The marketing mix is a business tool used in marketing and by marketers. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand’s offer, and is often associated with the four P’s: price; product, promotion, and place. In service marketing, however, the four Ps are expanded to the seven P’s or Seven P’s to address the different nature of services.
In the 1990s, the concept of four C’s was introduced as a more customer-driven replacement of four P’s. There are two theories based on four C’s: Lauterborn’s four C’s (consumer, cost, communication, convenience), and Shimizu’s four Cs (commodity, cost, communication, channel).
“Marketing mix is a set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market”.
The marketing mix and the 4Ps of marketing are often used as synonyms for each other. In fact, they are not necessarily the same thing.
“Marketing mix” is a general phrase used to describe the different kinds of choices organizations have to make in the whole process of bringing a product or service to market. The 4Ps is one way – probably the best-known way – of defining the marketing mix, and was first expressed in 1960 by E J McCarthy.
The 4Ps are:
- Product (or Service).
- Place.
- Price.
- Promotion.
A good way to understand the 4Ps is by the questions that you need to ask to define your marketing mix. Here are some questions that will help you understand and define each of the four elements:
Product/Service
- What does the customer want from the product/service? What needs does it satisfy?
- What features does it have to meet these needs?
- Are there any features you’ve missed out?
- Are you including costly features that the customer won’t actually use?
- How and where will the customer use it?
- What does it look like? How will customers experience it?
- What size(s), color(s), and so on, should it be?
- What is it to be called?
- How is it branded?
- How is it differentiated versus your competitors?
- What are the most it can cost to provide, and still be sold sufficiently profitably?
Place
- Where do buyers look for your product or service?
- If they look in a store, what kind? A specialist boutique or in a supermarket, or both? Or online? Or direct, via a catalog?
- How can you access the right distribution channels?
- Do you need to use a sales force? Or attend trade fairs? Or make online submissions? Or send samples to catalog companies?
- What do your competitors do, and how can you learn from that and/or differentiate?
Price
- What is the value of the product or service to the buyer?
- Are there established price points for products or services in this area?
- Is the customer price sensitive? Will a small decrease in price gain you extra market share? Or will a small increase be indiscernible, and so gain you extra profit margin?
- What discounts should be offered to trade customers, or to other specific segments of your market?
- How will your price compare with your competitors?
Promotion
- Where and when can you get across your marketing messages to your target market?
- Will you reach your audience by advertising in the press, or on TV, or radio, or on billboards? By using direct marketing mailshot? Through PR? On the Internet?
- When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? Are there any wider environmental issues that suggest or dictate the timing of your market launch, or the timing of subsequent promotions?
- How do your competitors do their promotions? And how does that influence your choice of promotional activity?
The 4Ps of marketing is just one of many lists that have been developed over the years. And, whilst the questions we have listed above are key, they are just a subset of the detailed probing that may be required to optimize your marketing mix.
Amongst the other models that have been developed over the years is Boom and Bitner’s 7Ps, sometimes called the extended marketing mix, which includes the first 4Ps, plus people, processes and physical layout decisions.
Another approach is Lauterborn’s 4Cs, which presents the elements of the marketing mix from the buyer’s, rather than the seller’s, perspective. It is made up of Customer needs and wants (the equivalent of product), Cost (price), Convenience (place) and Communication (promotion). In this article, we focus on the 4Ps model as it is the well-recognized, and contains the core elements of a good marketing mix.
