As we discussed in our last blog, marketing is all about understanding your customer’s needs and subsequently fulfilling those needs. Selling, is however when you create a product and then expect customers to buy it. Marketing is what rakes the moolah in. To get the best out of the marketing endeavour however, it is important to pay close attention to the 4 P’s of marketing.

The 4 P’s of marketing are- Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Let us look into these one by one.

Product: A product can be described as either a good or service which is tangible or intangible, respectively. It is produced with the aim of fulfilling the customer’s needs. Before you market a product, it is important for you to completely grasp what your product is and what it does- its strong points as well as weak points. Hand in hang goes understanding customer needs. This is because you can only create a product that is fit for selling and promises to return profits, if you know that it will be bought, at least by our target customers. Every product follows the product cycle, which starts with introduction and eventually ends in decline. The stages in a product life cycle are constant, but the time taken may vary from product to product. Identify your customer base, gather their requirements and then go on to build the perfect product!

Price: As shoppers, we know the value for judicious Pricing. The sale of a product is determined by reasonably it is priced and whether the customers are willing to buy it at that cost and if they find it to be a viable investment. Every product has its perceived value- i.e., the price that the customer expects it to be. To make sales, it is important that the product is not priced too high or too low as compared to the perceived value. If you sell it for less money, customers might judge the trustworthiness of the product and if it is too high, customers may turn to similar products with a more affordable pricing. Factors affecting pricing are distribution plan, value chain costs and markups and competition’s pricing.

Promotion: This deals with getting the word about your product out there-there is no point of creating a path breaking product and then not being able to sell it, simply because of lack of awareness regarding your product. It is important to promote your product as much as possible, across all possible formats-print ads, television ads, social media publicity, etc. Special discount offers are also key to attracting customers, especially if it is a new product that you are trying to launch in the market. Marketing and promotion, however, are not the similar. Promotion is just the communication aspect of the entire marketing function.

Place: This deals with how exactly the product is going to be sold or provided to the customer. Marketing is about putting the right product, at the right price, at the right place, at the right time. Therefore, it is imperative to find locations at which potential clients can become actual clients. It also helps us zero on the most lucrative distribution channel.  How your product is delivered goes a long way in earning your customer’s trust. Something which is easily available over something that you need to search for.

So as per the 4 P’s, to summarize, it is important to create a product on the basis of what the people need. Next, it is important to settle a final price for the product such that it is neither too expensive nor too cheap. Then, we need to promote the product that we are about to push in the market. Lastly, when you are setting up your place, it is important to have it in a place that is easily accessible.

Since marketing has a lot of aspects, tools like VComply can help with one of those- that of managing the employees. With VComply, the manager knows what his employees are doing at any given point in time and this automatically makes the entire managing process easier and more efficient. Therefore, people can brainstorm for making the products sell like hot cakes.

These 4 P’s let you understand how marketing works, a little bit better.

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