week 1 blog post

The basic principles of the 4 P’s of marketing have stayed relatively consist over the past few decades. We still have a product we must price, place, and promote. The methods of applying the 4 P’s have changed and are changing as we advance in technology. These changes are caused from the vast quantity of free information,  the way companies now develop products, determine influences on setting prices, establishing placement method, and the application means of promotion are nothing like what they were 10 years ago let alone 50 years ago. We still have the 4 P’s of marketing and a company still must have a product, understand how to price it, know where to place/distribute it in the market, and most of all understand how to promote the product, but we now have to take into account the consumers needs, and motivations.

Where once a retailer could purchase goods and sell them off the shelf setting a fair mark up and advertising in the Sunday paper.  Today the consumer demands to have the best price, easy access in the store or on the web, home delivery or in store pick up, receive email advertisements of upcoming sales, messages on their phone for bid closing, and a smorgasbord of other technology based information. The 4Ps are defiantly applicable but their applications have changed.

Today having a product that people want and can use is now easier and cheaper than ever. The hard part is getting age old companies to apply new techniques to achieve these goals. Social media is definitely the easiest way of moving forward in this area. Depending on the product a company could quite literally receive feedback almost instantly through social media sites on their product. Customers could list gripes and complaints on what they liked or disliked about the product. Companies could use the input to create better products that will be used by customers instead of products that will collect dust in warehouses or peoples attics. With social media the information gathered could be virtually free as long as the company appears to be carrying on a dialog with its customers and showing them that they truly care about what their customers’ needs and desires are, and what it takes to fulfill those needs.

Through technology and our networked economy the process and input for product is quickly changing. Once companies used methods to develop products that utilized a few people from the company who brainstormed on the next best thing or product that the consumer would have to have, or maybe subcontract the task out to another R&D company. Now today with our networked world and easy access to information companies have the ability to utilize power of the consumer for R&D. By utilizing the consumer companies can go directly to the source and forego some of the guess work on what the customer wants.