotions, distribution channels, and prices. For instance, they depend on mass media channels, for example, radio, newspapers, television, or their combination, to sell their products.

Some common mass marketing techniques are as follows:

#1 - Guerilla Marketing

This method involves using uncommon and cost-efficient marketing to increase exposure to a product. This technique aims to create a one-of-a-kind advertisement that individuals share. Businesses can use online magazines, internet blogs, and newspapers to run a marketing campaign. The advertisement often appeals to a large-scale audience owing to its captivating components.

#2 - Shotgun Approach

In this case, businesses try to reach a large group of consumers rather than a particular demographic using conventional mass media, including radio, the internet, and television. It also involves sending mass emails and mailings to promote products and services.

Some characteristics of the mass marketing strategy are as follows:

#1 - Low price point and mass production

Companies following this strategy often rely on mass production to meet their potential product volume requirements. Mass-producing products has other advantages, for example, increased accuracy, minimized automation costs, faster product distribution, etc. The high production level also allows companies to offer products at a price lower than what the competitors are charging. Selling products at a lower price helps businesses increase their market share.

#2 - Increased brand awareness

When a business utilizes this strategy, it can distribute advertisements via multiple channels, for example, social media, radio, and print, to appeal to potential customers. Besides increasing market share and sales, the wide advertisement distribution boosts brand awareness. This is vital for building trust between a company and its potential customers.

#3 - Addresses more general customer requirements

Since this form of marketing's objective is to reach as many potential customers as possible, businesses' offerings are more general. Mass production allows companies to produce products more quickly and distribute them in large quantities, thus helping them appeal to more consumers. When individuals buy such products, consumers do not seek unique or specialized product offerings.

Let us look at a few mass marketing examples to understand the concept better.

Example #1

Brands like Colgate and Coca-Cola use mass marketing by running TV commercials, placing magazine advertisements, and pushing their products on other channels, for example, billboards and social media. In most cases, organizations collaborate with celebrities to gain consumers' trust.

Example #2

Let us say that Company ABC follows niche marketing techniques to sell its products. The business's marketing team adopted a mass marketing strategy to increase sales. They advertised their products on television, radio, and social media. This led to a 30% increase in sales.

Let us look at some advantages and disadvantages of this marketing strategy.

Advantages

• This strategy is a cost-effective option for large-sized businesses if they utilize it to advertise products considered necessities by consumers.
• Businesses can appeal to a much wider audience if they opt for this strategy instead of niche-marketing methods.
• This strategy can help generate more sales by appealing to the largest portion of the market. Moreover, since organizations spend less on mass marketing advertisements than other promotional methods, they can earn higher profits.
• A business's marketing team does not need much time to create advertisements as they run the same campaign for all consumers in the market.

Another key advantage of mass marketing is that it can boost brand awareness.

Disadvantages

• Since consumers have different tastes, preferences, and requirements, a single marketing campaign might not be enough to fulfill every customer's wishes. For example, the strategy might work out in specific geographic regions, while it might fail to get a positive customer response in other areas.
• Businesses relying on this strategy may face competition from organizations that utilize targeted advertisements. In addition, consumers might prefer certain products or services and customized advertisement campaigns.
• Small businesses might find this strategy inefficient as it can be expensive.
• This type of marketing does not consider the changes taking place in the market.

Individuals new to marketing often find the concepts of mass marketing, target marketing, and niche marketing confusing. To avoid such confusion, one must understand the key differences between them. So, let us look at their distinct features.

This article has been a guide to Mass Marketing and its definition. We explain its characteristics, advantages, disadvantages & comparison with niche marketing. You may also find some useful articles here -

• Micromarketing
• Social Marketing
• Mass Customization