What Are The 4 Ps Of Marketing And Why You Should Care
You may have heard or read about the 4 Ps at some point in your life. They are the cornerstone of most marketing strategies that might seem simple to grasp but have a lot more depth than you might think.
In this article, we’re going to do a deep dive on the 4 Ps of marketing. We’ll talk about the importance of each pillar and why you should care about each one.
So let’s dive in and demonstrate how vital the 4 Ps of marketing can be for your business no matter the size.
What Are The 4 Ps of Marketing?
The 4 Ps of marketing or marketing mix, as it’s sometimes referred to, is a concept that encapsulates the four pillars of any marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a traditional strategy or a modern one.
The four pillars explain what a consumer might want from your company, how they see your company and product, how your brand differentiates itself from the competition, and how it engages with its customers.
This concept has been around for decades, and while the explanations might have changed in order to keep up with new marketing strategies, the 4 Ps of marketing are still there as a foundation for any good strategy.
So what are these 4 Ps of marketing we keep on mentioning? We’ll explain.
These are the 4 pillars you should always consider when creating a product or service for your company. While they are technically very simple concepts, the hard part of the 4 Ps of marketing is how to successfully integrate each concept into your brand to boost your sales.
The 4 pillars was an idea made popular by Neil Borden, a twentieth-century advertising professor from Harvard. He demonstrated how companies of any shape and size could use specific advertising tactics to improve their sales overall.
While the idea was very well thought out at the time, E. Jerome McCarthy, a marketing professor and author, read it and decided to refine the concepts in a more detailed way. This led him to write a book called “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach,” which explained the concepts and made them easier to understand by using the 4 Ps method.
It’s crazy to think that a marketing strategy that has been around for decades is still being used now. But when you think about what the pillars represent, you can clearly see how vital they are for any business looking to improve its sales.
If you want to use these concepts in your company, you need to understand how you can position your brand in a way where it stands out and is unique from the rest of your competition.
When trying to apply the 4 Ps of marketing, the points you should have in mind at all times are your product, your competition, and your digital presence. Remember that your goal with this marketing strategy is to promote your product in a way that increases your overall sales by considering how your customer would react to the product itself.
While it seems simple and intuitive to incorporate this marketing strategy into your business, it’s a bit more complicated than it seems. This is why we decided to explain each pillar in-depth and give you a clear example of each one. This way you can have a better picture of what they are and what you’d need to do.
Product
The first step you need to take is to think about what you’re really selling. Is it a product or a service? Is it subscription-based, a physical product, or an hourly service? Or, is it something else entirely?
The next step is to think of how your product looks and what it offers to customers. How does it look (think about the packaging as well as if it’s a physical product)? Does it solve any problem a customer has? Is it a unique problem or an issue that is a lot more common? How does your product stand out when compared to your competition?
In order for you to start marketing any product or service, you must know the ins and outs. You need to understand why you created this product or service and who would benefit from buying it.
Let’s share an example to help you understand this concept a bit better.
We’re a catering service for big companies and we’re adding a new 100-meal option for our customers.
What is it??It’s a healthy and convenient food service delivered straight to your worker’s desks that helps them stay at the company and avoid coming in late after lunch. The food balance and choices are meant to improve focus while providing employees with energy.
Who is it for??Business owners who want their workers to stay at the office and eat food that helps them work better and get more done.
What are its main features??Our catering service offers full customizability of every single meal and can be changed on a day-to-day basis. We also change our menu every week so your workers are always in for a surprise. Finally, we offer options for a number of dietary restrictions.
Does it solve any issues??Our service is designed to help workers feel great and focused after eating, which in turn results in overall productivity.
As you can see, the example explained what the catering company was offering with the new service and who they were looking to sell to.
Price
This one is simple enough. You need to know how much you’re willing to charge your customers for your product or service while being able to make a profit out of it.
You need to take into consideration how much your competition is selling their products or services for. This way you choose whether you want your product to be considered a luxury item by raising the price. You can also lower it and make it more accessible for people.
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While understanding the price pillar is easy, finding the right price for your product or service isn’t always. Being perceived as a luxury company brings a whole different demographic to your business when compared to having a lower price than your competitors.
You have to work this out while thinking of your target persona and what type of price they would be willing to pay for your product or service.
This is a pillar that you need to pay careful attention to because it is a determining factor in how your business is seen. What kind of clientele do you want to attract?
Place
Product placement has changed a lot throughout the years. While this pillar of the 4 Ps of marketing is still relevant to our strategies, there are now a lot more locations to place a product or service.
If you compare all the spots where we could place a product or service right now in comparison to decades ago, you can start to understand why placement is so vital in the 2020s.
While yes, product placement in stores and displays is good, we are living in a digital era where people generally prefer to buy online and avoid the hassle of going to a store. This is why knowing where to place your product is so crucial.
Product or service placement on television used to be the main driving factor a decade ago when more people watched TV on a daily basis. Now, it’s all about social media and carefully placed Google ads.
Now, just like how you place ads on billboards, you have to think strategically when placing your product or service on social media. Why? Because you need it to be in a platform where your target demographic is mostly located.
Let’s say you’re selling a video game controller for Twitch streamers and decide to promote it on LinkedIn. Do you think it would be relevant to the platform and its user base? Probably not.
What if you put that same product on TikTok and Instagram? It would most likely do a hundred times better since the demographic of people using those platforms would probably fit your target persona a lot better.
While product placement might not seem like a big deal, it can actually make or break your product strategy.
Let’s put it this way. Your product could be amazing and the best one in the industry. But if people who could be interested in it don’t see it, then it’s still a marketing failure.
Good product or service placement on social media goes a long way and will help you achieve yet another of the 4 Ps of marketing.
Promotion
This is the last pillar in the 4 Ps of marketing that you should be paying attention to. You definitely can’t start working on this one before the other three are done.
While decades ago placement and promotion were two separate pillars, in modern marketing they are as close as ever. This is because social media platforms and google ads cover both placement and promotion.
All of this being said, the core goal of the promotion pillar is to generate the sales you’re looking to get with your product.
Once again, you have to understand your target persona and think of a few things when working on your promotions.
First, you need to find the places online where they are most likely to be. This helps you know where to promote your offerings. This is essential for this last pillar.
You also have to check if your competitors are doing any sort of promotions of their own. If so, where are they doing it?
It’s also vital for you to know how to promote your product or service. You need a good message to send your target persona and get them hooked.
Your product or service can be miles ahead of your competition. If you don’t know how to promote it well, then it doesn’t matter, does it?
Conclusion
So we just went through the 4 Ps of marketing and explained each of them to you. But, to make sure you completely grasped each one, let’s review them together.
The 4 Ps of marketing are divided into 4 pillars and each of them covers a specific section of your product or service.
These four pillars are:
By knowing the 4 Ps of marketing, you can create a marketing strategy for a specific product or service in a clearer way.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section down below and we’ll get to you as soon as we can!