The marketing mix consists of combined concepts used to capture a brand’s unique selling points and what help the brand stand out from its competitors. The components making up the Four P’s Model are product, price, promotion, and place. While all of these elements are equally important and must be combined for a marketing strategy to be effective, I will focus on what place and promotion specifically can say about the marketing mix.
After a marketer has a clear grasp of what a product is and exactly what makes it unique and has made price determinations, promotion and place come into play. Promotion focuses on how marketing agencies can distribute product information to consumers in a way that allows them to stand out from similar products or services on the market. Promotion includes advertising, public relations and social, email, video, and search engine marketing. In order to maximize return on investment, each of these elements must be tied to a well-situated brand. The communication methods used to make promotion decisions depend heavily on product place decisions.
Marketing is also about placing the right product at the right price, at the right place, and at the right time. Knowing this, it’s crucial for marketers to evaluate where they can best place an advertisement to entice possible clients to become actual clients. The “place” aspect of the marketing mix is where product production and distribution channels are planned. The kinds of communication utilized to inform the target audience about a product are directly impacted by the placement of a product. Place decisions in the marketing mix also affect the company’s promotion activities and how they will offer it to consumers. If the right “place” is used, a company can increase their sales and maintain them over a stretch of time, meaning a greater market share and increased revenues and profits for the business.
The roles that promotion and place play in the marketing mix feed off of each other and when integrated correctly with one another, can produce desired behaviors from a target audience and help businesses understand their own products and services in a way that they can successfully plan a marketing strategy.