The Five P’s of Marketing

One popular definition of marketing is known as the Five P’s of marketing. The five P’s refer to thetype of decisions that you will have to make when you effectively market your product. These decisioncategories are:

• Product – The physical product or the service that you are offering to the customer. You will
decide what to sell or offer, how it should appear, what customer service support will come
with it, and any warranty or additional aspects of the product that will be included.
• People – The people decisions that you will make are those that refer to how you want
your customer service representatives to interact with your customers. How will they be
instructed to work with the customer? How will you make sure they have the information
they need to help the customer?
• Price – Pricing decisions are made based on profit margins, pricing that competitors use,
and the demand in the market. You will also have to make decisions regarding when to offer
price discounts and whether or not you’ll allow financing or other payment arrangements.
• Promotion – As described earlier, promotion decisions will need to be made regarding
how you will communicate and sell to your potential customers. You’ll have to decide what
you can afford to spend on promotions as well based on the expected return on investment
(ROI).
• Place – Also sometimes called Placement, these decisions regard how you will distribute
your product or service to the customer. Will you have a store front shop? Will you deliver
the items yourself? How will you use the internet and other sales channels to get your
product or service to the customer?