Four P's
Summarized by Sam Mishra, MBA (MIT Sloan)
The four P's of marketing are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Together, they constitute the classic "marketing mix." Sometimes, brand and service are additional mix variables used in crafting a meaningful marketing strategy.
Product: What are the company's core products / product lines / services? Are the products and services tightly or loosely coupled and why? Does the company bundle its products together? If the company is in the business of services as opposed to manufacturing and distributing tangible products, the distributions channels for these services will be different from those of the traditional manufacturing companies.
Price: What is the demand elasticity of the product, or in other words, how sensitive are the customers to price increases? Is the pricing cost based, or is it based on economic fundamentals where marginal revenues (MR) equal marginal costs (MC), or is it based on the competitive pricing in the marketplace? Which situations demand a business to price a product below the dollar value corresponding to MR = MC? How do you effectuate a sound price discrimination using product bundling?
Place: What are the distribution channels for the product (please refer to Channels under the five C's framework)? Does the competition serve market segments which the company can't reach?
Promotion: What marketing campaigns does the company use to reach its customers? How effective are these campaigns? Can the Internet be used more effectively to improve these campaigns? If the company wants to promote its products on the Internet through ads, should the company focus on building brand equity by placing CPM (cost per thousand impression) ads, should the company go for more tactical CPC (cost per click) ads, or should the company use both?
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