Marketing Mix

Marketers use numerous tools to elicit the desired responses from their
target markets. These tools constitute a marketing mix: “Marketing mix
is the set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing
objectives in the target market.”

E. Jerome McCarthy classified these tools into four broad groups that
he called the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and
promotion.
• Product refers to what the business offers for sale and may include
products or services.
• Price refers to the total cost to customer to acquire the product, and may
involve both monetary and psychological costs such as the time and effort
spent in acquisition etc.
• Place refers either to the physical location where a business carries out
business or the distribution channels used to reach markets. Place may
refer to a retail outlet, but increasingly refers to virtual stores such as "a
mail order catalogue, a telephone call center or a website".
• Promotion refers to "the marketing communication used to make the offer
known to potential customers and persuade them to investigate it further".
McCarthy's 4 Ps
Category Definition/Concept Typical Marketing Decisions

•Product design – features, benefits, quality

A product refers to an •Product assortment – product range, product
mix, product lines
item that satisfies the
consumer's needs or •Branding
Product wants. Products may be •Design, Packaging and labeling
tangible (goods) or •Services (complementary service, after-sales
intangible (services, service, service level)
ideas or experiences). •Guarantees and warranties
•Investments, Returns
•Managing products through the life-cycle
McCarthy's 4 Ps
Category Definition/Concept Typical Marketing Decisions

Price refers to the amount a customer

pays for a product. Price may also refer •Price strategy
to the sacrifice consumers are prepared •Price tactics
to make to acquire a product (e.g. time •Price-setting
Price or effort). •Allowances – e.g. rebates for
Price is the only variable that has distributors
implications for revenue. •Discounts – for customers
Price also includes considerations of •Payment terms – credit,
payment methods
customer perceived value.

Price decisions also include the "list pricing, special offer pricing, credit payment or
credit terms etc".
McCarthy's 4 Ps
Category Definition/Concept Typical Marketing Decisions

•Strategies such as intensive distribution,

selective distribution, exclusive distribution
•Franchising;
Refers to providing •Market coverage, Geographical
customer access. distribution
Place Considers providing •Channel member selection and channel
member relationships
convenience for consumer. Assortment
•
•Location decisions
•Inventory
•Transport, warehousing and logistics
McCarthy's 4 Ps
Category Definition/Concept
Promotion refers to
marketing
communications May
Promotion comprise elements such
as: advertising, PR, direct
marketing and sales
promotion.
Typical Marketing Decisions
•Promotional mix - appropriate balance of
advertising, PR, direct marketing and
sales promotion
•Message strategy - what is to be
communicated
•Channel/media strategy - how to reach
the target audience
•Message Frequency - how often to
communicate
Continued…

Marketing-mix decisions must be made to influence the trade channels

as well as the final consumers. Typically, the firm can change its price,
sales-force size, and advertising expenditures in the short run. However,
it can develop new products and modify its distribution channels only
in the long run. Thus, the firm typically makes fewer period-to-period
marketing-mix changes in the short run than the number of marketing-
mix decision variables might suggest.
Service Industry 7Ps/8Ps
• Marketing practice has been occurring for millennia, but marketing theory emerged in
the early 20th century. The contemporary marketing mix, or the 4 Ps, which has become
the dominant framework for marketing management decisions, was first published in
1960.
• Services were fundamentally different from products, and therefore required different
tools and strategies. In 1981, Booms and Bitner proposed a model of 7 Ps comprising the
original 4 Ps extended by process, people and physical evidence, as being more
applicable for services marketing.
• Prople
• Process
• Physical evidence

