A successful marketing strategy is often critical to the health and long term prospect of your business and that is why the four P’s of marketing is often used as a framework for creating a program that delivers results.
In a nutshell, 4P marketing describes factors that you can use to define a marketing blueprint and as the name suggests, it is a system that helps you identify what you need to do in terms of your product, the price you charge, how to promote it, and where it’s place is in the market.
Breaking down the 4P’s
The concept of the 4P’s is not a new idea and has been in use for more than 50 years, evolving in line with market changes and sentiment.
The framework remains the same, and it is a system that is designed to get you to address these key elements of your marketing plan.
Here is a look at the four principles in greater detail.
Product
A cornerstone of your marketing game plan will be about having a product that is capable of generating a good level of customer demand if it is sold to them correctly.
Your aim should be to fully understand what it is that appeals about your product or service and base your message around these specific advantages.
Price
The idea behind pricing as one of the 4P’s is to get you to evaluate the actual as well as the perceived value of your product.
Getting your pricing right is not just about finding a price level that customers are comfortable with but also about doing the research to establish where your product sits in the marketplace as this will help you to determine if you need to adopt a discounting strategy.
Place
When it comes to place, the idea is to try and confirm where you should aim to sell your product and clarify the typical profile of the consumer most likely to buy what you are offering.
Identifying your target market is essential to maximizing your marketing efficiency.
Promotion
Although it could be argued that promotion and placement are inextricably intertwined the principles of the 4P’s are clear and it often pays to apply a specific focus to how you intend to promote your product.
Your primary aim when it comes to promoting a product is to accentuate to customers the advantages of buying your product and to fulfill a perceived need with your marketing message.
A good way of looking at the 4P’s and why it is still as highly relevant today as it was when the idea was first aired is that it is a great marketing mix and a system that really helps you to gain a more in-depth understanding of what it is that your product or service has to offer.
Once you have your 4P’s clearly defined you will be in a much stronger position to put a viable marketing plan into action.
