4 Ps of Marketing for your success

Once the initial adrenaline rush of establishing a business has passed, most entrepreneurs begin worrying about the bread and butter issues required for making their businesses sustainable. Usually, this involves building a company reputation that ensures a place in what could be a crowded, highly-competitive sector. What this boiled down to was ensuring that the business met the time-honoured four Ps of marketing.

The four key activities of marketing must be brought together and blended to produce results in the chosen business sector. The good news is that they do not require the allocation of massive budgets to be implemented successfully:

4P’s of Marketing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Product: To be accepted in the market, a product has to satisfy the requirements of the purchaser from the first point of contact through to after sales service. The product must therefore incorporate the design elements, features, packaging, and quality that customers demand.
• Place: The location of the business, shop, or outlet must be visible and easily accessible to customers. pending on the nature of the business, this may also need to be supported by a distribution network and suitable logistics for getting the product to the customer.
• Price: Keen pricing is essential in highly-competitive sectors. Attention has to be paid to pricing, discounting, credit and cash purchases as well as credit collection.
• Promotion: Having the correct products, at the right place, with the correct prices is of little use if people don’t know about you and your company. This means using advertising, marketing and other promotional activities to convey the value and benefits of your products or services. Activities can also include direct marketing, personal selling and the internet.

 If the 4 Ps of marketing are applied to the satisfaction of the market, success is bound to follow.

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