Understand the 7 P’s of Marketing with a Higher Certificate in Marketing

How does marketing contribute to the success of a business?
Marketing is the action of promoting a business’s products or services through different marketing channels, such as social media, blogs, email, paid promotion, and more.

It aims to make consumers aware of the company’s offerings, engage with them, and help them make a buying decision.

A lot goes into marketing. For marketing campaigns to succeed, marketers are required to perform extensive research. This way, they can determine which marketing avenues will be the most effective for their target customers.

Marketing is essential because it helps businesses:

• Engage with customers: Businesses can tell their stories and connect with customers. In turn, this creates brand loyalty.
• Build strong reputations: In an increasingly competitive world, businesses focusing on marketing can stand out and be seen as authorities in their industries.
• Boost sales: Since marketing uses different promotion methods and platforms, it increases a business’s likelihood of making more sales from different avenues.
• Increase their reach: Online marketing allows businesses to reach customers worldwide instead of only reaching local consumers. Social media alone brings in a multitude of prospective customers. In 2021, there were over 4.26 billion social media users worldwide. One of the many reasons why an online social media course is worth it.
• Understand their customers: Online marketing offers a wealth of analytics and data, allowing businesses to learn more about their customers.

What are the 7 P’s of marketing?

Marketing needs a set of tools to be effective. This is where the 7 P’s of marketing come in — also known as the marketing mix. There used to be only four P’s in the marketing mix: product, place, price, and promotion.

This is because the original marketing mix mainly focused on product-based businesses. The additional three P’s incorporates the service industry as well.

Combined, the 7 P’s of marketing are used to meet the needs and expectations of customers. Here are the 7 P’s of marketing:

1. Product
“Product” refers to a company’s physical product, service, or experience. It’s the thing that the company is selling. Businesses must ensure that their products are suitable for their target market and exceed the customer’s expectations.

2. Place
This is the “place” where a business chooses to sell its offer. It can be a warehouse, a high street store, an eCommerce shop, or a cloud-based platform.

Wherever the business decides to distribute its offer, marketers need to make sure that it’s accessible to the business’s customers and that competitors are taken into consideration.

3. Price
“Price” refers to the cost of the business’s product, service, or experience. It’s vital that the cost:

• Reflects the customer’s perceived value of the offer
• Is in line with the company’s budget
• Takes competitors’ pricing into account
• Getting the price right is vital to the success of the business. If not, the company risks losing its desired customers to its competition.

4. Promotion
“Promotion” refers to a company’s marketing, advertising, and sales methods. This includes traditional channels, such as television, billboards, and radio, and modern marketing channels, such as social media, pop-ups, email marketing, and more.

Businesses can best identify their ideal marketing platforms and methods through target audience research. Knowing their target customers means they’ll be able to reach them in the right place and at the right time.

5. People
“People” refers to anyone involved in the business or offer. It’s anyone who comes into contact with the offer and makes an impression on customers. It can be:

• The people who sell it
• Those who design or create it
• Those managing the teams
• Those marketing it
• Representative customers

6. Process
This describes the whole experience of the buying “process” — from where a customer becomes aware of the offer to post-purchase customer support.

Each step the business takes and its chosen methods must be professional, adhere to its budget, and offer the highest return on investment.

7. Physical evidence
Buying something from an unknown brand is risky. Customers need to know the business is legitimate, which is where “physical evidence” comes into play. It mainly takes on two forms.

• Evidence that a purchase or service occurred: Comes from receipts, invoices, and tracking information.
• Proof that the brand exists: This could be the appearance of the business’s building, its website, logo, social media channels, business cards, and more.

Types of marketing jobs for graduates

Upon completion of a Higher Certificate in Marketing, students can pursue several careers. Since marketing is extensive, multiple avenues exist, including public relations marketing, product marketing, brand management, and more.

Here are some careers you can expect to pursue:

Public Relations Assistant
Public relations assistants are responsible for assisting the PR manager in creating a positive public image for a brand. Some of their tasks include handling press releases, organising public events, identifying business opportunities, and more.

Junior Data Analyst
Junior data analysts are responsible for seeking and collecting relevant data that helps a company’s marketing efforts. Some of their primary duties include market research, gathering and interpreting data, writing reports, designing charts and graphs, and more.

Product Marketer
Product marketers are responsible for promoting a business’s products and features to its intended customers. Some of their duties include studying the company’s products, determining its key features and benefits, attracting customers, and creating marketing campaigns.

Study a Higher Certificate in Marketing online with MANCOSA

A marketing career is ideal if you enjoy research, engaging with people, and coming up with fool-proof strategies. By taking a marketing course, you’ll learn to use the 7 P’s of the marketing mix effectively so that you can help businesses succeed.

MANCOSA offers a range of marketing programmes that can help you get there. This includes a Higher Certificate in Marketing, a Higher Certificate in Digital Marketing, a Higher Certificate in Social Media and Communication, and many others.