An Overview of the Four Ps of Marketing

A global marketing professional, John Finneran works as a consultant in Connecticut. In this capacity, he works with different startups to create annual marketing and financial plans for the businesses. Possessing upwards of three decades of marketing experience, John Finneran of Connecticut is familiar with a range of topics related to marketing management.

There are four Ps involved in the marketing process. Each of these four key factors is briefly described below:

Price
The price of a product is the amount that consumers pay. Depending on the industry, companies may have either a small or large profit margin. Sales cycles, supply and demand, and product life cycles all dictate the price of a product. Businesses may also incorporate cost-saving strategies to help them reduce product costs and stand out in their markets.

Place
Perhaps the most significant part of marketing is place. This refers both to the place a product is manufactured and the place it is stored. It also includes the placement of marketing materials. For instance, some products are best marketed online or in films, while others are more suited for radio and print advertisements.

Product
A product is a service or good that is offered by a company to consumers. Good products fulfill existing consumer demand or are compelling enough that consumers believe they need the product. With marketing, the life cycle of each product must be fully understood, since both the product life cycle stage and type dictates the other three Ps of marketing.

Promotion
With promotional strategy, consumers are shown why they need to purchase a particular product or service and why they should pay a particular price for it. Promotion focuses on how and when an item is presented to the public. It is directly tied to place, price, and product.

Strategies to Effectively Reduce Lead Times in Supply Chains

From Easton, Connecticut, John Finneran has worked in marketing for over 30 years, half of which he spent as marketing manager for Unilever home and personal care brands. Among his accomplishments at Unilever in Connecticut, John Finneran successfully implemented local sourcing programs for major retailers that significantly decreased their lead times, which is an essential part of the supply chain.

For decades, lead times have been an issue for the manufacturing industry, as companies have grown to expect to wait long periods for certain products. This causes issues including excess inventory and slow times to market.

Strategically negotiating contracts is crucial to keeping lead times low, as the manufacturer must know exactly what they are getting from the supplier and on what schedule. Contracts are sometimes just focused on price, and the strategic manufacturer will look at every detail This will include prices, delivery schedules, lead times, and any mutual accountabilities.

Diversification of suppliers ensures a steady supply of goods, as they are relying less and less on one supplier for a product. Reducing lead times are going to include looking at multiple suppliers that can ensure an overall supply that won’t slow down production.

Poor lead times can also be caused by distribution issues. With many people now buying online, retail locations have started turning into distribution centers as well, due to in-store pickup and delivery options. Manufacturers must ensure that their end product is distributed in an efficient way, so it doesn’t hold up inventory movement.

Local Sourcing as an Option to Reduce Lead Time

An alumnus of Connecticut College, Jon Finneran is a sales and marketing consultant with decades of experience managing marketing plans for Fortune 50 companies. A resident of Easton, Connecticut, John Finneran previously worked as a marketing manager at Unilever, where he negotiated local sourcing programs with retailers to reduce lead time and increase Unilever’s sales.

Lead time is the amount of time between purchasing a product from a supplier and receiving it. It includes purchase order processing time, storage time when products ordered are kept in a warehouse awaiting delivery, and the time it takes to transport them to the customer.

Excessively long lead times present challenges to businesses. It means they may have to halt production or operational processes to wait for supplies, missing out on revenue and inconveniencing customers. To make things worse, they may be forced to make emergency purchases or carry extra inventory, incurring high supply and carrying costs. If a key competitor has a more efficient supply chain and can deliver products more quickly, it will add to a business’ injury.

Sourcing supplies locally is one strategy to reduce lead time. If a business has international suppliers, lead times can go into weeks. Therefore, the immediate purchase price savings advantages of offshore sourcing must be rationalized with the costs of inventory stock-outs to determine viability. Local sourcing decreases lead time and can be appropriate if it does not negatively impact product quality.

Major Marketing Pricing Strategies

John Finneran served as the marketing manager at Unilever in Greenwich, Connecticut, for 15 years. He also led a job networking group focused on assisting people in job transitions. As a marketing leader, John Finneran would design cost-effective logistical and pricing strategies for the Unilever Lipton business in Connecticut.

As a central component of the marketing process, product pricing requires a comprehensive analysis of the organization’s market performance, state of competition, and product positioning. As the balance between costs and pricing influences a company’s sales generation, it is vital for companies to use a variety of pricing strategies.

In cost-based pricing, production costs and profit levels are usually the basis for product pricing. It is the most direct method to balance the difference between how much the company might make and spend. However, cost-based pricing is often not ideal as it does not consider how customer demand and competitors’ performance affect prices.

Competition-based pricing, otherwise known as competitive pricing, entails setting the product price depending on the competitors’ prices. It is commonly used by companies selling similar products since the attributes of the commodity are comparable, and price points can be a deciding factor for customers.

Customer-based or value-based pricing is a concept centered on setting a product’s price on its benefits to consumers. Rather than focusing on production costs, businesses adopting customer-based pricing research consumer value perception and center pricing on that.

Lastly, penetration pricing involves setting a low product price as a strategy to enter a competitive market and subsequently raising it later. This is not a long-term pricing strategy as its success depends largely on other factors that enable the company to maintain their market presence at a much lower profit margin to begin with.