Understanding Marketing and the Four P’s

Felicity’s Study Tips: Understanding Marketing and the Four P’s
This post is designed to help individuals taking the following courses: BUS 475, MKT 421, MGT 300, and MGT 330. Don’t struggle on the Homework Mountain!

Marketing is both an interesting and fun field where I believe that people can exercise their originality as well as their education. Many students enter marketing not really understanding the field beyond the idea of selling things. This presents a problem for many students because they tend to fall back on mundane ideas that are limited to selling products. While ultimately this aspect of marketing is important, it is far from being a complete understanding.

It doesn't have to be an uphill battle!

For those beginner marketers, this post should be a useful guide to developing an understanding of marketing as a field and as a skill. Let’s begin by defining marketing. The term marketing is an ambiguous term which seems simple in concept. Most people know many of the components of marketing such as advertising and selling methods and this seems to provide a general concept of marketing. However, when asked to define the term, a variety of definitions will appear with certain contextual differences that make the differing definitions somewhat disingenuous. For example, one of the more standard definitions of marketing can be found in the Business Dictionary, “The management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer (Business Dictionary, 2011)”

While this definition is concise it lacks a certain depth of critical understanding. A more in depth definition of marketing would describe the field as,

Marketing is the process whereby society, to supply its consumption needs, evolves distributive systems composed of participants, who, interacting under constraints - technical (economic) and ethical (social) - create the transactions or flows which resolve market separations and result in exchange and consumption (Bartles, 1968).

Both definitions provide a simple point of view concerning marketing but both definitions also show a distinct contextual difference. The dictionary definition defines marketing as a management process while the textbook definition defines it as a social process. This is important because one can glean from both definitions a more exact personal definition.  From these sources, I would define marketing as a broad based management and social process of creating and delivering goods to the market with sales principles underpinning its mechanism. In layman’s terms, marketing is a management process and social process by which products are moved to customers. Understanding that marketing is a twofold process, as students we can begin to see that this is far more complex of a process than simply selling. In fact the selling of the product is the end result of the marketing process.

Okay, you might be asking, so how do we get the product to that end result? Well, marketing consists of a four part process referred to as the Four P’s.  These four elements of marketing coordinate the effort of the company through stages of product development with the consumer ultimately in mind.
1. Product-identification, selection, and development of a product (niche or consumer need)
2. Price-determination of its price (what price will be profitable but also affordable and competitive)
3. Place-selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place (how will the product be sold to customers i.e. stores, internet, etc…)
4. Promotion- development and implementation of a promotional strategy (how will the customer be made aware of the product) ( Business Dictionary, 2011).

As one can see the actual selling of the product is really a larger process within marketing. By understanding these concepts one will broaden her view of marketing and develop more useful thinking when completing assignments. One should be warned that the Four P’s will appear again and again as one continues taking business and marketing courses.

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References
Bartles. R. (1968) General Theory of Marketing The Journal of Marketing Publication Info. Vol.
32, No. 1, Published by: American Marketing Association Retrieved from University of
Phoenix Online Library

Business Dictionary (2011) Definition: Marketing Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing.html