What are the 4 Ps of business?
It’s time to retool the 4 P’s of marketing for today’s B2B reality. As a framework for fine-tuning the marketing mix, the P’s—product, place, price, and promotion—have served consumer marketers well for half a century. But in the B2B world, they yield narrow, product-focused strategies that are increasingly at odds with the imperative to deliver solutions. In a five-year study involving more than 500 managers and customers in multiple countries and across a wide range of B2B industries, we found that the 4 P’s model undercuts B2B marketers in three important ways: It leads their marketing and sales teams to stress product technology and quality even though these are no longer differentiators but are simply the cost of entry. It underemphasizes the need to build a robust case for the superior value of their solutions. And it distracts them from leveraging their advantage as a trusted source of diagnostics, advice, and problem solving. It’s not that the 4 P’s are irrelevant, just that they need to be reinterpreted to serve B2B marketers. As the sidebar below shows, our model shifts the emphasis from products to solutions, place to access, price to value, and promotion to education—SAVE, for short. Instead of Product, Focus on SolutionDefine offerings by the needs they meet, not by their features, functions, or technological superiority. Instead of Place, Focus on AccessDevelop an integrated cross-channel presence that considers customers’ entire purchase journey instead of emphasizing individual purchase locations and channels. Instead of Price, Focus on ValueArticulate the benefits relative to price, rather than stressing how price relates to production costs, profit margins, or competitors’ prices. Instead of Promotion, Focus on EducationProvide information relevant to customers’ specific needs at each point in the purchase cycle, rather than relying on advertising, PR, and personal selling that covers the waterfront. Motorola Solutions, a pioneer of the new framework, used SAVE to guide the restructuring of its marketing organization and its go-to-market strategies in the government and enterprise sectors. Along the way the firm identified three requirements for successfully making the shift from 4 P’s thinking to SAVE. First, management must encourage a solutions mind-set throughout the organization. Many B2B companies, particularly those with an engineering or a technology focus, find it difficult to move beyond thinking in terms of “technologically superior” products and services and take a customer-centric perspective instead. Second, management needs to ensure that the design of the marketing organization reflects and reinforces the customer-centric focus. At Motorola Solutions, this led to the dramatic reorganization of the marketing function into complementary specialties, allowing focus on each element of the SAVE framework and alignment with the customer’s purchase journey. And third, management must create collaboration between the marketing and sales organizations and with the development and delivery teams. Motorola Solutions required that specialist teams concentrate on solutions and coordinate their approaches to specific customer needs. This ensured that functional boundaries did not determine the firm’s solutions. B2B marketers who continue to embrace the 4 P’s model and mind-set risk getting locked into a repetitive and increasingly unproductive technological arms race. The SAVE framework is the centerpiece of a new solution-selling strategy—and B2B firms ignore it at their peril. A version of this article appeared in the January–February 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review. If you've been a marketing professional for years now, learning about the four Ps of marketing might seem like a throwback to you. However, for those of us who work in the industry but didn't study marketing in college, it's entirely possible you haven't heard of the marketing mix. Below, let's learn about the four Ps of marketing and how they're still relevant in today's marketing landscape. The four Ps of marketing are product, price, place, and promotion. These are the key factors that are involved in marketing a product or service. You take the four Ps into account when creating strategies for marketing, promoting, advertising, and positioning your product or brand. The four Ps are meant to help marketers consider everything about a product or service when they're deciding how to market it for their business. Framing your marketing around the four Ps will help you learn what the competition is doing and what customers want from you. You can use the four Ps to answer questions about the product, price, place, and promotion of your product or service. For example, you can ask yourself:
Thinking about your marketing in terms of the four Ps will help you strategize how to reach your customers. The four Ps of marketing are also known as the marketing mix. What is the marketing mix?The marketing mix is also known as the four Ps of marketing. It refers to the four key elements of a marketing strategy: product, price, place, and promotion. These elements guide the marketing initiatives, wording, and positioning for a product or brand. To develop a marketing mix, you'll need to think about how you can uniquely position your brand amongst the competition. The most important part of thinking about the marketing mix — or the four Ps of marketing — is to understand the customer, the competition, and your company. You'll evaluate your product and how to promote it. But getting started isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve created the ultimate collection of marketing mix templates you can use to visualize your marketing mix and share it with your employees or investors. Use the templates to organize your initiatives and activities by the right section. Featured Resource: Marketing Mix TemplatesClick here to download the templates for free. Use the template to follow along