The Four Ps of marketing

In the 1960s, the Harvard Business School discovered a number of company actions that influence the decision to buy goods or services. They suggested that the actions are a “Marketing Mix”, containing four elements: product, price, promotion and placement.

Product: The product aspects of marketing cover the specifications, and how they relate to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product normally includes supporting elements such as warranties, support and guarantees.

Pricing: This covers the process of setting the best price for a product, including discounts. The price does not necesarily need to be monetary - it can be what’s exchanged for the product or service - time, energy, or a measure of attention.

Promotion: This covers web advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and face-to-face selling and branding, and refers to the various methods of sales promotion.

Placement (or distribution): covers how the product or service gets to the customer eg distribution or retailing. This fourth P is also called Place, referring to the channel through which it is sold (eg online or retail etc), which region or industry and which market segment (eg teenagers, families, business people etc).

These four marketing elements are often called the marketing mix, which can be used to create a marketing plan. The four Ps marketing model is useful for B2B both products and services. High-value consumer products require refinement to this model. Services marketing must also take account of the unique nature of the services.

B2B marketing must also take into account long-term agreements typically found in supply chain contracts. Relationship marketing attempts to accomplish this by looking at all aspects of marketing from a long-term relationship-building angle rather than looking at individual transactions.

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing, also known as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services using the Internet.

The Internet has brought many unique sales benefits to marketing, one of which is lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a worldwide audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, providing instant response and encouraging responses, is unique to the medium.

Internet marketing is often considered to have a wider scope because it includes digital media such as the Internet, email, web banner ads etc. However, Internet marketing also includes digital customer data and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Internet marketing brings together creative and technical elements of the Internet, including design, development, visual creativity, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply include building or promoting a website, nor does it simply mean placing a banner ad on a website.

Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive marketing strategy that emphasises a company's business model and sales goals with its website usage and appearance, focusing on its target markets through the considered choice of advertising options, media, and design.

Internet marketing also means the considered placement of media during the different stages of the customer engagement cycle, using search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimisation (SEO), banner ads, email marketing, and Web strategies.