Being unaware of the 4 ps of marketing will put you at a disadvantage. It is essential that you learn these ps so you can stay ahead of the competition.
While methods and tools continue to change as technology advances, the marketing mix is still relevant. Continue reading this article to learn how using this information can help boost your business.
The Basics of the 4 Ps of Marketing
The 4 Ps are as follows: product, price, place and promotion. Keep reading as we explain the basics of the 4 ps.
Product
Your product is anything that is intended to solve a customer’s problem. Whether you’re selling a physical product, a service, an education course or some other deliverable — this is your product.
When you’re looking at your product, you can’t see it as just a product. You have to know and be confident in why your product is the best option for your client. You need to know why your product is different than the other products that are offered by your competition.
With the continuing advancements of the internet, it is important to know where you stand and how you can use the internet to further your message.
Price
Now that you have the product, you have to figure out where the price will fall. You can’t take a guess at how much you should charge for your product. You need to know how much your target audience is willing to pay.
Keep in mind, we just said — how much your target audience is willing to pay. It doesn’t matter how much everyone is willing to pay. Oftentimes, companies make the mistake of undervaluing their product because the average person wouldn’t pay for it.
Price can even be one of your brand tenets. You may declare that your product is superior so it is worth x amount of money. Or you may declare that you want your product to be affordable for everyone so you work to bring costs lower and prices lower.
Place
20 years ago, place didn’t have as many options. Now with the advancements of the internet, the sky is the limit.
You need to determine where you’re going to offer the product for sale. You could have your own online ecommerce store, you may choose to sell on eBay, Amazon or another similar website.
As you’re determining where to offer your product, your goal should be to make it as easy for your target audience to access it as possible. Almost everyone sees the importance of offering an online ordering option but the way the product is fulfilled could be very different from one company to the next.
Promotion
You also need to figure out where you need to advertise the product so that your target audience knows about it.
Is your target audience online? The answer to this question is almost always yes, but in some cases, you may opt for an offline advertising and sales campaign. If your target audience is someone who is elderly and does not access the internet often then you might opt for late night infomercial advertising instead.
Even if you’re promoting online, you shouldn’t forget about in-person events, television ads and other means of getting the word out. Depending on your product, these methods of getting the word out may be more effective.
Using the 4 Ps to Market Your Business
Whether your business is selling information online or if you have a physical product you need to ship, the 4 ps still apply to you and your business. Here is some helpful guidance on how you can use this information to grow your business.
Asses Your Current Product
When companies understand the whole marketing process, it often requires going back to the drawing board. If there are flaws in the product, they need to be addressed before a whole system is built around the current offering.
If the packaging, messaging or the actual product need to be spruced up or re-worked, do it before you put a whole marketing strategy together.
Revisit Your Target Market
If you’ve been marketing your product for a while now, you likely have a surplus of data. While you might have started out believing that your product was a solution for 25-year-old women with no kids, you might be surprised to find that the biggest buyers for your product are 45-year-old women with teens.
Do you stick with your initial target audience? No — you go with the market that is actually buying and you market to the group that is buying.
Where Are Your Sales Coming From?
Do you have a failing physical storefront, but you haven’t decided to let it go yet? If most of your buyers are coming from the internet, there is no reason to continue paying for an under-performing store that is costing your business money.
How Are Your Customers Finding You?
You may be testing 3-4 different methods of advertising. Look at the information you’ve gathered and see which method of promotion is bringing in the most people.
If there is a clear winner, you may wish to discard one or all of the other methods of promotion to focus on the method that is working.
Hungry for More Online Marketing Knowledge?
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