4Ps In Marketing

4Ps In Marketing
What Are the 4 Ps of Marketing?
The four Ps are the key considerations that must be thoughtfully considered and wisely implemented
in order to successfully market a product or service. They are product, price, place, and promotion.
The four Ps are often referred to as the marketing mix. They encompass a range of factors that are
considered when marketing a product, including what consumers want, how the product or service
meets or fails to meet those wants, how the product or service is perceived in the world, how it
stands out from the competition, and how the company that produces it interacts with its
customers.
These Are the 4 Ps of Marketing
1. Product
Creating a marketing campaign starts with an understanding of the product itself. Who needs it, and
why? What does it do that no competitor's product can do? Perhaps it's a new thing altogether and
is so compelling in its design or function that consumers will have to have it when they see it.
The job of the marketer is to define the product and its qualities and introduce it to the consumer.
Defining the product also is key to its distribution. Marketers need to understand the life cycle of a
product, and business executives need to have a plan for dealing with products at every stage of the
life cycle.
The type of product also dictates in part how much it will cost, where it should be placed, and how it
should be promoted.
Many of the most successful products have been the first in their category. For example, Apple was
the first to create a touch screen smart phone that could play music, browse the Internet, and make
phone calls. Apple reported total sales of the iPhone to be $71.6 billion in Q1 2022.3 In 2021, Apple
hit the milestone of 2 billion iPhones sold.4
2. Price
Price is the amount that consumers will be willing to pay for a product. Marketers must link the price
to the product's real and perceived value, while also considering supply costs, seasonal discounts,
competitors' prices, and retail markup.
In some cases, business decision-makers may raise the price of a product to give it the appearance of
luxury or exclusivity. Or, they may lower the price so more consumers will try it.
Marketers also need to determine when and if discounting is appropriate. A discount can draw in
more customers, but it can also give the impression that the product is less desirable than it was.
UNIQLO, headquartered in Japan, is a global manufacturer of casual wear. Like its competitors Gap
and Zara, UNIQLO creates low-priced, fashion-forward garments for younger buyers.
What makes UNIQLO unique is that its products are innovative and high-quality. It accomplishes this
by purchasing fabric in large volumes, continually seeking the highest-quality and lowest-cost
materials in the world. The company also directly negotiates with its manufacturers and has built
strategic partnerships with innovative Japanese manufacturers.

UNIQLO also outsources its production to partner factories. That gives it the flexibility to change
production partners as its needs change.
Finally, the company employs a team of skilled textile artisans that it sends to its partner factories all
over the world for quality control. Production managers visit factories once a week to resolve quality
problems.5
3. Place
Place is the consideration of where the product should be available, in brick-and-mortar stores and
online, and how it will be displayed.
The decision is key: The makers of a luxury cosmetic product would want to be displayed in Sephora
and Neiman Marcus, not in Walmart or Family Dollar. The goal of business executives is always to
get their products in front of the consumers who are the most likely to buy them.
That means placing a product only in certain stores and getting it displayed to the best advantage.
The term placement also refers to advertising the product in the right media to get the attention of
consumers.
For example, the 1995 movie
GoldenEye was the 17th installment in the James Bond movie
franchise and the first that did not feature an Aston Martin car. Instead, Bond actor Pierce Brosnan
got into a BMW Z3. Although the Z3 was not released until months after the film had left theaters,
BMW received 9,000 orders for the car the month after the movie opened.
4. Promotion
The goal of promotion is to communicate to consumers that they need this product and that it is
priced appropriately. Promotion encompasses advertising, public relations, and the overall media
strategy for introducing a product.
Marketers tend to tie promotion and placement elements together to reach their core audiences.
For example, In the digital age, the "place" and "promotion" factors are as much online as offline.
Specifically, where a product appears on a company's web page or social media, as well as which
types of search functions will trigger targeted ads for the product.
The Swedish vodka brand Absolut sold only 10,000 cases of its vodka in 1980. By 2000, the company
had sold 4.5 million cases, thanks in part to its iconic advertising campaign. The images in the
campaign featured the brand's signature bottle styled as a range of surreal images: a bottle with a
halo, a bottle made of stone, or a bottle in the shape of the trees standing on a ski slope. To date,
the Absolut campaign is one of the longest-running continuous campaigns of all time, from 1981 to
2005.6

