What is 4P Marketing – Redesigned for New Businesses

Most of you would know What is 4P Marketing Mix. It is the first mantra of any marketing strategy – “Having the right product at the right place and time”.

Marketing is vast and it’s difficult to incorporate marketing into one framework. The only thing that stands close to doing this is the 4P marketing framework. 

In recent years, with the rise of digital media and the start-up world, business practices and marketing has evolved. It’s time to redefine the most important framework of marketing to be relevant today. So, it still guides us in our marketing strategy and gives us clarity on the parameters to consider. 

The 4Ps of the marketing mix are Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.

“It’s having the right product, with the right value that consumer is aware of at the right time”

What is 4P Marketing Strategy Mix Model and Detailed Analysis for New Age Businesses

PRODUCT

“Great products build great companies. Products that give power to consumers or fulfil their needs.”

The very first step of marketing is building a great product. There is a lot of research and hard work involved to develop a product. If your product doesn’t have the right market fit, then all your further marketing efforts will be of no use. You need to have a product that fills a gap or need in the market. 

The worst marketing is good marketing for a poor product. 

Marketing activities that come under the first P i.e. Product, are research & development, product design, need gap analysis, consumer insights generation, and qualitative research.

In the current digital world, everything starts with data. Your first step is to collect the relevant data. Data that will highlight in which stage of product life cycle your product exists, and what is your market share.

Depending on your research, you can decide on whether to develop a new feature or improve an existing one. 

For Eg: Your product is Apple iPhone, and your finding is that it has crossed the maturity stage and the market share is declining. Then you know, you definitely need to iterate the product and revise the product life cycle. 

Once you know what you need to implement, then you can find the opportunity and gaps in the market by performing qualitative research and gaining consumer insights. This will help you build your specific implementation plan and define your marketing strategy. Like in case of iPhone, what will your iteration plan comprise? 

PRICE

“Customers consider the price to be right depending on the value they perceive.”

Next step is to analyse the value the product offers to your audience, and how much they will pay. 

The activities of the second P i.e. Price are price modelling, demand forecasting, pricing strategies, price analysis, and some amount of quantitative research. Pricing strategies can be price skimming, price penetration, sandwich pricing, and more. 

Price is not only about the actual worth of your product but also the brand personality and identity established among consumers.

You decide your price by considering factors like the cost of making and selling the product, expected profit, demand in the market and the value a consumer perceives. 

PROMOTION

“You need your consumers to know about your product and the value it provides in a relatable way.”

In simple words, promotion is about letting your consumers know about your product and the value It offers. Activities like positioning, marketing communication, marketing campaigns, advertising, PR, and integrated marketing are part of the promotion. 

With digitalisation, we have a lot of additions like social media marketing, SEO, email marketing, SEM, and more.

To make things clear, categorise promotions in 3 parts,

1. Launch: When you plan to launch a product, you need to think about the positioning you aspire and the communication strategy to achieve it. It will also set tonality for future campaigns and activities. 

2. Consistent: These are the regular promotional activities you will do daily. It includes regular POS creatives, online or offline ads, social media posts, and more.

3. Chief: After a certain period of launch and consistent promotional activities, you need to give a push to increase the market share by implementing a mega campaign. This can be to push your product during a festive season or to enable your sales with discounts.

PLACE

“You need to be available when your consumer needs you.”

The place is categorised in 2 parts i.e. Channel of Communication and Point of Sales. Place of Communication is the place where we do promotions. It is deciding your media plan or media mix. Digitalisation has given rise to new channels for media mix like social media platforms, digital media partners, content platforms, influencers, Google search and more. 

To decide your point of communication, you need to make sure that your audience is present and engages often. 

The last and the major part of 4Ps is Point of Sales, where are your products available for the consumer to buy. 

It includes marketing activities like sales, product distribution, logistics, and product placement. With the rise of the internet, you need to consider the new sales point like your independent website or third-party e-commerce stores. You need to give a lot of focus on customer experience on these digital channels to increase customer retention rates. While deciding your point of sales, make sure that your product fits the place. 

4Ps Marketing Mix is a step by step marketing strategy approach where each step build a ground for the subsequent steps so that product is a success in the market. 

If you have any new definition os framework on what is 4P marketing for you please share in comments below. It would be great to discuss on this. We will try to update in the article also.

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