Marketing is more than promotion

So many people talk about marketing and doing their marketing as if marketing and promotional activities are synonymous.

They’re not !

Marketing is the Product or Service, the Place where it’s available for customers to purchase, the Price people pay to acquire it and the Promotional activities you use to get visibility and credibility. This is known as the Marketing Mix or the 4 Ps.

Whether I’m teaching marketing courses to university students or to entrepreneurs I invariably find I have to reiterate this to my students.

So let’s take a few moments to get an overview of the 4 Ps of marketing.

We’ll start with the Product – after all without a product you don’t need to worry about pricing, distributing or promoting !

PRODUCTS

Products can be Tangible goods, Ideas, Services. For now let’s just consider tangible goods.

The product includes:

• the physical item itself
• it’s packaging
• warranty
• any service attached to it – for example learning how to use the item
• the brand
• the value to the customer – this might be the problem it solves and the intensity of that problem for the customer, it might be the image it conveys of them (think of Bic pens as opposed to Mont Blanc pens)

PLACE

Products should be available in a usable condition where and when customers want them.

PRICE

The price is what a buyer must give up to obtain a product. Price can be a competitive weapon. There are various methods for pricing products some of which we looked at in my blog post on pricing.

We may have the right products in the right place at the right price but the potential customer needs to be aware of our products and where they can obtain them. You need to use appropriate promotional activities to get visibility and credibility. Once you have that you need to regularly remind your customers and potential customers of your existence.

PROMOTION

Promotional activities can encourage sales by:

• Informing
• Educating
• Persuading
• Reminding

Which of these applies depoends on where your product is on the product life cycle – whether it’s a new product being introduced to a market and a level of educating is needed; whether it’s a new version of an exiting product and you need to inform people and probably persuade them to try your product or whether it’s a product that’s been around for a long time and you need to remind poeple that you’re still there in the market.

Your promotional activities could be any or all of the following depending on your customers and target clients.  It’s important to integrate all of these efforts rather than using them in isolation.

• Personal selling
• Advertising
• Sales promotion
• On-line promotion
• PR

In future posts we can look in more detail at promoting your products.

Related Posts:

A Product is not just a Product

Reaching your Customers

Displaying your Products

Pricing

Pricing Services

Getting Visibility