The 4P's of Marketing: Balancing for Business Success - Essay Sample

Introduction

To concoct a flavorsome meal, the cook must ensure they put the right ingredients carefully. Missing any ingredient or adding excess ingredients ruins the whole meal. Marketing also has its essential components that are to get considered by any seller. The ingredients get referred to as the 4P's, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion (Anderson, 2014). They must be balanced carefully to ensure the success of any business. Technology evolution has brought significant changes to the consumer’s patterns of buying. For any marketer to introduce any product to the market, they have all relied on applying the 4P’s (Dhakar et al., 2017). Ensuring the right product is delivered to the right customers, 4P’s play a significant role too. Although the 4P's got invented long ago before even the Internet got invented, they still play a vital role in the digital economy (Dominici, 2009). The paper focuses on elaborating the 4P’s used in marketing their relevance to the modern economy and providing practical examples. Each element plays a significant role in marketing since they enable effective and clear strategies for introducing a new product to the market to get implemented. In isolation, every component is vital and requires proper considerations.

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Product

A product refers to the commodity that businesses sell. It can either be intangible or tangible. A product is a vital ingredient in marketing since there can never be a place, prize, or promotion without it. A product that gets sold to the market gets aimed at solving a customer's problem or/and make the client need to have it (Dunaeva, 2017). An example of a product in the beverage industry is the soft drink, in the clothing industry is the dress or in the more digital world, software such as ubersuggest. A product could also be a service offered, such as therapy sessions, consulting, or+ other services provided online.

Traditionally, such products were still in existence only that they mostly get offered online in the modern digital economy. The use of digital forums like the Internet to sell the product allows cost efficiency and ample coverage. However, having the best communication mix and super digital strategy is not a guarantee of product success. The product offered must be decent and must solve the customer's needs (Goi, 2009). It should be able to meet the specific demands and needs of customers. In the digital era, each product gets needed to follow a logical or well-defined lifecycle.

Digital marketers need to fathom the product lifecycle since it has a significant impact on the positioning of the product in the audience's mind. The solution to be offered by the product is to get phrased in various ways to solve many buyers’ problems. The benefits and features a product offers need to get fully understood and the competitive advantages it offers distilled and researched into a distinct selling proposition. The seller must also have an in-depth understanding of their ideal buyer.

For any seller to stand out in the market, they must offer products and/or services unique from what is being offered by other sellers. For instance, Zara, a fast-fashion company, engages its clients first to understand their wants. The company thus goes ahead to producing the products based on customer's needs. Acquiring feedback from clients enables Zara to create desired products. The company also uses high-tech that allows it to produce unique products from its competitors.

Price

Price refers to the amount one charges for their goods or services. The term is easily understood but figuring out the right price for a product is quite hard. Price should not only drive many sales but should purpose in bringing more profit to the seller. Many marketers find it a challenge coming up with a price for their products that is appealing to the consumers and bringing in profit to the business (Khodaparasti, 2009). For customers, even a difference of one –cent means a lot to them. If a commodity is sold at $19.99 and in another platform, the same product goes for $20, the one for $19.99 get to attract many consumers more.

Additionally, the price set by the marketer will have an impact on how consumers view the product's value. A high-value product is perceived to cost high during a low-value product low. Traditionally, online marketing was not common as few individuals owned digitized gadgets like smartphones. Individuals browsed from one shop to the other, looking for the best-priced products (Khodaparasti, 2010). In the recent century, technology evolution has made it much easier for marketers as there is no need for a physical shop. New pricing strategies have also gotten adopted depending on the growth and demand for services and products.

Various factors get to affect product pricing. These factors include the value chain, competitor's prices, market fluctuations, demand and supply, and the products and materials cost. Online marketers collect a large amount of data that enable them to do data analytics and come up with a unique price for their products, depending on the customer's needs (Khodaparasti, 2010). Dynamic pricing aid digital marketers optimize their profit by charging different customers differently depending on their profile aspects.

Given Amazon's excellent example, its product price gets said to fluctuate every 10 minutes (Khodaparasti, 2010). Amazon lowers the costs of common goods and services while those of uncommon are kept high. Amazon does this to gain the client's trust and make them believe that their products are cheap. They can thus manipulate many consumers to purchase their products, and by selling the common and uncommon products, the company makes a profit. The marketing strategy has boosted the profit by 25% (Khodaparasti, 2009).

