The Four Ps of Marketing: An Overview (Part 1 of 2)

Marketing is a pivotal aspect of the journey for a successful author or entrepreneur. To grasp the fundamental marketing elements, we will delve into the Four Ps in this essay. These four pillars are crucial. Every writer should comprehend from the outset how each of these components interacts to formulate an effective marketing strategy. My perspective on this essay is shaped by owning a media relations agency representing various authors, publishers, entertainers, entertainment companies, and other corporate entities and creative individuals.

The Four Ps are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These four matter because they provide the framework for crafting, delivering, and communicating value to customers and for delivering products. Using the Four Ps ensures seamless alignment between the product offered and market needs.

For instance, the product could be a novel, the price could be the cost of the book, the place could be the online platform where it's sold, and the promotion could be the author's social media campaign. The product is what you offer to meet a customer’s needs. Read between the lines as I write this article and look for key phrases. There are multiple moving parts in each. In this paragraph's first sentence, the key phrases are 1) what you offer and 2) how it meets the customer’s needs. Offering something is not enough. The end game is not the purchase by the customer; it is the author, in our case, meeting the customer's needs, the reader. The purchase will come if we do our part correctly. What we’re discussing here can apply to any business. The price is the value exchanged for the product or service. Your service is worth so much to the customer. That is where the market price must be set. The rarer and more valuable, the more exchange can be demanded. To get more compensation, you must create and sell something rare and valuable, a unique thing only you can create with such laser-like precision that it trumps all other similar products. Place is where and how the product is delivered to customers. This is the distribution. Promotion is how you engage and communicate with customers to drive sales. The Four Ps must work together to create a solid and successful marketing strategy. Adjusting any of the Ps affects all of the others and takes retooling to ensure all four are in alignment.

Your product is your core offering. These are the goods (books?), services (speaking engagements?), or ideas (consulting?) that you provide to a customer to satisfy their wants and needs. Invaluable questions to ask yourself, and you mandatorily need to define so you know what you are working with is what your product does explicitly for the customer. How does it solve a problem or fulfill a desire, how does it appeal in concept and presentation to the target audience, and how is it perceived to create the best position or platform in the marketplace? Much of this starts when creating the product (the book?).

Price is how much the customer is willing to pay for the product or service, not how much you want. Books have a standard range of how much they cost depending upon the type of book, length, and demographic to be reached (consumer books, for example, are traditionally cheaper than books targeted toward college courses). Price is determined by the product cost plus the profit margin. Perceived value is essential. This is how valuable a product (book?) or service (speaking engagement?) is to a customer. You also need to look at the product cost for the goods or services so that you are in line with other available products released by similarly qualified individuals.

Place is where the product or service will be sold to the retail customer. Place is where the transaction will be made. For a book, this might be through an independent bookstore or an online dealer. Factors to consider are the distribution channel (will you sell directly via a website or your own store) or indirectly through a retailer or wholesaler? Whatever the place, goods and services must be available when the customer needs them and must be delivered or promised nearly immediately. Amazon has spoiled customers, and if you can’t set a date or provide a product in two days, you have a problem and a dissatisfied customer. Last of all, wherever or however a product or service is sold, that product or service must be easy to find. There are over one billion websites online right now. Yours must reach the top of search engines.

Promotion is how you are going to reach and communicate with the customer. In my discussions about marketing and publicity, we want to focus on promotion, but all three criteria must be in place for promotion to work. Promotion is any activity that informs, persuades, or reminds customers about a product or how and where to buy the product. You achieve this through advertising (TV, online, print, outdoor ads) with the advertising catered towards the product as different types of advertising best serve each product. You achieve this through sales promotions (discounts, coupons, and other special offers). You build a positive image and manage communication through public relations, an offshoot of marketing focusing on building and maintaining a positive public image. Marketing, sales, and public relations create brand awareness. The digital market is huge in building SEO through well-created websites and social media campaigns.

To reach profitable integration, you must bind and align all Four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. Consistency across the Four Ps strengthens the brand's loyalty (you are the brand), enforces the brand identity (your brand, which is your unique selling proposition), and creates customer trust in the product (you). Misalignment of these four can confuse or frustrate customers and, as a result, will diminish the effectiveness of your promotional and marketing campaigns. The Four Ps must align; they must be consistent.

With the rate technology is going, there are constantly new challenges to balancing the Four Ps. Evolving market trends influence digital transformation of where to focus on place and promotion. Evolving and more self-centric customer expectations (what can your product do for me) demand increased personalization and sustainability, which impacts product and pricing. There are also more competitors, making it a constant need for creators (you) to adjust your products or services to stay competitive and on the frontline.

Think about what you do and how what you do affects the Four Ps as they relate to you and the products or services you provide. Determine how you will offer a product or service with value at a price that matches your skill or quality level, where you will sell it and make it readily available to customers, and then what avenues you will use to promote this product or service. We’ll discuss later in future essays how to create the most significant impact for what we’re doing, but right now, take out a piece of paper and start analyzing where you fall, where you are deficient, where you have strengths, and ideas for improving each of the Four Ps. They are going to be fundamental to your success. Writers are creators and entrepreneurs; understanding the Four Ps marketing principles helps you position your books and services effectively, attract thought leaders, and build the all-important platform needed to sustain your writing and speaking career.