The marketing mix is a business tool used in marketing and by marketers. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand's offer, and is often associated with the four P's: price, product, promotion, and place. In service marketing, however, the four Ps are expanded to the seven P's or Seven P's to address the different nature of services.

In the 1990s, the concept of four C's was introduced as a more customer-driven replacement of four P's. There are two theories based on four Cs: Lauterborn's four Cs (consumer, cost, communication, convenience), and Shimizu's four Cs (commodity, cost, communication, channel).

What is the marketing mix?

The marketing mix is one of the most famous marketing terms. The marketing mix is the tactical or operational part of a marketing plan. The marketing mix is also called the 4Ps and the 7Ps.

The 4Ps are price, place, product and promotion. The services marketing mix is also called the

7Ps and includes the addition of process, people and physical evidence.

For someone who is new to marketing, the term heard most often is – “Marketing mix”. For those in whom marketing runs in the blood, the term also flows and they don’t just hear it, they live it. The journey from hearing the term to living it is indeed a big one and may span years, if not decades. It consists of many intermediate steps where one learns to use the aspects of the marketing mix – either individually or in combination. In the simplest form, Marketing Mix consists of four aspects, more commonly known as the four P’s – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Each of the four P’s is a study in itself and takes years to master.

A marketing career is not for everyone. One needs to have the flair to understand not only the marketing mix but also to understand people as well, people who will end up being customers. Marketing mix is about understanding the customers and working around the four P’s to target the customer. There are various aspects to customer targeting. However in this session, we will limit ourselves to the introduction of the marketing mix – a brief about the four P’s of the mix.

Product – The heart of the marketing mix. Without the product, there would be no need for price, promotion or place. There are many aspects to product management. The most commonly used models are the product life-cycle (PLC) management and the customer adoption curve (AC). PLC is about the stages a product goes through and how as a product manager, one should be ready for it in terms of the overall marketing mix. AC is about how the product will be accepted in the market place so that other aspects of marketing mix can be aligned.