Neil Hopper Borden a professor from Harvard Business School, published a retrospective article and coined the term marketing mix in the mid of the 1960s. Borden’s idea was introduced a few years later by Jerome McCarthy with the term “4 Ps of marketing mix”. The four Ps of the marketing mix is used as a tool to target the audience or the target market. These terms are now used by, almost all companies in the world, which means just as gravity has a central position in physics, likewise these four Ps in marketing.
[bctt tweet=”4 Ps of marketing mix”]Since 1967 the 4 Ps of marketing worked as a basic pillar of any marketing strategy. These four Ps of marketing are now working as a key factor for both types of businesses.
As we all know marketing is a basic function of any business and without that it is very difficult to survive for any business in this modern age. Therefore, a minimum knowledge of the 4 Ps of marketing is required for the entrepreneurs, especially in this new era where big data has revolutionized the business world. Entrepreneurs can take full advantage of Big Data, Marketing Analytics, and Remarketing if they have a thorough knowledge of the “Marketing mix”.
Let’s Discuss These 4 Ps of Marketing One by One.
Product
Product is the first P of the 4 Ps of marketing that can be tangible or intangible. Intangible means any business offering services such as accounting consultancy or web designing and tangible products are those you can touch them. The product is one of the basic components of the four Ps of the mix. After deciding about the product you have one thing that you can sell “A Product”. If you really want to get results from your business, the product you are offering to the consumers should always match the choice of the consumers, your likelihood does not matter. The concept of supply and demand is also playing an important role when you decide to create any product or services. Whenever you plan to make a commodity, make sure you do deep research.
There are many ways you can use it for research. For example, if you want to make soap, go to HotJar and create a free account and ask people I want to make soap. Would you like to give me some advice? you will see it. People will give you great advice and you will have a great brainstorming. who knows you may like someone’s idea.
Another great tool is AnswerthePublic. If you only write soap, then you will have an idea of what people are searching for about the soap. Look at figure 1. and look at the search query of “soap for acne” and “soap for eczema”, so you may have different ideas about the manufacturing of soap. Maybe you can get a new idea from here. You can ask your question on Quora anything about the soap. You can for soap ingredients supplier. What I mean to say here do the proper research, before launching your product.
Price.
Now we talk about the price, for deciding about the price you need to keep in mind the cost and the competition. If you don’t pay attention to these two basic principles before launching any product or service in the market, you are either making a loss in your product or completely destroy your business unless you are bringing a new concept into the market like Uber or Airbnb then you are the king of the market but still, you have to look at your target market and the income generic overview of the target market when setting the price.
One thing I would like to mention here is that in this new era of social media where the consumers are now controlling the online brand reputation one of the new things that are having the most impact on price and product is customer reviews, which is playing an important part in online reputation. If people are satisfied with your services or product quality, they will buy your product at a higher price than your competitor, so you should never compromise on your quality even your operating cost may be higher than your competitor, you can manage these in your profit margins until people satisfied.
There are many ways you can use to confront the competition on price, for example, adds on in your product which is highly used by web hosting companies. But if you start using unreliable tactics in your services or low raw material in your products you are losing the customer’s trust in the long run, consequences of losing the customer’s trust can imagine by anyone.
Place
The place is termed in the mix as the place where your product got bought by the consumer. The goal for marketers while choosing the place should always be these areas where the consumers are most likely to buy those products. For example, A mall is a great place for cosmetics while the mall is not good for a car washing service.
In this global world, the concept of place is not as important as it used to be, yet we cannot say that there is no need for the right place. A famous quote for marketers about the place is “in the right place at the right time”. Therefore the importance of the place is present like always especially for those their business does not depend on online. For example, for a retailer whose entire business depends on the walkthrough customer or just for the commuters of the train or bus station, the place plays an important role as the lifeline of the business.
Promotion
Days are gone when you were only suppliers of the specific product, nowadays the monopoly is behind the wall if you are not spending on the promotional budget. The last component of the 4 ps of marketing “promotion”. You can only earn a market leader badge if you have a nice budget to spend on promotional activities. People will consider your product when they will see your advertisement. Lack of promotional activities can destroy your business.
Offline promotion is different than online promotion but these both are important. For some companies, offline advertising is more lucrative, and online marketing for some companies. Both mediums have a different impact according to the nature of the business and the target audience.
Offline marketing many times required a heavy budget and cannot be afforded by small businesses.
But now the camera and platforms for promotion in the world are always in your pocket. Now we have Facebook, Instagram, Google, and dozens of companies that are highly targeted to market your product to provide you with your target audience in just a few clicks. A win-win situation for your business.
Modern Four Ps of Marketing
Modern four ps of the marketing are described as follows;
People
In modern four Ps of the marketing mix, people have subdivided into two categories.
Internal People (Employees)
People consider as trained and skilled employees who are involved in product manufacturing. It is a broader explanation of the quote “right people for the right job”.
External People (Consumers)
A Study shows that those companies offering personalized products and great customer services always get a competitive advantage over the rivals. So we can say that, in the modern four Ps of marketing, the satisfaction of peoples are as much as important the product quality.
[bctt tweet=”Modern Four Ps of marketing mix”]Process
This refers to the process involved in manufacturing or delivering the service. How well your company executed the service? or what procedure you are using to make goods. For example, UTH treated milk vs Pasteurizing of milk. It can be anything used to minimize cost and delivering a smooth process.
Programs
It consists of all of the old 4 ps and using the advanced technologies that might not fit in old marketing. For example, using CRM for good productivity or the use of the place where the services occurred.
Performance
Performance is defined as the process of measurement of any advertising campaign or decision that may have financial, nonfinancial, and strategic implications. Facebook likes, Google ads clicks, and leads conversions maybe consider in the example of the mix. These performance online indicators and other offline indicators are part of the modern mix to measure the ROI. In a large aspect, performance can be anything like legal issues, CSR of the company, or anything that can affect the company’s image in front of the people.
Waqar Hussain is the founder of The Business Goals. He writes about entrepreneurial strategies and is an SEO consultant by profession. He is a B.Com, GDM, and an MBA from the Australian Institute of Business.
