Marketing and the Four Ps Model

There are four elements of marketing: product, price, promotion and place. The experts in the field call it, in short, ‘The Four Ps’.

The Four Ps Model

1. Product: Products are anything that a customer purchases, whether it is an object or an amenity. It is crucial to identify what you are selling and to make buyers understand why they require the item in question.
2. Price: Price is an expression of the value of the goods or service. Deciding on the sales price is fundamental to profiting in business. Price is determined by the intersection of the supply and demand curves as this highlights the value warranted by both suppliers and consumers. Price affects profit margins, supply, demand and marketing strategy. It changes depending on the competition in the market and the elasticity (how much the change in price affects the demand).
3. Promotion: Promotion describes the process of using marketing tools to share information with consumers and promoting the brand by selling a product’s unique points. Techniques include advertising via mass media, social media campaigns, email marketing crusades, search engine priority (paying the search engine providers to put your product at the top of a search), broadcasting promotional films, public relations, etc. Other, ‘below the line’, methods involve distributors and various partners advocating a commodity in exchange for royalty deals and other privileges.
4. Place: The location of where the product/service is available often determins its success. A location can be a specific geographic place or a virtual one and can hugely affect the product sales. Other factors, such as shelf space, online presence and in-store product distribution impacts its sales as well.

Using the Four Ps Model in Marketing:

A marketing plan involves these four elements in varying proportions. To figure out the specifics of each element, these are some of the questions to consider:

1. Why is there a necessity for this amenity/product?
2. How does this product fulfil this requirement?
3. What is your demographic for the product?
4. How price competitive is the product?
5. Where can purchasers buy merchandise or service?
6. What sets this product apart from competitors?
7. How to maintain and create customer-supplier relations?

Omnichannel

Omnichannels are about the explosion of a multiplicity of channels via which products can be sold. Online shoppers, as well as brick-and-mortar consumers alike, are offered equal opportunities to satisfy their needs. Retailers are creating shopping experiences to target both kinds of customers: they have online and physical stores.

July 12th, 2017