• Occasionally service marketers will refer to 8 Ps, comprising these 7 Ps plus

• Performance
Service industry 7 Ps
Category Definition/Concept
Human factors who participate in
service delivery. Service
personnel who represent the
People company's values to customers.
Interactions between customers.
Interactions between employees
and customers.
Typical Marketing Decisions
•Staff recruitment and training
•Uniforms
•Scripting
•Queuing systems, managing waits
•Handling complaints, service
failures
•Managing social interactions
People are essential in the marketing of any product or service.
Personnel stand for the service. In the professional, financial or
hospitality service industry, people are not producers, but rather the
products themselves. When people are the product, they impact public
perception of an organization as much as any tangible consumer goods.
From a marketing management perspective, it is important to ensure
that employees represent the company in alignment with broader
messaging strategies. This is easier to ensure when people feel as
though they have been treated fairly and earn wages sufficient to
support their daily lives.
Service industry 7 Ps
Category Definition/Concept Typical Marketing Decisions
•Process design
•Blueprinting (i.e. flowcharting) service
processes
•Standardization vs customization decisions
The procedures, •Diagnosing fail-points, critical incidents and
mechanisms and system failures
Process flow of activities by •Monitoring and tracking service performance
which service is •Analysis of resource requirements and
delivered. allocation
•Creation and measurement of key performance
indicators (KPIs)
•Alignment with Best Practices
•Preparation of operations manuals
Process refers to a "set of activities that results in delivery of the
product benefits". A process could be a sequential order of tasks that
an employee undertakes as a part of their job. It can represent
sequential steps taken by a number of various employees while
attempting to complete a task. Some people are responsible for
managing multiple processes at once. For example, a restaurant
manager should monitor the performance of employees, ensuring that
processes are followed. They are also expected to supervise while
customers are promptly greeted, seated, fed, and led out so that the
next customer can begin this process.
Service industry 7 Ps
Category Definition/Concept
The environment in which
service occurs. The space
where customers and
service personnel interact.
Tangible commodities (e.g.
Physical
equipment, furniture) that
evidence facilitate service
performance.
Artifacts that remind
customers of a service
performance.
Typical Marketing Decisions
•Facilities (e.g. furniture, equipment,
access)
•Spatial layout (e.g. functionality,
efficiency)
•Signage (e.g. directional signage,
symbols, other signage)
•Interior design (e.g. furniture, color
schemes)
•Ambient conditions (e.g. noise, air,
temperature)
•Design of livery (e.g. stationery,
brochures, menus, etc.)
•Artifacts: (e.g. souvenirs, mementos,
etc.)
Physical evidence refers to the non-human elements of the service
encounter, including equipment, furniture and facilities. It may also
refer to the more abstract components of the environment in which the
service encounter occurs including interior design, color schemes and
layout. Some aspects of physical evidence provide lasting proof that the
service has occurred, such as souvenirs, mementos, invoices and other
livery of artifacts. According to Booms and Bitner's framework, the
physical evidence is "the service delivered and any tangible goods that
facilitate the performance and communication of the service". Physical
evidence is important to customers because the tangible goods are
evidence that the seller has (or has not) provided what the customer
was expecting.
Continued…

In the 1990s, the model of 4 Cs was introduced as a more

customer-driven replacement of the 4 Ps.
There are two theories based on 4 Cs:
• Lauterborn's 4 Cs (Customer solution, cost, convenience, and
communication), and
• Shimizu's 4 Cs (commodity, cost, channel, and communication).
Continued…
Robert F. Lauterborn suggested that the sellers’ four Ps correspond
to the customers’ four Cs.
Four Ps Four Cs
• Product Customer solution
• Price Customer cost
• Place Convenience
• Promotion Communication

Winning companies are those that meet customer needs

economically and conveniently and with effective communication.
4 Cs

4 Ps 4 Cs Definition

A company will only sell what the

consumer specifically wants to buy.
Customer Solution (wants and
Products needs) So, marketers should study
consumer wants and needs in order
to attract them one by one with
something they want to purchase.
4 Cs
4 Ps 4 Cs Definition

Price is only a part of the total cost to satisfy a want or a

need. The total cost will consider for example the cost of
time in acquiring a good or a service, a cost of conscience
by consuming that or even a cost of guilt "for not
treating the kids".
Price Cost
It reflects the total cost of ownership. Many factors affect
cost, including but not limited to the customer's cost to
change or implement the new product or service and the
customer's cost for not selecting a competitor's product
or service.
4 Cs
4 Ps 4 Cs Definition

