Marketing mix (4 Ps)

Once the segmentation has been carried out, target markets selected and the positioning strategy developed, the marketer can begin to shape the marketing mix (or marketing program) around the needs, wants and motivations of the target audience. The traditional marketing mix refers to four broad levels of marketing decision, namely: product, price, promotion, and place. When implemented successfully, these activities should deliver a firm's products or services to target consumers in a cost efficient manner. The four core marketing activities include: product, price, place and promotion.

The marketing mix is the combination of all of the factors at the command of a marketing manager to satisfy the target market. The elements of the marketing mix are: Product – the item or service that is being offered, through its features and consumer benefits and how it is positioned within the marketplace whether it be a high or low quality product. Price, is a reference to the sacrifices made by a consumer to acquire a product and may include both monetary and psychological costs such as the combination of the ticket price, payment methods and other associated acquisition costs. Place refers to the way that a product physically reaches the consumer – where the service or item is sold; it also includes the distribution channels in which the company uses to get products or services to market. Finally, Promotion refers to marketing communications used to convey the offer to consumers and may include; personal selling, advertising, public and customer relations, sales promotion and any other activities to communicate with target markets.

The first reference to the term, the 'marketing mix' was claimed to be in around 1950 by Neil H. Borden. Borden first used the term, 'marketing mix' in an address given while he was the President of the American Marketing Association in the early 1950s. For instance, he is known to have used the term 'marketing mix' in his presidential address given to the American Marketing Association in 1953. However, at that stage, theorists and academics were not in agreement as to what elements made up the so-called marketing mix. Instead, they relied on checklists or lengthy classifications of factors that needed to be considered to understand consumer responses. It wasn't until 1960 when E. Jerome McCarthy published his now-classic work, Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach that the discipline accepted the 4 Ps as constituting the core elements of the marketing mix. In the 1980s, the 4 Ps was modified and expanded for use in the marketing of services, which were believed to possess unique characteristics which necessitated a different marketing program. The commonly accepted 7Ps of services marketing include: the original four Ps of product, price, place, promotion plus participants (people), physical evidence and process.

Productedit

A ‘Product’ is "something or anything that can be offered to the customers for attention, acquisition, or consumption and satisfies some want or need." (Riaz & Tanveer (n.d); Goi (2011) and Muala & Qurneh (2012)). The product is the primary means of demonstrating how a company differentiates itself from competitive market offerings. The differences can include quality, reputation, product benefits, product features, brand name or packaging.

Priceedit

Price provides customers with an objective measure of value.(Virvilaite et al., 2009; Nakhleh, 2012). Price can be an important signal of product quality. Prices can also attract specific market segments. For instance, premium pricing is used when a more affluent segment is the target, but a lower-priced strategy might be used when price-conscious consumers are the target. Price can also be used tactically, as a means to advertise, short stints of lower prices increase sales for a variety of reasons such as to shift product over-runs or out of season goods.

Placeedit

Place refers to the availability of the product to the targeted customers (Riaz & Tanveer, n.d). So a product or company doesn't have to be close to where its customer base is but instead they just have to make their product as available as possible. For maximum efficiency, distribution channels must identify where the target market are most likely to make purchases or access the product. Distribution (or place) may also need to consider the needs of special-interest segments such as the elderly or those who are confined to wheelchairs. For instance, businesses may need to provide ramps for wheelchair access or baby change rooms for mothers.

Promotionedit

Promotion refers to "the marketing communication used to make the offer known to potential customers and persuade them to investigate it further". May comprise elements such as: advertising, PR, direct marketing and sales promotion. Target marketing allows the marketer or sales team to customize their message to the targeted group of consumers in a focused manner. Research has shown that racial similarity, role congruence, labeling intensity of ethnic identification, shared knowledge and ethnic salience all promote positive effects on the target market. Research has generally shown that target marketing strategies are constructed from consumer inferences of similarities between some aspects of the advertisement (e.g., source pictured, language used, lifestyle represented) and characteristics of the consumer (e.g. reality or desire of having the represented style). Consumers are persuaded by the characteristics in the advertisement and those of the consumer.