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July 04, 2018

What is Marketing Mix? The 4 Ps of Marketing

July 04, 2018
Marketing can be defined as putting the right product in the right place, at the right price and at the right time. Looks like simple concept but a lot of hard work and research will be need to find out what customers want and identify where they spend money. Then you will need to figure out how to produce the product at a right price and finally you will have to represent your product at the right time. For this you will need to use marketing mix. The marketing mix is most commonly executed through the 4 Ps of marketing: product, price place and promotion. They interact significantly with another.


4 Ps of marketing


4 Ps of Marketing

In this article we will learn the 4 Ps of marketing to develop a successful marketing strategy. They are illustrated below in detail.

Product

It is one of the critical decisions for marketers to launched the right product. The main objective of the marketers to sell a product which fulfill their target customer’s needs and wants. The product may be goods and services. Goods are tangible which can be touched or seen, like mobile phones, books, cars. Inversely, services are intangible like education, traveling, hoteling.  Every product has a life cycle and to be successful it is vital for marketers to understand the life cycle of a product and plan for the different stages of it. Furthermore, it is essential for marketers to identify the potential customers of the product.
Most of the sales persons try to obtain feedback from their regular customers in order to assess how the product perform. The product is the crucial part of the marketing mix because without the product there would be no place for marketing.

Price

Price is the amount of money paid for buying goods and services. Price is determined according to demand and supply. Price of the product greatly affects the entire marketing strategy, sales, demand and profit margins. The price should be reasonable. It should not be very low that producer incurs losses. Conversely, it should not be very high that consumers cannot afford it. In addition, while determining the price for a product, it is essential to examine the competitors pricing and price accordingly.  It is also important to know the purchasing power of the consumers while determining the price. There can be several other types of pricing strategies they should also be considered.

Place

Place is another important part of marketing mix. Place refers to the distribution channels of a product. Through channels of distribution goods move from manufacturers to consumers. They include wholesalers, retailers, brokers, agents and distributors. The channels of distribution can be categorized as under:

1. Direct Channel

2. Indirect channel

Direct channel: In this channel there is no middleman. The producers and consumers have direct link as shown below.

Producer ----------> Consumer

Indirect channel: In this channel there is one or more middlemen between producer and consumer as shown below.

Producer ----------> Retailer ----------> Consumer

Producer ----------> Wholesaler ----------> Retailer ----------> Consumer

Producer ----------> Distributer ----------> Wholesaler ----------> Retailer ----------> Consumer


Promotion

Promotion is the method of communication by which information is provided about product. The target group needs to be made aware of the product through promotion. Promotion may be in the form of advertising, sales promotion, public relations and personal selling.

Advertising: It is a marketing strategy involving paying for space to promote a product or service. Advertisers use every possible media to get reach the information about product to consumers. Means of advertisement includes TV, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines, posters, pamphlets and many more.

Sales Promotion: Sales promotion refers to several communication activities that persuade a customer to buy a product or service. To welcome, to thank, to congratulate or to show sympathy for customers are the examples of sales promotion.

Public relations: Public relation is all about maintaining good relationship with customers, consumers, employees, shareholders, community members and other groups of the society in order to establish good market image.

Personal selling: It is a promotional method in which salesperson attempts to persuade a potential customer to make a purchase. The objective of personal selling is to inform and encourage the potential customer to buy or at least trial the product.
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