The Marketing Mix is the combination of four elements, called the 4P’s:- Product
- Price
- Promotion
- Place
Every company has the option of adding, subtracting, or modifying in order to create a desired marketing strategy.
It's sixty years later and it's the digital age. The 4P's have been supplemented.
The Nine P's or 9P’s: I have added five more P’s: Planning, Partners, People (Target Markets), Passion, and Presentation.
Creativity in Marketing.
9P’s of Marketing© (I have a copyright for this concept, the Nine P’s, which augments the Marketing 4P’s by McCarthy):
1. Planning or Marketing Process: To develop and transform marketing objectives to marketing strategies to tactics, marketing management must make basic decisions on marketing targets, marketing mix, marketing budgets/expenditures and marketing allocations. Dividing the total marketing budget among the various tools in the Marketing Mix and for the various products, channels, promotion, media and sales areas.
2. People/Prospects (Target Market)
- A product focusing on a specific target market contrasts sharply with one following the marketing strategy of mass marketing.
- Defining a target market requires market segmentation, the process of segmenting the entire market as a whole and separating it into manageable units based on demographics, geographics, psychographics and behavior characteristics.
The market segmentation process includes:
- Determining the characteristics of segments in the target market.
- Then separating these segments in the market based on these characteristics.
- Checking to see whether any of this market segments are large enough to support the organization’s product.
- Once a target market is chosen, the organization can develop its marketing strategies to target this market.
3. Product: The goods and service combination the firm offers to the target market, including variety of product mix, features, designs, packaging, sizes, services, warrantees and return policies.
- A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. (Kotler)
- A service is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. (Kotler)
- “Product” includes packaging, as a subset of the total offering. Brand managers use packaging as a badge, enhancing the product’s value. Here’s an example: In fall 2008, McDonald’s scrapped and changed its package design across 118 countries, 56 languages. Packaging can increase the perceptions about the quality of the product.
- A Product or service also should have “Purpose”, which is discovering the product’s real value, use, difference, reason, or function for the consumer and user.
4. Price: All aspects regarding pricing. The price consumers are willing to pay. Retail price/wholesale, discounts, trade-in allowances, quantity discounts, credit terms, sales and payment periods.
5. Promotion: The communication element includes personal and non-personal communication activities. Activities that communicate the merits of the overall product, which includes:
- Personal Selling/ Sales Force
- Advertising—Mass or nonpersonal selling: TV, radio, magazines, newspaper, outdoor/out-of-home
- Advertising is structured and composed non personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods, services, and ideas) by identified sponsors through various media. (Arens, Weingold, Arens, 14th edition of Contemporary Advertising, 2008)
- Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). Ads can be a cost-effective way to disseminate messages, whether to build a brand preference or to educate people.
- Sales Promotion—Promotional tools, both a tool to speed up sales or value for the company; or an extra incentive to buy, a value to the customer. Includes trade deals, trade incentives, rebates, money-back offers, frequency programs, slotting allowances for in store promotion, samples, loyalty programs, coupons, premiums, tie-ins, p-o-p, displays, sweepstakes, allowances, trade shows, sales rep/trade contests, events/experiences and more.
- Collateral Materials—Booklets, catalogs, brochures, films, sales kits, promotional products and annual reports.
- Direct Marketing (also referred to as Action or Direct Response Advertising)—online, direct mail, mobile, database management, catalogs, telemarketing, and direct-response ads, including TV.
- Interactive/Internet/Web, Digital Media, Social Media—Interactive/online is a form that uses the Internet and Web to deliver promotional messages to attract customers. Social media is an interactive platform in which individuals and communities create and share user-generated content. Social media is ubiquitously accessible, includes Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, as examples.
- Events and Experiences—Interacting with the brand. An experience can be much more impactful than an exposure or an impression. Events, promotions, one on one, and/or face-to-face engagements are delivering consumers to encounter, “experience,” and interact with the product or the service, usually prior to buying.
- Samsung has used pop-up stores and customers can leave with a device, smartphones, tablets and wrist devices, free of charge. An “event and experience” initiative to convince smartphone and tablet owners to switch to Samsung. They also cover the wireless data costs.
- Public Relations—press releases, publicity. Securing editorial space, as opposed to paid space—usually in print, electronic or Internet media. Promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place, person or organization, internal communication, lobbying. PR involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company’s image/reputation or individual products.
6. Place/Distribution: The company’s activities that make the product available, using distribution and trade channels, coverage, assortments, locations, inventory and transportation characteristics and alternatives. Typical supply chain consists of four links in the chain: Producer/Factory/Manufacturer, Distributor, Wholesaler, Retailer supplying the consumer and user.
7. Partners/Strategic Alliances: Marketers can’t create customer value and build customer relationships by themselves. They work closely with other company departments (inside partners) and often with partners and alliances outside the firm.
- Changes are occurring in how marketers connect with their suppliers, channel partners and others. A joint partnership; the joint relationships, partnerships and strategic alliances. The relationship existing between two parties; a relationship resembling a legal partnership and usually involving close cooperation between parties having specific and joint rights and responsibilities as a common enterprise. Usually plural or “Partners,” not Partner.
- It is important to partner with firms that have similar corporate philosophies.
- Review and have clear, comprehensive, time-bound contracts and agreements.
- Have agreed upon objectives and strategies.
- Look for team management, relationship-building and team-building focus.
- From Philip Kotler: Value chains, of suppliers, distributors and customers. Partnering with specific suppliers or distributors create a value-delivery network; also called a supply chain. Partnership Marketing; Partner Relationship Management.
- Partnership and cooperative agreements are formed that enable parties to bring their major strengths to the table and emerge with better planning, products, services, promotion, distribution and ideas than they could produce on their own.
- Continuous support and cooperation with consultation is usually needed.
8. Presentation: The acts of presenting any of the 9P’s to your customers, suppliers, clients, or partners. A symbol or image that represents something; A descriptive or persuasive account (as a sales person of his product). Something set forth for the attention of mind.
9. Passion: Intense, driving or overmastering feelings, Emotion. The emotions as distinguished from reason; A strong liking for or devotion to some activity; Deep interest in your partnership/presentation of any of the 9P’s to any target or partner.
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Read more about 9P’s© at NinePs.com and on this website.