4Ps is a significant factor in operating business. Now, as market are widen, lots of marketers create strategies which aim to capture the biggest sale volume as much as possible to gain higher position in market share. However, they might lack deeply understanding the products that they want to sale. Thus, this article will describe about 4P strategy.

Product:

The first of 4PS is product. Even though the product are tangible or intangible goods, low price or expensive, you must have a clear understand in what exactly your product is, how to use, and how it’s unique from another. If you cannot explain these variables top the customer, you might lose customer trust and reliability that place on.

Price:

After you have a clear understanding about the sale product, you are able to make decision of pricing.  Which the price can be varies (low or high), it depend on value creation that you add to your product. If you can make the customer perceive that your product is valuable or benefit to them, you can set the price high.

Place:

Place mean “how you putting you product to the right place, at the right price, in the right time”. Ti’s very important to evaluate where your target market located is. Thus, you have to think about the channel that you can sell the product in order to satisfy the customer need and make them engage such as social Media, online shopping, or direct sale at the shop.

Promotion:

For promotion, it’s the way you communicate to provide information to differentiate the product in order to promote. The marketer can offer promotion such as advertising, public relations, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing, video marketing and more.

However, 4Ps is not the only key success of your business. You, as a marketer, have to be able to adapt with the situation in doing business as well.

        When the products have already reached the maturity stage acceptance in the market, sales will peak, and start to decline at the maturity stage. The Declining is due to factors such as the change in consumer preferences, technological advances, fashion, innovation or new competitors.

        During this stage, a lower sales level than they reached at their peak. Thus, the company should consider the ways to prevent the products from the end of its life in order to continue to compete with the competitors and gain market share. The companies need to think about how materials or ideas from your service or product can be recycled.

How to prevent?

Make Improvements

• Companies need to improve the product by introducing new ideas or feature to the product to attract consumers, even there are small improvements. However, they have to observe the problems first, before the declining stage, to find ways to refresh the products. For instant, almonds, the companies try to come up with variety type of the packages: make it more modern, to respond to consumer preferences. The products are contained in small or big plastic bags that are less expensive than contain in can, or some provide reclosable bags such as Zipper bag to keep freshness of taste. The consumers will choose the package depend on their preference. Even the sale of can almond decline, however, the company still sale almonds that contain in other type of packages which can prevent from the end of product life.

Change the product portfolio

• As the technology rapidly changed, the product life cycle has speed up and created the need for companies to introduce new products much more quickly. For example, many popular products, such as the iPod, are in the maturity stage at the moment. Apple Company managed to extend their life by introducing the iPod touch which includes new features, applications and touch screen that are more useful for the consumers. However, this involves risk if the companies are too early introducing the new product. The new will cut off the olds sale before extremely get full profit. On the other hand, if you wait too long, a competitor may beat you to market with a new product that steals sales from your existing product.

Patcharaporn Praewpraikul

When we talk about poverty countries, we normally think about the poor who live on less than two dollars a day and they are cut off from the global marketplace. Thus, many people doubt how does the poor countries can be thriving market.

Now, I want you to delete your mindset that the poor cannot be your target market. Even though they have very less money, they still consume something that makes them satisfy with their life. Hence, you have an opportunity links with 4PS to sell your products.

Firstly, don’t think much about too unique but think about simple and basic to serve them because they only strive to survive. So, Product that we can offer is the four necessities for a living: food, drinks, clothing and medicine.

Price is another issue that we must concern. As the target market is  poverty, the price should not be too high because the poor cannot afford to buy a too-expensive things. Thus, you have to research what are the affordable prices for them.

From the assumption that the poor have limited access to education and facilities as they are bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers, the companies have to inform; give them clear the information to ensure that they know understand the products when it comes to promotion.

Remember that you are selling to uneducated people, so Code of Ethics of doing business is very important. The company must give them the true information means that do not lie to them just because you want to get higher profit that might leads to unsuccessful. For instant, Nestle Company fail in selling milk powder in South Africa caused by high price and exaggerates about the fact of nutrition. As the product is expensive and the consumers are poor, they use milk powder in small proportion at a time because they think that the nutrition is sufficient for their baby. The result is that children still lack nutrition and sick, so they end up with stop buying the product.

    Today, Many organizations include educate the people as one of the objective in poor countries, as well as provide job for them (local people), and bring more rapid overall growth of household output and income in order to reduce the gap of economic inequality between the poor and wealthier. These not only impact the sale revenue of the organization when people have more money they can buy more to consume, but also create royalty customer caused from creating job and bring more income to their family.

Patcharaporn Praewpraikul

references:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/11/16/why-consumers-in-poor-countries-try-harder-to-keep-up-with-the-joneses/

http://www.societyandorganizations.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Garette-CMR-su10.pdf

https://hbr.org/2008/05/even-the-poorest-can-be-a-thriving-market

“The more you build loyalty customer, the more you are valued, the more you can deliver surprising”.

        Today, companies deliver a vicious circle in order to gain more customers.However, what companies do to gain the first place in the market can not change company image that the customer recognized.

The real value that you gain, the product that you marketing might be the things that the customers need, but they will not realized that they want to buy it until you present it to them with new ideas and innovations that they really engage and surprise with it.

Innovation is one concept for creating surprises that link with brand awareness of your company. When you do well to develop and create unique way to differentiate your brand from your competitors then people get surprised logically, you do more than people expect.

“Every breakout is a victory. And yet it’s momentary”. Thus, innovations are not the only things to attract customers as in previous time, but the experiences that how you understand the customers and to deliver the brand to stay notice in order to create “Big Bang” surprise in the long run.

For brand owners and managers, the big way you walk need more lessons to shine.

Resource: http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2015/01/brand-strategy-and-the-power-of-surprise.html#.VNR85dKsVp4