An Overview of Marketing Strategies: 4Ps, STP, and EPRG Frameworks

This report provides a comprehensive overview of key marketing strategies and frameworks. It begins with an explanation of the 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion), detailing how each element contributes to a successful marketing campaign. The report then explores the STP marketing approach, which includes segmentation, targeting, and positioning, and explains how marketers use these steps to reach the right audience with the right message. The report also delves into the four main marketing strategies: market penetration, market development, product development, and diversification, providing examples and highlighting the benefits and risks associated with each. Finally, the report introduces the EPRG framework (Ethnocentric, Polycentric, Regiocentric, and Geocentric) as a tool for understanding international management orientations in business. The report aims to provide a thorough understanding of these fundamental marketing concepts and strategies.

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.

4. Diversification Strategy
A diversification strategy involves taking new products into new markets. This is really the creation
of a completely new business. This is the riskiest of strategies and the strategy likely to require the
most patience in waiting for a return on investment.
EPRG of Marketing
What is the EPRG Framework?
EPRG stand for Ethnocentric, Polycentric, Regiocentric, and Geocentric. It is a framework created
by Howard V Perlmuter and Wind and Douglas in 1969.
It is designed to be used in an internationalization process of businesses and mainly addresses how
companies view international management orientations. According to the EPRG Framework (or the
EPRG Model), there are four management approaches that an organization can take to get more
involved in international business substantially.
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The EPRG Framework suggests that companies must decide which approach is most suitable for
achieving successful results in countries abroad.
For this reason, the EPRG Framework can be a useful tool to utilize if a company does not know yet
how to manage business activities between companies in the local country and a host country. The
EPRG Framework is additionally useful for making strategic decisions.
In the following section of this article, the four approaches of the EPRG Framework (Ethnocentric,
Polycentric, Regiocentric, and Geocentric) are described more in detail.

EPRG Framework approaches
Ethnocentric
In this approach of the EPRG Framework, the company in a local country that wants to do business
overseas does not put in much effort to do research abroad about the host country’s market.
Instead, most of the market research is executed in the headquarters in the local country.
With this approach, the company seeks for markets abroad that share the same characteristics as
the local market so that the marketing strategy does not have to be adapted. More specifically, the
ethnocentric approach uses the same marketing strategies that are created by local personnel and
further utilized multiple countries.
It is many times possible that companies that utilize this approach believe that local products should
not be adapted to the local need of countries abroad because the products are already of high
quality. Another reason could be that a specific product is sold in large volume in the local market,
and for this reason, it is believed it will do the same in other markets abroad.
The ethnocentric approach of the EPRG Framework has benefits but also downsides. At first, the
company saves a lot of operational costs that can be invested elsewhere. But the downside is that
the company does not build up new knowledge about the market abroad, which could substantially
increase sales volume if products and strategies would be adopted to the needs of the host country.
Polycentric

In the polycentric approach of the EPRG Framework is the opposite of the ethnocentric approach. A
company that utilizes this approach carefully consider different markets abroad to identify host
countries that could potentially offer the most benefits.
It means that if a company has a local headquarter and a separate office overseas in a host country
that manages the operations in that or more countries, the marketing strategies are locally created
and implemented based on the local needs.
Businesses that utilize the polycentric approach of the EPRG Framework strongly believe that every
market has its differences. For this reason, these types of companies implement different marketing
strategies for each market.
In the polycentric approach, it is therefore easier to make strategic decisions based on
current cultural differences and political differences. Companies that use this approach can also
more easily adapt to changes in the market because of their decentralized decision-making
authorities.
The downside is that the local headquarter has less control over its operations abroad. As long as the
business operations in the host country demonstrate to be successful, this might not be a problem.
But if the business operations overseas show to be not too profitable and result in losses, it is more
difficult for the local company to minimize those losses.
However, companies that use this approach learn by doing. For this reason, a learning effect occurs,
and new knowledge is an intellectual asset of the company.
If a company is the first to enter a market or offer an unfamiliar product, the local company has first-
mover advantages. It could have the best location in a host country to operate the business, and this
could additionally substantially increase profit margins.
Regiocentric
In a regiocentric approach of the EPRG Framework, businesses create and implement
internationalization strategies for specific regions. Companies that utilize this type of approach use
this for the area in which the local business is operated.
It can also be that an organization utilizes two kinds of approaches. An organization can use a
regiocentric approach for the business in the region in which it operates. And the same organization
can use a polycentric or ethnocentric approach to do business in countries outside the region.
Businesses that use a regiocentric approach of the EPRG Framework many times believe that the
markets in the region share the same characteristics of the market in the home country.
It is still challenging to determine countries in one region that share the same characteristics.
Consider, for example; some companies use this approach for NAFTA countries, which include the
United States, Canada, and Mexico.
All countries are in the same region but still have some different characteristics. The same implies for
the Benelux, which include Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The countries are in the same
region, but Belgium has different market characteristic than the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The reason why companies use this approach to group countries into for example NAFTA and
Benelux. is depending on the type of industry and product or service. Every organization has its way
of internationalization.

