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The 4P Marketing Strategy: How to Choose the Right Products

If you are a B2B company and want to grow your business by adding new products to your existing product portfolio, this article and my other related articles will help you. They describe how a 4P marketing strategy can help you produce a successful “product launch” plan for your chosen market.

A marketing strategy based on the 4Ps of Marketing looks at four key marketing and sales areas to consider when building your product launch plan:

1.Product. How to choose the right product to sell?

2. Square. Where to find the customers who will buy it?

3. Promotion. How to “package” and promote your product?

4. Price. How to choose a sale price that is acceptable and profitable?

I do not claim to cover all the 4Ps in this article. I am going to focus on the first one by providing some tips and guidance on “How to choose the right product to sell”.

Choose the right product

Whether you already have a successful B2B business or want to grow one quickly, it’s important to be able to assess whether your new product will fit in with your current product portfolio and meet the requirements of your market.

Looking at your product in the context of the 4 P’s of marketing is a great way to do this. I have used the 4P marketing strategy approach for many years when launching new products. It is easy to understand and when used correctly it is very effective.

To be sure you’re bringing the right product to market, you need to be able to answer the following questions:

– Will the product sell in your market?

– Can it be sold profitably?

– What skills and experience do you need to sell it?

Will the product sell in your market?

If you’re considering purchasing a new product from another company, do some research first to establish whether the product has a good sales history and whether your existing customers are likely to buy it.

If the product is not selling successfully elsewhere or is only being sold by companies with a very different company profile than yours, you should make a realistic assessment of the additional sales and marketing costs likely to be incurred before your purchase. new product. can become profitable. You should also conduct “consultative research” with your existing customers to find out if they would buy your new product. If they didn’t, you should understand why. (You may find it necessary to talk to other contacts within the same company or consider approaching companies in different market sectors if customers in your main market sectors indicate that they are unlikely to buy your new product.)

Can it be sold profitably?

Make a list of all the things you will need to do to market and sell your product. Use this list to create a spreadsheet of your projected marketing, sales, and administrative costs and compare them to your projected sales for the new product. Use some simple calculations to figure out how long it will take before your product is profitable.

Sometimes it makes sense to sell a product even if it doesn’t make a profit! If your new product is highly complementary to existing products in your product portfolio and can be used to drive sales of these products, it might still be worth selling. It may eventually become profitable on its own, or pave the way for another similar product that will be profitable (for example, one you develop yourself).

Take into account all the factors identified in your previous research, and don’t forget to include some estimated costs for the effort and time that you and/or your co-workers will need to invest to launch and sell your new product.

What skills and experience do you need to have to sell it?

If your product is a very different type of product than what you are currently selling, you will need to get additional help (staff or purchased resources) with your marketing and selling. Alternatively, you can acquire the knowledge and skills needed to market and sell the product by purchasing consulting and training services.

Whichever of these two options you choose, until you have developed a good level of knowledge and skill, you will not do a very good job of helping your customers understand what the product will do for them. You also won’t be able to support them well once they’ve decided to buy it.

The value of evaluating the 4P marketing strategy

The reason the first step of the 4Ps marketing strategy approach is so important is that it will help you reject a product that might not be very profitable and give you information that you can use to select an alternative product that will meet your needs. the same gap in its much better product portfolio.

There may be other questions you need answers to than the ones we’ve considered above, but if you can provide complete and satisfying answers to my top three questions, you’ll be able to move on and start working on the other Ps of your 4Ps marketing strategy.

I hope I have made it very clear that thorough investigation is very much needed at this stage. It’s very easy to decide to skip this research if you’ve been “wow” with an exciting new product that you want to start selling as soon as possible. But keep in mind that every new product you purchase will distract you from other important marketing and sales tasks.

If your new product starts selling well soon after it’s launched in your market, all your effort will be worth it. Soon you will be able to invest in additional resources and help maximize sales of your new product. However, if your new product turns out to be unprofitable or provides only a small profit, you will have wasted a lot of time and money that could have been spent marketing and selling your existing products.

In short, a 4P marketing strategy will help you develop a solid, detailed plan for your new product launch and also help you feel confident that you have the right product to ensure that this plan is successful.

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