Marketing: What Are The Four Elements Of Marketing?

Marketing is a term that is used frequently. Generally, it is thought of as how a company advertises and sells their products or services, but upon reading several sources during the research phase of creating this paper, it was found that there are many more elements involved in marketing. Marketing goes way beyond advertising and selling; it is a focal point of a company that drives the direction the company takes. According to Perreault, there are two definitions for marketing. The definition for micro-marketing was stated as the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization's objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer

The organization must determine the kinds of salespeople, the number required, and how to select, train and motivate the sales staff. The success of most organizations depends on the quality of the sales staff, so this is a crucial step to take into consideration. Advertising is a major factor in the ‘Promotion' category of the four Ps. The targets, the kinds of ads, the media type, the copy thrust and who will prepare the advertising are all important elements in advertising. These are the more traditional activities most people associate with marketing, but the true impact of the results can make or break a product or services existence. Besides advertising, the organization must decide on the types of sales promotions they may have, if any, and what types of publicity they will target. The marketing manager must determine how to blend all these means of communication to best handled the organization's

The marketing manager must assure the pricing objectives are aligned with the organization's objectives. Flexibility must be factored into the pricing. Some products or services have very little pricing flexibility due to factors such as scarcity of the resources required to produce the product or service or because of high levels of competition that drives prices to a stable, low rate. In the case of the author's company, pricing involves the size of the client, what they can and may bring to the contract and the level of service they require. In terms of competition, the author's company does charge more for the deliverable, but the costs to clients also includes a much higher level of customer service than competitors. The product's life cycle is an important element when pricing because the desire is to assure a certain amount of revenue is received over the life cycle. To do so, the price must level out over the life cycle. This requires a good understanding of the supply and demand for a product at any given time during the life