The New Marketing Mix 2020 – The Four P’s And Four C’s Of Marketing

The New Marketing Mix 2020 - The Four P’s And Four C’s Of Marketing

A marketing mix is a set of various marketing tools that a businesses use to sell services or products to their target customers. A marketing mix of any company is often composed of various approaches in order for the business to be able to effectively market its services or products. Finding your marketing mix is important regardless of the size of the business or the products and services it offers. On the other hand, even if it is important to define your marketing mix, you also need to determine when is the right time for you to include enablers and mindset barriers to make sure your marketing mix will have a powerful impact.

For years, novice marketers were schooled in the Four Ps of marketing referring to Product, Price, Place and Promotion. But with the continued changes in marketing conditions, marketing experts have replaced this old maxim with the Four Cs, referring to Customer, Cost, Convenience and Communication.

Marketing Mix

The Four P’s of Marketing

It is often correct that the culture of any market group will dictate how your marketing strategy should be designed.

4 Ps of marketing
Product

This refers to what is being sold. Any marketer must take into account the life cycle of the product to identify any challenges that may arise in the future. This must also conform with what the market segment really wants. You cannot just sell any product when there are no identified consumer for it.

Price

This refers to the cost to purchase a product. No matter what the market condition is, the price often depends on the perceived value of the customer regarding the product. Value perception can significantly change your marketing strategy. Providing a lower price will definitely make a product more accessible to customers, while a higher price may have its appeal to customers looking for exclusivity. But in order for your business to make profit, the price must always be greater than the cost of production.

Place

This refers to any physical location where your customer can use,  purchase, or access a product. This includes distribution hubs, transport, inventory decisions, storage, and franchises.

Promotion

This refers to all advertising, direct marketing, and sales promotion you create for your product. From basic TV commercials to printed catalogs, billboards, internet ads as well as other promotional platforms, this marketing mix also includes public relations endeavors such as press releases and continued relationship with the media. Promotion includes what it is you want to communicate, who you want to communicate it to, how are you planning to reach your target audience, and how often promotion occurs.

The Four C’s of Marketing

A lot of marketers insist that the four C’s of marketing is a much more effective marketing mix tool than the traditional four P’s.

4 Cs of marketing
Customer Solution

Instead of focusing mainly on the product you are offering, this reminds you to have the extra effort on providing solution or filling a void based on the experience of your customer. For any type of business, it is only important that you understand the customers to whom you market your products or services. The more you understand them, the better it will be for your products to be beneficial and useful to your customers. This will also allow you to be able determine the perfect marketing platform that will allow you to reach them more efficiently.

Cost

The cost of the product does not mean its price. When you consider it, the price is actually just a small part of your overall cost that goes into buying a product, based on your customers’ perspectives. With this marketing mix, you must be able to establish your product’s overall cost and provide this information to your customer.

Convenience

Once you are able to study your market’s habits, you will be able to identify their shopping preference whether they want to purchase it online or from a traditional brick and mortar store as wells as the extent to which your customer will go to buy your product. In part, the convenience of your product will be determined by its overall cost. If you are able to make your product or services more cost efficient and easily accessible without requiring your customers to go the extra mile to avail it, then you are already setting yourself up for success.

Communication

This part of the mix is crucial to the success of your marketing endeavors. Communication means how you interact with your customers and to do this, you need to understand them well. At present, the social media platform is one of the most effective communication tools for businesses. Communication is different from promotion because when you are promoting your products, it does not necessarily mean that you are communicating with your target market. You need to use this to focus on how you can build a sustainable relationships while engaging in meaningful conversations with the people you want to market your products to. The easier your customer is able to communicate with you, the more chances you have for a repeat customer.

Recap

With the present condition of the economy, there is no better time to include different elements in your marketing mix. Identifying the 4Cs and 4Ps in your marketing will be a quick path towards your marketing success. The 4C’s for achieving better and more efficient profit earning business include cost, convenience, customer solution and communication. When used together in a marketing mix, the 4Cs and the 4Ps will play a major part on the success of any businesses particularly in the first stage of creating and implementing a sound marketing strategy plan.

Integrating different elements into the marketing mix instead of just following the traditional approach is often a challenging feat for individuals and organizations. Everybody knows that implementing major changes in mindsets is not an easy task to achieve. However, you must understand that these are natural but by making it visible, mindset barriers can be unlocked and enablers implemented to increase the enterprising behavior while reinforcing your marketing attempts.

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