THE FOUR Ps OF MARKETING.

The four Ps of marketing are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

1. Product: The foundation of the four Ps is the Product, which is when a marketing professional defines their purpose. It is common for the four Ps of marketing to intersect as there may be shared attributes within each element.

Product is the major pillar of the Ps, and it is simply the goods or services that a brand sells. The factors that affect products include necessity, competition, cost of production, product features, product designs, packaging, and overall user experience. As earlier stated, the Ps are interwoven and obviously, these factors also affect other Ps like Price.

To capitalize on successfully marketing your product, you need to identify its uniqueness by asking yourself questions like what sets your product apart from other products like it on the market? How can it win over customers and beat the competition? The key to this P of marketing is determining the unique selling proposition of the product and amplifying or developing the factors accordingly.

2. Price: This is what is paid to acquire a product or service. Brands consider three major things here: The cost they incur in creating the product or service, what the customers are willing to pay for the product, and a lot of times, a market survey by checking what and how completion is pricing.

Price is the amount of money you charge customers for the previously determined product or service, hence the right price drives up the most amount of sales and the most profit for your company. The price must also be related to the product’s real value and not only the perceived value.

3. Place refers to where the product is located. The ideal place is determined by the organizational budget and the specific product, for example, some products are available only online while others are at stores, or even via delivery only. The process a product goes through to reach the customers, or the final consumers are called the Place. 

Some of the pertinent questions to ask when determining the Place to locate a business are “would it be better to sell your product from a brick-and-mortar store or an e-commerce website? A place can even refer to where you place the product within your store’s display. A place can also refer to where you choose to advertise your product, be it on TV, social media, or web pages. The goal of place is to determine the best place to get products in front of the customers who are most likely to purchase them.

4. Promotion is any initiative that publishes the Product or services and encourages its sale, e.g., campaigns, public relations, corporate social responsibilities, digital ads, social media posts, or any other method of promoting a product. 

“Effective marketing management is the key driving force in today’s global business environment. In good times and bad, marketing management is a necessity if a business is going to survive and strive. It is a key contributing factor to sustainable success and makes the difference between successful companies and those which fail to grow. Hence there is a need for well-qualified, competent Marketing Managers who can work in fast-moving international environments and who can make Marketing contribute to the competitive advantage of their organizations”. – Prof. Tayo Otubanjo.

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