What is the marketing mix or the 4Ps of marketing?

First, let’s go back several years to a time when this great phenomenon was almost unheard of. In 1960, E. Jerome McCarthy, professor of accounting at Michigan State University, introduced in his book “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach” the concept of the 4Ps of marketing and marketing mix.

What are the 4Ps of Marketing?

The 4Ps of marketing, also known as the marketing mix, are a set of tools that will help your company plan and develop a marketing strategy. These tools are: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Each of these P’s will help you create an effective and comprehensive plan to reach customers and increase your company’s sales.

How can I use the 4P?

Our goal is that you can implement this marketing mix in your marketing strategy by reading the information below, here we go!

Product: refers to the goods or services your company offers. It is important to consider aspects such as quality, design, features and competitive advantages of your product.

It should also consider how your product adapts to the needs and desires of your target audience. This is the most important element of the marketing strategy!

Price: this is the second P of the marketing mix and refers to the value your company assigns to the product, that is, the amount of money the customer must pay to acquire the product or service you are trying to sell.

Here you should consider aspects such as, production costs, competition and market expectations when you want to set the price of your product. Also, you should know how the price of your product relates to its positioning in the market.

Our recommendation is to conduct a market study with the objective of discovering the competitor’s selling price and to know what is the purchasing power of potential customers or calculate the net profit you want to obtain.

Place: refers to how your company distributes and sells the products. For example, you can sell the product or service through a physical store, an E-commerce or through a marketplace such as Mercado Libre, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

It is important to consider aspects such as distribution channels, logistics and relationships with suppliers when developing the distribution strategy.

Promotion: in this last P of the 4Ps of the marketing mix, all the promotion channels that will allow you to make your product or service known come into play.

Promotion refers to how your company will communicate with its target audience. Here, you can use traditional methods such as radio, television, billboards or more modern and digital methods, such as social networks, ads on websites, influencer marketing, and so on.

To define the channel, you should take into account where your target audience is, since, thanks to this, you will be able to increase the performance of your campaigns. Therefore, you should analyze what your buyer persona is like in order to choose the most appropriate channel.

To use the 4Ps in your company, it is important that you consider how each of these tools relates to the others and how they contribute to the achievement of your company’s objectives.

It is important that you conduct a regular evaluation of how you are performing in each of the 4Ps and if necessary, adjust your marketing strategy.

Why do we talk about the 7Ps nowadays?

As we have been talking about since the beginning, the 4Ps were introduced in 1960, in a completely different context than the one we are in today, since there is a great variety of products and services.

Therefore, within the original 4Ps, 3 more extras are included: people, physical evidence and processes. These were introduced in 1981 by Bernard H. Booms and Mery J. Bitner:

People: the people working within a team are integrally linked to the quality of the services. Therefore, an optimal and good selection, training or behavior is essential to offer a high quality service.

Physical evidence: what does this refer to? The location, brand color and advertising material are physical elements that will change the customer’s perception of your brand.

Processes: the optimization of manufacturing or work processes is a key factor in the world of marketing. Why? Because only in this way can you offer an experience or product that exceeds the expectations or needs of your customer.

Conclusion

The 4Ps are not something you can implement at the end of your strategy. To incorporate them effectively, they must be considered at every step of your marketing campaign.

From the initial stages of the organization to the launch of the campaign, the presence of the 4Ps of marketing should be evident and at the forefront of your company’s marketing strategy.