Amazon can analyze consumers' shopping patterns, competitor's prices, inventory, profit margins, among other factors with the big data available to them, which enables them to choose the desired prices for their products. For example, Amazon offers discounts for bestsellers, whereas, on the other hand, it raises prices for obscure books (Khodaparasti, 2009). In that regard, marketers may decide to lower their products' prices to gain more customers royalty or inflate to indicate the value of their product.

Place

A place refers to the indirect or direct channels marketers use to get their services and/or products to consumers. A place is also an outlet that can be offline or online. Traditionally, marketers used brick and mortar to display their products. Consumers had to physically visit those places to make any purchase. Sellers used to look for locations with high human traffic since they will guarantee them more customers. In the current digital economy, online platforms get used to display services and products (Gutierrez-Leefmans et al., 2016). Development in the communication industry has played a more significant role in closing the gap globally.

Business is situated, whether offline or online, is more vital than its condition or size. Any business's success in this digital economy emanates from how well the service or product gets exposed to the appropriate customers. Since the digital economy utilizes the Internet to display its products, the location one places their products determines whether the business will count losses or profits. For instance, promoting a product using the Amazon platform makes many people's product or service is known. Amazon is a trusted company; therefore, anything placed on its platform gets much attention from consumers.

The place or location one decides to do their businesses should also consider the type of customers in those platforms or places. Also, can they come across the product on social media, and to which platforms do they prefer? When you finally have a clear picture of your desired clients' platforms, check for the accounts they have followed to have a clear understanding of the market. Marketers should also aim at determining the customer’s preferences and needs. Having the right location is not a guarantee that a business will prosper. Having the right place and displaying relevant products and services to the customers who require them is the key.

Promotion

Most, if not all, of the marketing collateral and activities aim to create awareness of the brand to consumers and provide them with the benefits of the products or services. Traditionally, the marketers used had copy materials such as brochures, flyers, newspapers, traditional media, and referrals by word of mouth. Some of the methods succeeded in creating awareness on a large scale, but the results delivered failed to be tangible in audience interaction and engagement.

Promotion plays a significant part in marketing strategy within the digital economy today. Most of the traditional methods have now gotten converted to online. For instance, an individual can download business brochures direct from the company's website. Almost all businesses have embraced online advertising since they can cover a wide range of audiences (Sturiale and Scuderi, 2016). The website search engine technology has also played a significant role in developing better brand awareness and visibility.

There is a close relationship between the place and promotion in the digital economy. However, on the one hand, promotion is perceived as active communication, whereas place is more passive visibility. Selecting the right platform to do an advertisement, the marketer needs to consider some factors. Firstly, they need to understand the channels or platforms that the targeted audience uses to ensure the information reaches them. The marketer should also consider the type of message that will attract the audience (Sabbagh, 2018).

The ideal time of promoting the product should also get considered, as well as assess the strategies competitors are applying to promote and advertise their products. For a promotion to be effective, the marketer needs to invest their time in the creation part. A marketer can have an excellent service or product, have it at the right price, in the perfect place, but if the service or product gets promoted to the wrong audience, then all is a waste. It implies how vital promoting a product to the right people is for any business (Sabbagh, 2018).

Promotion acts like fuel for a fire and is the one that can turn a marketer's plans to reality. An excellent example of a company that has excelled online due to its promotion strategies is Zappos. Consumers get attracted most by its policies and its unique fashion (Sabbagh, 2018). Zappos gives more focus on customers' needs and wants, which makes their marketing strategies effective.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is evident that the 4Ps play a vital role in the digital economy. Good marketing enslave consumers. A good marketer should be able to discover people's problems and needs and try to generate a solution to them. Product, price, place, and promotion are vital in marketing, but they should all get guided by consumer needs. Getting feedback from consumers helps a business flourish as the marketer gets able to know what products to produce.

The marketer should be very cautious about the product they produce. They should ensure they produce unique products than their competitors, which will solve consumer's needs. The price should also get moderated to ensure they include all customers on board. The platform to which a marker places his/her products and services matters a lot. A good promotion is one that can reach the targeted group.