Four P’s of Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is the most important tool used for marketing the products with the consumers. The marketing mix is the only one parameter for a company to distinguish its product from the other same kind of products of different companies. The marketing mix is generally known by the four Parameters or the four P’s. These four P’s are:

1) Product
2) Price
3) Place
4) Promotion

In the past few years the marketing mix was known by seven P’s. The other three parameters or P’s were
1) Process
2) Physical evidence
3) People

Now days these three parameters are eliminated from the marketing mix. Only the product, price, promotion and place are considered under the marketing mix. The marketing mix and its four P’s are considered as synonyms to each other but they are not mean the same thing because the marketing mix is used the different kinds of choices organization which have organize the whole product into the market while the four P’s are the best way to define the marketing mix. In simple words we can say that the four P’s are the elements of marketing and together they constitute the marketing mix. PRODUCT: – Product referred to the goods and services provided by the organization. The product includes a lot of things or queries such as what the customer exactly needs, how we can satisfy the customer needs, what we should have to add in our product so that it can challenge the customer needs. There are some very basic things which also come under the product like the size of the product, the shape of the product, the color of the product and size of the product. Product is the most important element of the marketing mix. The product decision has to be taken very carefully. Product decisions include aspects like function, appearance, packaging, service and warranty. PRICE: – The price includes the value of the product or service.

In the price, the price of the same product from other companies have to be taken under examine. The discounts are also comes under the price, the discount of the trade customers and discounts to be given to the other segments of the market. Price is the second most important element of the marketing mix after the Product. Price is the very important decision to be taken as it completely effect on the demand of that product. While taking the decision of setting the price of the product it should be kept under mind that what the customer is perceived value of the product. Pricing of the product includes not only the product price, the discounts, financing and other options such as leasing are also contained in it. Product is a tangible good and intangible service. Product may contain the services like air travel or telecommunication. PLACE: – Place referred to the availability of the product to the consumers, the place from where consumers get the product. Place may also referred to the distribution of the product, where we distribute it to our consumers.

Products are produced to be sold to the consumers. Place decisions are also must have to take very carefully so that it would become easier to the consumers to get to our product. The place system includes the transactional, logistical and facilitating functions PROMOTION: – Promotion of the product refers to way by which we can give information about our product to other firms to whom we can’t deal face to face. A lot of money has to spend for the promotion. Promotions include the advertisement of the product, public relations and the media links. Promotion is an important ingredient of marketing mix as it refers to a process of informing, persuading and influencing a consumer to make choice of the product to be bought.

The target group should be made aware about the accessibility of products and services through various promotional and public relations activities. Promotional process includes activities like Advertising, Sales Promotion, and Personal selling. Advertisings campaigns can be done on TV, radio, internet, posters, leaflets, and yellow pages. For sales promotion companies uses gimmicks like one-on-one offers, free accessories, introductory offers and so on. Personal selling or direct selling is an effective way to develop customer relations; it is mainly done through salesman. Organizations all over the world strategically use marketing mix to popularize their offerings among the selected market segments.

MARKETING MIX IN KFC
Let us consider the most popular organization KFC and implement the four parameters of marketing mix on it. Suppose KFC is going to launch a new type of chicken burger in the market. The four parameters of the marketing mix can affect the development of this product of KFC as follows: 1) PRODUCT: – As the KFC is going to launch a new type of chicken burger in the market, the first step is to see whether any other organization or company has already selling this type of chicken burger or not. If yes, then the KFC must have to add some extra materials to their chicken burger to make it differ from those chicken burgers that already exist in the market and if no, then the KFC can launch this product as it is in the market. KFC must have to describe all the features of the product like its taste i.e. salty or spicy or about the stuff it contains in it, the size of the burger i.e. it contains how many pieces of chicken in it, and the ingredients of the chicken burger. KFC must also have to include in the decision that if the consumers will not like their new chicken burger due to any genuine fact they will return their money that consumers will spend on the product.

These genuine facts are like if the burger smells bad or its tastes very bad. 2) PRICE: – After giving the product’s description to the consumers, the KFC now will have to take the decision of its price. Before putting any MRP on its product the KFC must have examine the price of the same burger of different organizations which already exist in the market. So for the good sale of the chicken burger the KFC has to put a little less MRP from the MRP of the existing products. The KFC also have to take the decision of the discounts on this product. These discounts may be like buy three chicken burgers get one chicken burger free or buy a large chicken burger, get French fries free. These may impact a large sale in the market of this product. Before putting the MRP on his product the KFC owners must also have to add the miscellaneous charges that were spend on the product. 3) PLACE: – After implementing the price on the burger the KFC now have to take a decision of the availability of the chicken burger, that how the consumers able to get this chicken burger.

For the good sale of the chicken burger the KFC have to launch the recipe of the burger in every KFC store around the world. By taking this decision the consumers now can get this chicken burger very easily from the KFC stores. 4) PROMOTION: – To launch the product in the market, the KFC has to take the decision of the promotion of the chicken burger. The Advertisement of the new chicken burger is the most important decision in the promotion parameter of its marketing mix. The advertisement creates a very huge impact on the sale of this chicken burger because almost all the consumers can only get the information of this new chicken burger with the help of advertisement and if the advertisement is made out very good then the consumers will attract more towards this new chicken burger. KFC has to spend a lot of money to make an attractive advertisement of this new chicken burger. So the decision of promoting the product in the market has to be taken very carefully. If these four P’s of marketing mix have been implemented very carefully the KFC will get a very good sale on its new chicken burger and can challenge any other existing product in the market.

References:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix#Four_.27P.27s . 2) http://www.nios.ac.in/srsec319new/319EL20.pdf .
3) http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_94.htm . 4) http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/mix/ .