The Marketing Mix - The 4 P'S
The marketing promotion mix is the use of the 4 P's. These are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. This system first appeared in 1949 and
was developed by Philip Kotler. This is a tried and true system that is the basis for many companies successful marketing campaigns.
PRODUCT This includes the physical product or service that your company is offering to the consumer. You are in complete control of the
product since it is what you are selling.
PRICE This second part of the marketing promotion mix is how much you are selling your product or service for. This can include the total cost
of ownership as well. Included in price is installation (if needed), continued support, warranty, and anything else that is needed to support
your product or service.
PLACE This is where you can purchase your product or service. In the marketing mix, this is commonly called the distribution channel. This is
the physical or online store where you are selling your product or service to the consumer.
PROMOTION Promotion covers all of the different ways you choose to communicate your business to the consumers. TV, radio, internet ads,
coupons, etc.. Any physical or online way of showing your business to a customer will fall under promotion.
The main force of the marketing promotion mix is optimizing these 4 P's and utilizing them in your business to maximum effect. As you get
familiar with what is expected from your product or service, you can tailor the marketing mix to serve your interests better. Changing price,
adding sales locations, increasing or changing ads can all help you increase overall consumer response to your product or service.
These 4 P's should all be geared directly at your target market of consumers and should all be directly related to each other. If you are
targeting lower-class consumers, you want to keep a low price point and make sure to advertise on sites that a low-class consumer would visit.
Odds are that if you are targeting low-class, it would be an extreme waste of resources and money advertising on sites that cater to upper-class.
Golf sites, expensive product areas, and fine dining areas would be very costly to advertise with and you would not get much feedback.
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