with the 4 Ps of marketing below. The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)1. The First P of Marketing: ProductWhen you think about your product, consider exactly what you're selling. Is it a specific product? Or is it a service? Your product can be a physical product, an online app, or a service such as house cleaning. Really, anything that you're selling is the product. Then, think of your brand messaging, the services you offer, and even packaging. When you define your product, think about what problem your product solves for your customers. Consider how your product is different from competing products. What features are unique to your product? It's important to know your product intimately so you can market it. Product ExampleWe’ll use Marketing Hub as an example. What is it? “Marketing automation software to help you attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale — all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.” Who is it for? Modern marketers who juggle too much data and who are stuck with impossible-to-use software solutions that make their job harder, not easier. Which features does it have? Marketing Hub offers blogging, SEO, social media management, email marketing, and ad tracking tools in a single, intuitive platform. What problem does it solve? Marketing Hub simplifies the marketing automation process for busy marketers by bringing all data and tools under one roof. 2. The Second P of Marketing: PriceWhen it comes to price, you have to consider how much you're going to charge customers for your products or services. Of course, you need to make a profit. When coming up with your pricing strategy, you also need to think about what competitors are charging for the same product or service and how much customers are willing to pay. You can also think about what discounts or offers you can use in your marketing. When you decide on a price, you want to think about perception. Do you want to be known as a cost-effective option in your industry? Or perhaps you're a luxury brand and the price is slightly higher than competition on the market. Keep in mind that pricing SaaS products is a little different than pricing physical products. Either way, the language you use to market your product will be greatly impacted by the price of your product. Download a sales pricing calculator for free. Price ExampleMarketing Hub is priced to grow with you as you grow. We offer the following subscription tiers:
3. The Third P of Marketing: PlaceWhen it comes to place, this might mean the physical location of your company, but it could also be defined as anywhere you sell your product, which might be online. The place is where you market and distribute your product. Remember that not every place makes sense for every product. For example, if your target market is seniors, then it won't make sense to market on TikTok. It's important to choose the right places to market your product and meet your customers where they're at. Think about possible distribution channels and outlets you could use to sell your product. Be sure to take into account whether your business is B2B or B2C. At this point, you'll need to think about how to market your product on all the various channels that make sense for your company. Place ExampleAs a provider of a SaaS product, we offer Marketing Hub directly on our website. Marketers can sign up for Marketing Hub by creating an account directly on our platform. We’ve created a convenient sign-up page for free subscriptions — or they can request a demo from our friendly sales team. 4. The Fourth P of Marketing: PromotionPromotion is the bread and butter of marketing. This is when you'll think about how to publicize and advertise your product. Additionally, you'll discuss brand messaging, brand awareness, and lead generation strategies. When it comes to promotion, keeping communication in mind is of the utmost importance. What messages will resonate with your target market? How can you best promote your product to them? Think about where, when, and how you'll promote your brand. Promotion ExampleWe want to be where marketers are. Most importantly, we want to help them grow in their careers — as well as grow their businesses. Our inbound marketing strategy will focus primarily on organic acquisition. We’ll promote Marketing Hub over the following channels:
Use the 4 Ps of Marketing to Create a Winning Marketing StrategyEven though marketing has changed since the four Ps were developed, the foundational elements of the industry haven't. You can apply the concepts of the marketing mix to create winning marketing strategies that help you profitably launch and promote your company’s products. Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. Originally published Jun 2, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated June 02 2021 What are the 4 Ps examples?The four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion. They are an example of a “marketing mix,” or the combined tools and methodologies used by marketers to achieve their marketing objectives. The 4 Ps were first formally conceptualized in 1960 by E.
What are the 4 P's of marketing and their importance?The 4Ps of marketing is a model for enhancing the components of your "marketing mix" – the way in which you take a new product or service to market. It helps you to define your marketing options in terms of price, product, promotion, and place so that your offering meets a specific customer need or demand.
What is the meaning of the 4 Ps?The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a human development measure of the national government that provides conditional cash grants to the poorest of the poor, to improve the health, nutrition, and the education of children aged 0-18.
Which of the 4 Ps is most important?It is your product idea, the product you have conceived. It is the starting point of all thought process, hence the most important of all Ps.
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