Marketing Mix

Sometimes the "Marketing Mix" is known as the four Ps because the mixture of marketing ingredients can be summarised as Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The term was first used by Neil H. Borden in the late 1940's. Some add "positioning" as a fifth P. Just as a cake has not only to have the right ingredients but also to have the right proportions of those ingredients, marketing a product requires a business to plan how it will use its resources. Lookng briefly at each of these:

• Product is fundamental and is the basic marketing decision of what goods or services to offer. Marketing at its most basic is about understanding markets and offering products for which there is demand. A company might launch a new gas mantle and it might be a first class product, offered at an attractive price, and promoted brilliantly. However since the use of gas lighting is minimal there is simply no mass demand for the product. No amount of clever promotion will work if the product is either not wanted or is simply no good, and successful marketing of a product starts with getting the product right.
• Price is well understood. Our old friends "supply" and "demand" ultimately govern price decisions. The marketer must consider prices in relation to those of competitors, and alternative ways to spend money. In wealthy countries only a small part of consumer spending is on basic necessities and the consumer often has the option of not buying a similar product at all.
• Place is not only about which country to offer a product in, but also about the choice of distribution channel. Selling ice-cream to Eskimos is well known to be tricky.
• Promotion wouldn't be needed in a perfect world in which theoretical economics prevailed. However in the real world the perfect product, right price etc. are insufficient if the product is not brought to the attention of potential customers. Point-of-purchase merchandising is one of a range of ways to promote a product, along with traditional advertising, direct mail, websites, and others.
• Positioning is about understanding the market and aiming the product at a particular segment or subdivision of it. Is our product aimed at a mass market or a part of that market that demands the best, or the cheapest?

So the marketing mix is about the right balance of all these things. Will a heavy spend on promotion make up for a rather expensive price? Or should margins be cut to the bone and little be spent on promotion. Of course, within promotion there is another mix, the mix of different ways to spend money promoting a product. Point of Sale advertising is one of these options.