What Do the 4 Ps Mean?
The four Ps of marketing are the most important aspects of selling a product or service. They are a good or service’s product, pricing, location, and promotion. The four Ps, often known as the marketing mix, are influenced by both internal and external elements in the broader corporate environment, and they interact heavily.
Companies utilise the 4 Ps to figure out what their customers want from them, how their product or service fulfils or fails to satisfy those demands, how their product or service is viewed in the world, how they differentiate themselves from their competitors, and how they engage with their customers.
TAKEAWAYS IMPORTANT
The four Ps are the four most important things to consider when marketing a product or service to the general public.
The four Ps are the product (item or service), the price (what the customer pays), the place (where a product is advertised), and promotion (the advertising).
The four Ps notion has been around since the 1950s, and as the marketing business has changed, people, process, and physical evidence have all become key components of promoting a product.
Understanding the 4 Ps In the 1950s, Neil Borden popularised the concept of the marketing mix—and the concepts that became known as the four Ps. Borden was a Harvard University advertising professor. His 1964 article “The Concept of the Marketing Mix” highlighted how businesses may engage their customers through advertising methods. 1 Companies are still advertising their goods and services using the themes Borden introduced decades later.
Borden’s ideas were enormously significant in the corporate world when they were originally introduced, and they were developed and polished over time by other key people in the industry. E. Jerome McCarthy, a marketing professor at Michigan State University, expanded Borden’s concepts and coined the name “4 Ps,” which is still used today. McCarthy co-wrote “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach” in 1960, which popularised the 4 Ps concept.2
The marketing mix helped corporations account for the physical hurdles that impeded widespread product adoption when it was originally coined. The Internet has now aided businesses in achieving a higher level of integration between businesses and consumers, as well as removing some of these obstacles. People, process, and physical evidence are additions to the classic four Ps that are more relevant to today’s marketing trends.
How the Four Ps Work
Product
A product is a good or service that a business provides to its clients. A product should, in theory, satisfy an existing consumer demand. Alternatively, a product may be so attractive that consumers believe they need it, resulting in a new demand. Marketers must understand a product’s life cycle in order to be effective, and business executives must have a strategy for dealing with products at all stages of their life cycle. The sort of product also influences how much a company can charge, where it should be placed, and how it should be promoted in the marketplace.
Many of the most popular items were the first in their field. Apple, for example, was the first company to develop a touchscreen smartphone capable of playing music, browsing the Internet, and making phone calls. In Q1 2022, Apple announced total iPhone sales of $71.6 billion. 3 Apple will have sold two billion iPhones by the year 2021.
Price
The price of a product is the amount paid by customers. Marketers must link the pricing to the product’s actual and perceived worth, as well as supply costs, seasonal reductions, and rival prices. Business executives may boost the price to give the goods the illusion of being a luxury item in specific situations. They should also reduce the price so that more people can sample the product.
Marketers must also decide when and whether discounting is necessary. A discount may attract more customers, but it may also give the impression that the product is less unique or luxurious than it was when it was priced higher.
UNIQLO, based in Japan, is a multinational casual wear clothing manufacturer. UNIQLO, like its competitors—other well-known casual wear labels such as Gap and Zara—creates low-cost, everyday-wear clothing.
UNIQLO is distinguished by its innovative and high-quality products. It is able to do so by obtaining its fabric from its material manufacturing partners, securing stable, high-quality materials at a low cost by ordering in large quantities, and consistently seeking the highest-quality and lowest-priced material available. The company also negotiates directly with its suppliers and has formed strategic alliances with high-quality, innovative Japanese suppliers.
Because UNIQLO does not own its own factories, it has the freedom to shift production partners if the optimal production location changes over time. Finally, the company employs a staff of expert textile artisans who oversee quality control at its partner facilities around the world. In addition, once a week, production managers visit companies to handle quality issues.
Place
When a corporation makes location selections, it’s trying to figure out where they should sell a product and how to get it to the market. Business leaders’ ultimate goal is to bring their items in front of the customers who are most inclined to buy them.
This can relate to placing a product in certain stores, but it can also refer to placing a product on a specific store’s display. In some circumstances, placement can refer to placing a product in television broadcasts, films, or online sites in order to draw attention to it.
GoldenEye was the seventeenth instalment in the James Bond film franchise, released in 1995. It was the first Bond film without an Aston Martin automobile. Instead, British actor Pierce Brosnan boarded a BMW Z3. Despite the fact that the Z3 was not available until months after the film had left theatres, BMW received 9,000 orders for the car within a month of its debut.
Advertising, public relations, and promotional strategy are all examples of promotion. The purpose of product promotion is to show consumers why they need the product and why they should spend a given price for it.
Marketers frequently combine promotion and placement aspects in order to reach their target audiences. In the digital age, for example, the “location” and “promotion” aspects are as important online as they are out. Specifically, where a product appears on a company’s website or on social media, as well as what types of search functions activate relevant, targeted adverts for the product.
In 1980, the Swedish vodka brand Absolut only sold 10,000 cases of vodka. However, thanks in part to its renowned advertising campaign, the company had sold 4.5 million cases by 2000. The brand’s iconic bottle was fashioned as a variety of strange visuals in the campaign, including a bottle with a halo, a bottle formed of stone, and the outline of trees on a ski slope. From 1981 through 2005, this Absolut advertising campaign was one of the longest-running continuous marketing campaigns ever. 6
4 Ps of Marketing Frequently Asked Questions
What are the four Ps of marketing?
The four Ps of the marketing mix are product, pricing, promotion, and place. These are the most important aspects of marketing a product or service.
What are the four Ps of marketing, and what are some examples?
Place, pricing, product, and promotion are the four Ps of marketing. Companies may ensure they have a visible, in-demand product or service that is competitively priced and advertised to their customers by carefully integrating all of these marketing methods into a marketing mix.
Where and how consumers acquire your product is referred to as place. Consumers can purchase items and services in a variety of ways, including through a web browser, a smartphone app, retail locations, trade exhibits or events, marketplace channels like Amazon or Walmart, or through a sales professional.
The cost of your goods or service is referred to as the price. The price you set for your product is determined by your rivals, demand, manufacturing costs, and what consumers are prepared to pay. Companies must also think about their pricing methods, such as whether to use one-time purchases or subscription arrangements.
The goods or services that your company offers to your target market are referred to as “products.” Depending on the type of firm and what they perform, the product they supply can differ greatly. McDonald’s, for example, delivers reliable fast food, such as hamburgers, french fries, and chicken dishes, whereas Salesforce supplies organisations with CRM software and marketing automation tools.
The term “promotion” refers to targeted advertising that reaches a company’s target market. To reach its audience at the appropriate location and at the right time, a company might utilise an Instagram campaign, a product-focused PR effort, or an email campaign.
How do you apply the four Ps of marketing to your business?
When establishing a new company venture, analysing an existing product, or trying to optimise your sales with your target audience, the 4Ps model might be useful. You can also use it to put your present marketing plan to the test.