STP in Marketing
Effective marketing involves getting the right message to the right people. That’s why STP marketing
is a tool marketers often use to ensure their messaging is directed at the right audience and
communicated in a way that entices them to heed a call to action.
So what does STP stand for in marketing? STP in marketing stands for segmentation, targeting, and
positioning. These three basic steps dictate how marketers can identify the right customers, serve
them the right messaging, and give them the information they need for successful targeting.
1. Segmentation: First, marketers use marketing analytics to create specific segments of a
target audience based on predetermined criteria. The marketing department could choose
to segment the audience based on demographics, geography, purchasing frequency, or even
by lifestyle characteristics like hobbies.
2. Targeting: Once you have divided your audience into different segments, you’ll assess those
segments. This is necessary in order to determine which segment would be the most
profitable to target based on the size of the segment, how willing this segment would be to
purchase your product, and how well you’ll be able to reach this segment of the audience
with marketing channels available to you.
3. Positioning: Finally, positioning involves creating bespoke messaging designed for the
segment you’ve chosen to target. This messaging should set your product or service apart
from your competitors and push your targeted segment to purchase. Once you’ve
determined the target segment, you can create just the right mixture of marketing activities
to turn them into customers.

4 Main Strategy of Marketing
1. Market Penetration Strategy
When a firm focuses on selling its current products to existing customers, it is pursuing a market
penetration strategy. The marketing activities that will dominate in this type of marketing plan are
those that emphasize increasing the loyalty of existing customers so that they are not vulnerable to
loss to competitors, attracting competitors’ customers, increasing the frequency of product use, and
converting nonusers into users.
Increasing awareness through marketing communications and increasing availability through
expanded distribution are common marketing activities in this type of plan. Identifying new use
occasions and new uses for a product may increase usage frequency or convert current nonusers
into users. For example, the advertising campaign for orange juice that has the tagline “It’s not just
for breakfast anymore” was an effort to expand usage. Price promotions might be used to encourage
competitors’ customers to try the firm’s product if there is reason to believe that such a trial will
result in repeat purchases. Loyalty programs can be very effective in retaining existing customers.
This strategy reduces risk by relying on what the firm already knows well—its existing products and
existing customers. It is also a strategy where investments in marketing should pay back more
quickly because the firm is building on an existing foundation of customer relationships and product
knowledge.
2. Market Development Strategy
The efforts to expand sales by selling current products in new markets are referred to as a market
development strategy. Such efforts may involve entering new geographic markets, such as
international markets. Creating product awareness and developing distribution channels are key
marketing activities. Some product modification may be required to better match the needs of the
local market. For example, as fast food restaurants have moved into international markets, they
have often changed their menus to better match the food preferences of customers in local
markets. Expanding into a new market with an existing product carries some risk because the new
market is not well known to the firm and the firm and its products are not well known in the market.
The return on marketing investments in such a strategy is likely to be longer than for a market
penetration strategy because of the time required to build awareness, distribution, and product trial.
3. Product Development Strategy
Creating new products to sell to existing customers, a product development strategy, is a common
marketing strategy among firms that can leverage their relationships with existing customers. For
example, American Express has been able to leverage its relationships with its credit card customers
to also sell travel-related services. Similarly, cable television companies have expanded their
offerings into Internet and telephone services. Research and development activities play a dominant
role in this strategy. The time required to develop and test new products may be long, but once a
product is developed, creating awareness, interest, and availability should be relatively rapid
because the firm already has a relationship with customers. A product development strategy is also
riskier than a market penetration strategy because the necessary product may not be possible to
develop, at least at a cost acceptable to customers, or the product developed does not match the
needs of customers.