In the era of Internet, catalogues, credit cards and

phones, consumers neither need to go anywhere to
satisfy a want or a need nor are they limited to a few
places to satisfy them.
Marketers should know how the target market
Place Convenience prefers to buy, how to be there and be ubiquitous, in
order to guarantee convenience to buy. With the rise
of Internet and hybrid models of purchasing, Place is
becoming less relevant. Convenience takes into
account the ease of buying the product, finding the
product, finding information about the product, and
several other factors
4 Cs

4 Ps 4 Cs Definition

While promotion is "manipulative" and from the

seller, communication is "cooperative" and from the
buyer with the aim to create a dialogue with the
potential customers based on their needs and
Promotion Communication lifestyles. It represents a broader focus.
Communications can include advertising, public
relations, personal selling, viral advertising, and any
form of communication between the organization
and the consumer
Digital Marketing Mix

Digital marketing mix is fundamentally the same as Marketing Mix,

which is an adaptation of Product, Price, Place and Promotion into
digital marketing aspect. Digital marketing can be commonly explained
as 'Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital
technologies’.
Product

Thanks to the interaction and connection of the Internet, Product has

been redefined as 'virtual product' in the digital marketing aspect,
which is regarded as the combination of tangibility and intangibility.
Through the form of digital, a product can be directly sent from
manufacturers to customers. For example, customers could buy music
in the form of an MP3 rather than buy it in the form of a physical CD. As
a result, when a company is making strategy for Internet marketing, it is
necessary to understand how to vary their products in the online
environment.
Product
Here are some examples of adaptation the product element on the Internet.
• Modifying the core product: In this case, it particularly refers to the products that can be
remodeled into digital forms including movies, music, books and other publishing etc. Take
Netflix as an example. The wide use of Internet has changed its form of products from
selling and renting DVDs through retail stores into selling and renting video online.
• Providing digital products: In order to gain market shares in the Internet, companies need
to widen its product range. For example, a psychological counseling could offer online
consultation via video calls. https://doctorola.com/
• Building the whole product: Apart from selling products online, Amazon.com also provides
a paid subscription service called Amazon Prime, with which customers could enjoy free
delivery and videos on Amazon.
• Conducting online research: The Internet offers a low-cost and convenient way of making
marketing researches, which is helpful for companies to find out what products or services
do customers prefer.
Price
• Price concerns about the pricing policies or pricing models from a
company. Due to the wide use of the Internet, many applications
could be found in both consumer's and producer's perspective. From
consumers' side, the Internet enables people to make a comparison
to real-time prices before they make a consumption decision, which is
time-saving and effort-saving for the consumers.
• As for the suppliers, they can adjust prices in the real-time and
provide higher degree of price transparency with customers. Besides,
the Internet is more likely to ease the pressure on price because
online-producers do not have to put budget on renting a physical
store. Hence, making new or adjusting pricing strategies is essential
for the company that wants to enter the Internet market.
Place
With the application of the Internet, place is playing an increasingly
important role in promoting consumption since the Internet and the
physical channels become virtual.
• The major contribution from the Internet to the business is not only making it
possible to selling products online, but also enabling companies to build
relationships with customers.
• Furthermore, since the convenience of navigating from one site to another,
place from the digital marketing perspective is always linked with promotion,
which means retailers often use third-party websites such as Google search
engine to guide customers to visit their websites.
Promotion
Promotion refers to selecting the target markets, locating and
integrating various communication tools in the marketing mix.
Unlike the traditional marketing communication tools, tools in
digital marketing aim at engaging audiences by putting
advertisements and content on the social media, including
display ads, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization
(SEO) etc. When creating online marketing campaigns, Chaffey
and Smith suggested that they can be separated into six groups:
Promotion
• Search marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC).

• Online PR, encouraging positive comments about one's products or services

while reducing negative comments.
• Online partnerships, building relationships between third-party webs to promote
products or services.
• Interactive advertising

• Opt-in e-mail advertising

• Social media marketing, starting and participating in customer to customer,

customer to company interaction through social media.
Thank you