Hi, I’m The Fool from Easy Knowledge Channel and the Business Corner. Over the past few weeks I’ve introduced you to lessons from Shark Tank and stories about multi-level marketing. Building on those, today let’s look at the 4P principle in marketing, seen through The Fool’s eyes.
1. First, let’s get to know Marketing before diving into the 4Ps:
Marketing is a term that originated in England — it’s a fairly broad word, so no single Vietnamese term can define it precisely. That’s why people usually just say “marketing” rather than translating it into a specific Vietnamese word.
In practice, from what I’ve experienced, marketing is the process of promoting your product to customers through every channel, both online and offline. However, deliberately pushing promotional content ahead of real information will annoy readers (your potential customers).
To build a house, you need a solid foundation so it won’t collapse. It’s the same with marketing — for it to last, you first need to build your own brand, then build a promotion strategy that fits it.
Here’s an example about branding: why is a designer bag more expensive than one from a regular market stall? What’s really going on here?
In reality, designer bag manufacturers do marketing so well that they shape the buyer’s thinking, making them feel elegant and refined when owning that item (they display it in expensive locations, produce videos showing a unique handcrafting process, tell brand stories tied to a luxurious, upper-class lifestyle…).
As for market-stall goods (of course excluding the low-quality ones), you can see that, fundamentally, some items are actually quite well made, crafted carefully by skilled artisans. However, brands selling in the market don’t know how to create value for their bags — they only sell the bag itself, not the story behind it.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, designer bags give the buyer a sense of joy from ownership. That’s the difference between those who know how to build a brand and those who don’t. And that’s the whole reason the value of the two bags differs.
From this, we draw one lesson:
If you sell a customer an object, it will always just be a commodity. But if you sell an experience (satisfaction, elegance…), the customer will remember you and become obsessed with you.
As the old saying goes, “Please the people and you win the realm” — nowadays, “please the market and the realm is in your hands.”
2. The 4P Principle in Marketing, through The Fool’s eyes:
The 4Ps in marketing is a marketing model made up of 4 basic elements:
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotion
- People,
- Process, and
- Physical Evidence
From experience running marketing for SMEs and shop owners, I’ve distilled the 4U (Understanding) principle to help satisfy “Sir Market.”
The 4U (4 Understandings) are:
- Self Understanding
- Understanding Customer
- Understanding Opponents
- Understanding Targets and Goals
To make this easier to grasp, The Fool will give you a reference framework for the 4U principle using a phone shop as an example, and then you have homework: fill in that same framework for the other 3 “Understandings”! Grab a piece of paper, fill it in, and reply to The Fool in the comments on this post! This exercise will help you remember and understand the 4P principle you just learned!
+ Understanding Customer
In my view, this is the most important one, and it helps solve all the problems the 7Ps are aiming at. Only by understanding your customer can you:
– Find the right phone product to bring to the right customer segment (the customer might be an Apple fan, or someone who wants a phone with a huge battery…).
– Place and display the product correctly (Place) to draw customers to the right phone product (shelves organized by brand, by feature, by battery capacity…).
– Set the right price (Price) that fits both the product and the timing of the sale.
– Come up with the right promotion policy (Promotion) for your target customer: this could mean highlighting that phone’s strengths, or running a promotion/discount that fits the product, to solve your target customer’s problems.
– Find the right team (People) to run the best campaigns to promote the product to them. For example: finding someone to design a promotional banner, someone to plan the program, a sharp-eyed salesperson…
– Find the right process (Process) to achieve the goal of winning over customers who want to buy a phone that fits their needs.
– Find the right infrastructure and physical support (Physical Evidence) to carry out the process above and boost your brand recognition.
+ Understanding Opponents
This is just as important, because only by understanding your competitors can you solve some of what the 7Ps are aiming at. Only by understanding your opponents can you…
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+ Understanding Yourself (your business, shop, sales page, etc.)
As mentioned in the video about competitors, our biggest competitor is ourselves — so understanding yourself within the 4U principle is very important. Only by understanding your own business can you:
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+ Understanding Targets and Goals
You can check out the article “Distinguishing Strategy and Campaign — Purpose and Objective in a Marketing Plan” for more.
Whether short or long-term, every marketing campaign (or, more broadly, strategy) has an ultimate purpose and objective it’s working toward — so understanding the purpose and objective set will help you:
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That’s The Fool’s take — what do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts to help build a marketing community.
THE FOOL — EASY KNOWLEDGE CHANNEL