14 June 2005

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is one of the dominant ideas in modern marketing. Philip Kotler in his co-authored book "Principles of Marketing" defines marketing mix as "the set of controllable tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it wants in the target market". The marketing mix consists of everything the firm can do to influence the demand for its product. The many possibilities gathered into four groups of variables known as the 'four Ps'.

Product - Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, aquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organisations and ideas.
Price - The amount of money charged for a product or service, or the sum of the values that consumers exchange for the benefits of having or using the product or service.
Place - All the company activities that make the product or service available to target customers.
Promotion - Activities that communicate the product or service and its merits to target customers and persuade them to buy.

The four Ps represent the sellers' view of the marketing tools available for influencing buyers. From a customer viewpoint, each marketing tool must deliver a customer benefit. One marketing expert suggested that companies should view the four Ps as the customer's 'four Cs':

Four Ps - Four Cs
Product - Customer needs and wants
Price - Cost to the customer
Place - Convenience
Promotion - Communication

3 comments:

S A J Shirazi said...

Nice edu blog. Have you seen LSE Blog on my blogroll?

Ahsan Kaleem said...

Thankyou for your comment. Yes i have seen LSE's blog, very nice but i find it lacking the content it needs as being a blog of a university.

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