Geocentric
A geocentric approach of the EPRG Framework means that a business strongly believes that it is
possible to utilize one type of strategy for all countries, regardless of the cultural differences.
However, companies that use this approach attempt to create products or offer services in a way
that best suit national and international customers. This means that instead of believing that their
product or service is excellent and that it will sell in other markets, like in the ethnocentric approach,
these organization proactively adapt their products and services that best meet the global needs.
Companies sometimes prefer this type of strategy of the EPRG Framework because it does not
involve many adoptions, which minimizes operational costs. These companies use one strategy to
sell a product or service, and could for this reason, achieve economies of scale.
Organizations that have a geocentric approach are many times considered as key international
businesses because these companies utilize a combination of the polycentric and ethnocentric
approaches.
It means that organizations with a geocentric approach of the EPRG Framework can identify similar
cultural characteristic, and they can convert the different cultural characteristics into mutual
characteristics.

Difference between Customer Service and Selling
Top 8 Difference Between Selling and Marketing
Though the terms marketing and selling sound familiar, however, there is a fine line that
differentiates between these two concepts, which includes activities, process, outlook, and
management etc.
In simple words, selling transforms the goods into money, but marketing is the method of serving
and satisfying customer needs.
The marketing process includes the planning of a product’s and service’s price, promotion and
distribution. This article will help you understand all the important points that distinguish the two
words.
Also read: Factors affecting the demand
What is Selling?
The selling theory believes that if companies and customers are dropped and detached, then the
customers are not going to purchase enough commodities produced by the enterprise.
The notion can be employed argumentatively, in the case of commodities that are not solicited, i.e.
the commodities which the consumer doesn’t think of buying and when the enterprise is functioning
at more than 100% capacity, the company intends at selling what they manufacture, but not what
the market requires.
In the sales process, a salesperson sells whatever products the production department has
produced. The sales method is aggressive, and customer’s genuine needs and satisfaction is taken
for granted.
Understand the difference between Customer and Consumer
What is Marketing?

The marketing theory is a business plan, which affirms that the enterprise’s profit lies in growing
more efficient than the opponents, in manufacturing, producing and imparting exceptional
consumer value to the target marketplace.
Marketing is a comprehensive and important activity of a company. The task generally comprises
recognising consumer needs, meeting that need and ends in customer’s feedback.
In between, activities such as production, packaging, pricing, promotion, distribution and then the
selling will take place. Consumer needs are of high priority and act as a driving force behind all these
actions. Their main focus is a long run of business ending up with profits.
It depends upon 4 elements, i.e. integrated marketing, target market, profitability customer and
needs. The idea starts with the particular market, emphasises consumer requirements, regulates
activities that impact consumers and draws gain by serving consumers.
Read More: What is the planning process of marketing?
This article is a ready reckoner for all the students to learn the difference between Selling and
Marketing.
Top 8 Difference Between Selling and Marketing
Selling Marketing
Definition
The selling theory believes that if companies and customers
are dropped detached, then the customers are not going to
purchase enough commodities produced by the enterprise.
The notion can be employed argumentatively, in the case of
commodities that are not solicited.
The marketing theory is a business plan, which
affirms that the enterprise’s profit lies in growing
more efficient than the opponents, in
manufacturing, producing and imparting
exceptional consumer value to the target
marketplace.
Related to
Constraining customer’s perception of commodities and
services.
Leading commodities and services towards the
consumer’s perception.

Beginning point
Factory Marketplace
Concentrates on
Product Consumer needs
Perspective
Inside out Outside in
Business Planning
Short term Long term
Orientation
Volume Profit
Cost Price
Cost of Production Market ascertained
What is the difference between Marketing and Promotion?
• Marketing consists of many activities and promotion is just a part of marketing.
• Marketing can exist without the help of promotion, but promotion cannot exist independently.

• Promotion is all about creating a positive public awareness about the product, and it involves
strategies like advertisement and publicity.
• Marketing starts from identifying consumer needs and continues from production and selling, to
finally providing after sale service to customers.
• Advancement of a product or service is at the focus of promotion while identification and
satisfaction of customer needs is at the focus of marketing.
What Is Customer Service?
Customer service is the direct one-on-one interaction between a consumer making a purchase and a
representative of the company that is selling it. Most retailers see this direct interaction as a critical
factor in ensuring buyer satisfaction and encouraging repeat business.
Even today, when much of customer care is handled by automated self-service systems, the option
to speak to a human being is seen as necessary to most businesses. It is a key aspect of servant-
leadership.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
 Customer service is the interaction between the buyer of a product and the company that
sells it.
 Good customer service is critical to business success, ensuring brand loyalty one customer at
a time.
 Recent innovations have focused on automating customer service systems but the human
element is, in some cases, indispensable.
Customer Service
Understanding Customer Service
Behind the scenes at most companies are people who never meet or greet the people who buy their
products. The customer service representatives are the ones who have direct contact with the
buyers. The buyers' perceptions of the company and the product are shaped in part by their
experience in dealing with that person.
For this reason, many companies work hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.
The short answer is, “making sure the customer is happy.” A longer answer is, “ensuring the
customer or client is satisfied with the product or service provided.” Customer service is the support
you offer your customers — both before and after they buy and use your products or services — that
helps them have an easy and enjoyable experience with you. Offering amazing customer service is
important if you want to retain customers and grow your business.