What is the Marketing Mix – The 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion?

the job of marketing is to make
potential customers and clients aware of
your products and services
and marketing mix
is the set of strategies for doing this
people buy a product or a service
because they either want it or they need
it
and if you are in a competitive market
they can either buy your product or
service or that of one of your
competitors
as a result marketing has a number of
functions
it has to make people aware of your
products and services
it has to make people want
to buy your products or services
and it has to lead them with the feeling
that your products and services are a
little bit better than those of your
competitors
there are many different ways that
marketers or marketing departments in
large organizations can do this
and in 1948
james carlton
the metaphor of marketers
as being mixers of ingredients
this led his colleague neil borden
to use the term marketing mix
so marketing mix is the set
of tools actions and tactics that
marketers can use to get the response
that they want from the marketplace
so what are these ingredients
that make up your marketing mix
well it was the professor of marketing
at notre dame university
in 1960
e jerome mccarthy who gave us the first
articulation of the marketing mix as the
four ps
and his four ps of marketing really
caught on quickly when they were
championed by one of the greats of
marketing philip kotler
jerome mccarthy's original four ps
formulation of the marketing mix
consisted of product
price
place
and promotion
product represents the goods and the
services that you offer to the
marketplace to your customers or
consumers
your product needs to serve a purpose
scratch an itch solve a problem for them
they have to want it for one reason or
another
so product covers your product
development program the way you identify
what it is the market needs how you
develop the product and how you bring it
to market
and it also includes your product
management how you maintain the product
and service it
how you package it up
mccarthy originally thought that product
should include packaging and branding
along with other things like the
warranties or guarantees that you offer
with it
price is how much your customers or
clients will pay for your products or
services
usually your goal is to offer your
products or services at the lowest price
that you can to attract more customers
this will mean either driving down the
cost of production
or accepting smaller margins
however your ultimate goal is to make as
much money as possible which might drive
up the price and let's not forget that
your whole pricing strategy will also
include considerations of
how you want your product to appear in
the marketplace you might push the price
up to make it feel just a little bit
more exclusive
and also within price we've got to think
about the way that we charge for it
any discounts for example that will go
with the product
is about where your customers can access
and buy your product or your services
this is partly about physical location
but now we think more in terms of
delivery channel
so now as well as the traditional high
street uptown and out of town categories
we have things like mail order
online shopping
and digital delivery
each choice will suit some consumers
more than others
your choice is all about convenience
cache
and the cost of delivery
and of course place also necessarily
includes how you will get your product
to the place which brings us into the
whole issue of logistics warehousing and
the whole value chain
promotion is all about the messages and
the media you will use to communicate
with your potential customers
to persuade them to buy your products or
services
that big pile of baked beans at the
front of the supermarket
with a two-for-one offer on
that's a promotion
the messages
around those baked beans being healthy
for you being economical being tasty for
your children
that's promotion
the logo on the can the color choices
the jingle
that's
promotion
so too are advertising direct mail
competitions and public relations they
are all
promotion
and as a marketer there is a whole other
thing the channel mix
which enables you to start thinking
about which media you're going to use
and how you're going to balance your
message across those media
promotion
is probably the one thing people think
of
when they think of marketing
now it didn't take long and let's face
it we all love to do it let's find some
more peas that we can use to label
aspects of the marketing process
by the 1980s we also had physical
evidence
process people and performance
but it didn't stop there
let's add
politics
packaging
partners
and positioning
we'll go through each of these very
briefly
physical evidence is about what people
experience when they're experiencing
your products and services and it's most
obvious with service industries
if you have a premises with beautiful
layouts lovely furniture smart people
great technology that is physical
evidence
that supports your marketing message
but of course beyond the physical
evidence of signage and design we also
now have the online physical evidence
the branding that feeds into things like
websites
email newsletters and the apps that
organizations use to promote their
products and services
and hey
let's not forget social media too
process is how you deliver your products
and services it's that whole process
flow from that initial idea through
design development testing manufacturing
and distribution
in fact one could call it the value
chain
people are always going to be a part of
the marketing mix these are the people
who represent your products or services
to the consumers they may work for you
they may work for your partners for your
suppliers for your distributors for your
retailers
but make sure they understand your brand
values they understand your products and
so they can represent them well and
effectively
performance is about how well your
product or service
delivers on its promise
now many experts like to focus when they
think of performance on productivity
but you know what to a large extent
performance is actually about quality
you think about how you deliver
something what's really important
efficiency or effectiveness
and of course this is especially so with
a service
packaging is how you present your
product or service at the point of sale
it's everything that the customer
experiences before they get to interact
directly with the product or service
and of course packaging conveys a lot
about the content of the package
it creates all sorts of emotions that's
why so many people love unboxing videos
now today minimalist packaging is
becoming an important part of the
corporate messaging and the promotion of
products but we still see plenty of
products packaged lavishly this is a big
decision to make with important
messaging consequences
politics
is how we confer status and social power
upon our products and services
we conduct politics through the
communications campaigns that we've
already discussed under promotions
but it also goes on between the
organization that is promoting the
product and its stakeholders its users
its suppliers its partners its
regulators and yes
the wider community and society around
it
and of course
no discussion of politics in the context
of marketing would be complete without
at least a nod to the giant and
sometimes insidious industry
of corporate lobbying of our political
classes
partners support our delivery to our
customers
and they leverage up our capabilities
so one part of the marketing mix is
building and maintaining and extending
partner relationships
and of course what is important
is that we are able to present these
partnerships as being advantageous to
our end users and customers
and finally there's positioning which is
all about how we frame our proposition
within the wider range of a customer's
potential needs and possible solutions
which precise part of our market
do we intend our product to serve
and how do we distinguish it from
competitors in the same space to my mind
this is the single most important of the
ps that mccarthy didn't identify
therefore when we look at the four ps
individually in subsequent videos we'll
also add on a video about positioning
i can't end this video about the four ps
of the marketing mix without first
turning the tables because of course the
marketing mix is about things that the
organization has to do it takes the
organizational perspective
but subsequently other authors have had
the idea of taking the customer's
perspective turning it around and
changing the four ps
into four c's
first came koichi shimitsu in 1973
he put forward a formulation of
commodity or product
cost
or price
communication
or promotion
and channel
or place
later he expanded it to seven to include
corporation consumer and circumstances
then came robert lauterborne in 1990
he chose a similar set which he
optimized for niche marketing
his four c's were customer value or
product cost or price
communication
or promotion
and convenience
or place
and since i've identified positioning as
the most important of the missing of the
four ps
how would i frame that with a c
context
the marketing mix and in particular the
four ps are probably the single most
influential idea in modern marketing
we'll be looking at each of those four
ps in more detail in subsequent videos
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