Entrepreneurs today are operating in the middle of the most competitive business environment in human history. Today, unlike any other time before, it’s possible to build a legitimately global business from a back bedroom on a shoestring budget with little more than a laptop and internet connection. Every market is crowded already and getting even more so on a daily basis. If your marketing and sales funnels aren’t really dialed in – and you aren’t focused on mastering the Four P’s of Marketing – you’re going to have a much tougher time than your competitors. Thankfully, though, mastering the fundamentals of the Four P’s of Marketing is a whole lot easier than most people expect. Especially when you have a detailed guide like this breaking things down for you!

So let’s jump right into the deep end, covering the ins and outs of (almost) everything you need to know about the Four P’s of Marketing and how you can leverage them to take your business success (and your financial future) to the next level.

Product

The first piece of the puzzle when it comes to your marketing is really getting a handle on your Product.

Just to clear things up very quickly, when we talk about your Product we aren’t necessarily talking about a physical item that you sell (though that may be the case). We are talking about ANYTHING that your business sells to make money – traditional products, services, etc.

At the end of the day, we just mean the thing that you are offering to your customers.

As far as mastering the Product side of the Four P’s of Marketing is concerned, it really involves digging deep to understand exactly what makes your offer so special, so unique, and so much more valuable than competing options – your competitive edge and leverage.

Most business owners never really think about what separates their Product from the rest of the pack, and as a result and up running a lot of “copycat” style marketing that echoes the same stuff everyone else is saying.

In a crowded marketplace like the one we live in today, though, that kind of marketing gets lost in the shuffle completely.

Instead really think about building Products that your market are going to go crazy for, Products that are unique and more valuable than the ones your competition is offering, and Products that are built – first and foremost – from a perspective of what you’re customers really want.

That’s the secret sauce right there!

To come up with better Products, consider these kinds of questions:

• What’s the biggest problem or challenge your market has right now that they would love to solve?
• What products and services are your customers already in love with?
• What’s bringing your customers to your company, to your business, and why are they choosing you over anyone else?
• Where’s the gap between what your customers are looking for and what the market is offering?

Consider these fundamental questions (and any others you can come up with) and generating new blockbuster Products should become almost effortless!

Price

The next big piece of the puzzle you need to square away when mastering the Four P’s of Marketing is a component of business that a lot of entrepreneurs and marketers get really lazy with – and that’s Price!

If you were to ask business owners today how they came up with their prices, the overwhelming majority of them would tell you that they had a look around at what their competition was charging and priced in line with that (and maybe a little cheaper).

What a terrible way to build a blockbuster business!

No, a lot more thought and a lot more consideration needs to go into establishing your Price points.

For starters, your prices are going to have a huge impact on how your company is perceived.

Offer cut rate prices and you shouldn’t be surprised if customers treat you like a cut rate operation. Command premium prices, on the other hand, and you’ll have a much easier time commanding real authority, respect, and affinity – especially if your marketing is fully in line with what your Price says about your business and your products.

At the same time, a big piece of getting Price right is thinking about how you are positioning your products in the market, too.

There’s something to be said about offering real luxury at a discount (especially if you position your company as “cutting out the middleman” or “blowing the smoke off the mirrors” in certain markets).

You just want to be sure that you aren’t crippling your chances of success to just undercut the competition.

To come up with more effective prices, consider things like:

• What would be the absolute rock-bottom, lowest price you’d be willing to sell your products for?
• What would be the absolute top of the market, highest price point your customers would spend for your products?
• What level of sensitivity do your customers have right now for the kinds of products you’re offering?
• What kinds of prices have your customers been conditioned to expect by the pricing of your competitors?
• How can you use your positioning to justify and rationalize your price points (unlocking the real power of the Four P’s of Marketing along the way)?

Place

The Place your business exists in, and how your customers interact with your business, is hugely important.

Just like in the world of real estate you need to really focus on “location, location, location”!

In the digital world (where so many of our businesses exist these days) it’s easy to forget about the value in creating a real, tangible, physical kind of space – or a digital experience that mimics the same – when it comes to marketing, branding, and positioning.

At the same time, while many of us are heavily focused on traffic generation and figuring out where our best customers are coming from we aren’t really thinking deeper about why they are coming from those sources, what brought them to those sources (and then to us), and where they are going after they’ve visited.

Those are all hugely important questions we need to master.

Even more importantly, though, is creating a real Place – especially in the digital space – that your customers immediately associate with you, your brand, and the products and services you have to offer.

Coming up with a really consistent branding that you can use on your web platforms, social media networks, and any other online space (to basically bring your Place anywhere on the web) is a massive advantage. Do not miss out on the leverage it brings to the table.

On top of that, you should be asking questions like:

• Where is your customer most likely to be (physically and digitally) when they find out about your business?
• Where are your products and services available for sale, and what does that say or convey about them?
• What kinds of distribution channels are you tapped into or can you take advantage of in the future?
• What kind of business model are you using, direct to business and consumer or you have middlemen in between?
• Where do your competitors exists? Are they close to your operation or have you built a “moat” to insulate your business from them?

Promotion

The last leg of the Four P’s of Marketing has to do with Promotion – the favorite of every serious marketer, and the part where you get to flex your creativity and where you get to see the most upside on your effort to generate real sales.

Promotion efforts need to be tied around a single goal, and that’s driving just as many sales and just as much revenue as humanly possible.

Something that separates the very best marketers from the rest of the crowd is a mentality that understands that nothing in the world of business happens (or really even matters) until something gets sold.

You could have the best products and services at the best prices, the best employees and management in the business, the friendliest customer service and support, and a real mission you want your business to accomplish …

… But until money starts coming in from sales none of those things are going to amount to a hill of beans (and there won’t ever be money to cover those expenses, either)!

Promotion is the lifeblood of every successful business.

At the same time, it’s impossible to have the energy, the time, and usually the budget to Promote everywhere you’d like to.

As a marketer or business owner you need to figure out (pretty quickly) which channels of promotion are going to be able to help you out the most, and that’s only going to be possible by spreading yourself thin – at least upfront – finding the winners, and then pumping money into those channels while looking for others at the same.

This rinse and repeat, constantly improving process is the secret underpinning to the success of a lot of online empires today.

It’s also something that a lot of entrepreneurs and online marketers that aren’t enjoying the kind of success they were hoping for are unaware of or ignore more often than not.

Sure, everyone in your business might be having a lot of success with direct to customer sales through e-commerce platforms – but maybe after testing you discover that there are better channels to Promote, and better opportunities to bring customers in by the bucket full.

The only way to find the right channels for Promotion are asked questions like:

• Where are my customers most likely looking for solutions that my products and services offer?
• What kinds of questions are my customers asking to find these answers and solutions?
• What kind of message is most effective when these kinds of offers are put in front of them?
• When should I be making these kinds of offers and how do I “break the ice”?
• What other offers should I be making (upsell and downsell)? What’s my backend look like?
• What are my most successful competitors doing to promote their own offers?

Keep these kinds of things in mind (along with the rest of the inside information highlighted above) and you’ll be able to unleash the power of the Four P’s of Marketing to build the kind of business you’ve always dreamed of!