What is marketing?
Marketing is a company’s strategy to promote its products or services, including advertising, to consumers, other businesses, and organizations. Professionals in marketing departments target key audiences through advertising, which may include celebrity endorsements, catchy phrases, memorable packaging, and media exposure.
Comprehending Marketing
Marketing is a discipline that involves a company’s actions to attract and retain customers, including networking with potential or past clients. It involves various activities such as writing thank you emails, playing golf with potential clients, responding quickly to calls, and meeting with clients for coffee or meals. The ultimate goal is to match a company’s products and services to customers, ensuring profitability.
The 4Ps of Marketing: What Are They?
The Four Ps of marketing, popularized by Neil Borden in the 1950s, consist of product, price, place, and promotion, which collectively form the essential mix a company needs to effectively market a product or service.
Product
A product is a business plan to offer customers an item or items to fill market gaps or meet consumer demand. Marketers must understand the product, its unique selling point, its compatibility with other products, and the availability of substitute products before preparing a campaign. This helps in identifying market opportunities and ensuring a successful marketing strategy.
Place
Place refers to the distribution of a product, which can be done through a physical storefront, online, or both channels. The physical product placement in a storefront determines its placement, while the digital product placement in an online store is determined by the company’s strategy.
Price
Price is the company’s plan to sell a product, considering unit cost, marketing, and distribution expenses, as well as the price of competitors and whether the proposed price is a reasonable alternative for consumers.
Promotion
Promotion, the fourth P, is an integrated marketing communications campaign that includes activities like advertising, selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, sponsorship, and guerrilla marketing. It varies based on the product’s stage of life cycle and considers consumers’ associations with price and distribution in the overall marketing strategy.
Different Marketing Strategy Types
Marketing offers a wide range of strategies that may be more suitable for certain companies due to their evolving industry.
Traditional Marketing Strategies
Traditional marketing strategies, prior to technology and the Internet, were the primary method for companies to market their products to customers.
Outdoor Marketing: Public displays of advertising outside a consumer’s house, such as billboards, benches, vehicles, or public transit, include printed advertisements.
Print Marketing: Traditionally, companies mass-produced printed materials, but today’s more flexible printing processes allow for differentiation of materials, resulting in smaller, easily reproducible content that is easier to replicate.
Direct Marketing: This involves delivering specific content to potential customers through print marketing, direct marketing mediums like coupons, vouchers, or pamphlets.
Electronic Marketing: TV and radio are utilized for advertising, providing short bursts of digital content that can effectively grab a viewer’s attention, enhancing the effectiveness of a company’s message.
Event Marketing: Gathering potential customers for product discussions or demonstrations at specific locations like conferences, trade shows, seminars, roadshows, or private events.
