4 Ps Marketing
4 Ps marketing is a traditional marketing methodology that states there are 4 P’s of marketing, Product, Price, Place and Promotion, these were first identified in 1960 by a chap by the name of E Jerome McCarthy and have been in use ever since. Personally I believe you should consider 8 Ps when looking at your marketing mix Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Planning, Packaging, Position and People.
Product
You should look at your product as though you were an outsider. You have spent many months or even years developing your product and now you are ready to sell it. However you need to ask the critical questions, i.e. Is your current product or service, or mix of products and services, appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today? Are there competing products or services out there, if so what is the competitive advantage of your offering, if any.
You must look at your product from the point of view of your prospective buyers, it doesn’t matter how good you think things are, if nobody wants to buy what you are offering you are wasting your time and money.
Price
There are many different pricing models to consider and whichever model you decide to go ahead with when you launch something you should always examine the prices of the products and services you are selling to make sure they are applicable in the current market. Sometimes you may find you need to lower your prices whilst at other times, it may be appropriate to raise your prices. Consider how airlines use their pricing to market their offering, buy at the wrong time and you may find you have paid four or 5 times the amount the person in the next seat has, for the same service.
Examining your pricing will ensure you don’t fall into the trap of providing certain products or services that do not justify the amount of effort and resources that go into producing them. Raising the price, may lose some customers, but the remaining customers paying the extra may increase your profits.
Promotion
Promotion is all the methods you use to tell your customers about your products or services and how you then market and sell to them. Sometimes a small change in the way you promote and sell your products can lead to dramatic changes in your results. Sometimes a very small change in the way you are advertising can lead to higher sales. There have been cases where an identical advertisement with a different headline has seen a 300% increase in response.
You should always be evaluating your marketing activities, new technologies are always offering the chance to change what you are doing, sometimes you will try a new promotion that will work, sometimes you will try a promotion that doesn’t work, even if it doesn’t work it is good to know that it has not worked. I have met many small business owners who have “always advertised in that way” and are most surprised when they are finally convinced to stop – that their revenue is unaffected. You can then use this money to try something else
Placement
Placement is the place where you sell you product or service. Try to develop a habit of reviewing and researching where your customer meets your salesperson. You may find that changing the location can create an increase in sales.
There are many places to sell products and services, you may have a retail shop, you could be selling in a mall or a shopping centre, maybe your product or service is good for on line store. You may sell through trade, telemarketing or you may use a network of distributors. Each of these channels should be considered when evaluating the best placement for your service or product, you can use one two or even more channels depending on your product or service.
That is the traditional 4 Ps Marketing methodology.
Here are my additional 4Ps Marketing strategies which will give us 8 in total
Packaging
My fifth element to consider for your marketing mix is the packaging.It is good practice to regularly examine the visual elements of your packaging. You should try to look at it from the point of view of your target market. Think about the first time you interact with products you are thinking of buying or the salesperson trying to sell you something. If you are like 90% of purchasers you will make your first impression of the service or product within 30 seconds of first encountering them. The first impression is the strongest determinant of whether or not to buy.
Packaging does not just refer to the actual packaging of your service or product, think also about how you and your sales force look to your potential clients. You may have an absolute genius developer who tends to dress down, best not to let him in front of your potential clients.
Consider a company like Air New Zealand, their insistence on staff being well groomed, dressed in their company uniform and being polite and welcoming, plays no small part in their customers perception of them being amongst the best service airlines in the world.
Positioning
P number six is positioning. It can be argued that how you are seen and what you are thought about by your customers is the most important determinant of the product or service success in a competitive marketplace. There is a school of though that says a majority of your customers think of you in terms of a single statement, either positive or negative. It can be price – “lowest prices are just the beginning”, It can be quality – “quality engineered ” or it can be something indefinable – “Just do it”
You should pay a great deal of attention to thinking about where you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. What do they think about your products, your service, your people?? This is not what they say to you – but what they say to others when you are not there.
Part of your marketing strategy should always be to think about how you could improve your positioning. What would be the ideal impression in the hearts and minds of your customers, and look to getting your company into that position? What changes do you need to make in the way interact with customers in order to be seen as the very best choice for both them and your potential clients
People
The 7th P in my marketing mix is people. Many small to medium sized business people will work extremely hard thinking and acting on their marketing strategy and marketing mix, only to pay little attention to the fit of the people they hire in relation to the product, in other words the people you hire must be able to do the job in the way that meets the clients expectations of your product or service.
Planning
The 8th and final P is Planning, many small businesses do not have a marketing plan, rather they spend ad- hoc on advertising and other marketing strategies on a whim, salesmen call up or call in and make a case for some newspaper adverts and here you go we had a good week last week so we can afford it, no planning and probably no measurement of ROI either.
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