This time, we had to discuss the 4 P’s of Marketing: Product, Promotion, Price, and Place. Although in and of themselves, there are practically fields of knowledge we would have to discuss in order to get into each one thoroughly, I’d rather focus on the most important thing about this combination: the overlap that is the target market:
The overlap has een noted in nearly every diagram, but in some, it is curiously absent, instead showing the 4 Ps being answered by the 4 “Solutions”. This is a fundamental shift in approach the problem; do we tackle the variables, or do we tackle the segment they provide? To most, this might be one and the same fight, how else do you tackle a market without knowing each of the variables, but to me, it represents two very different approaches.
It is not just a question of priorities or influence, its a matter of who matters more; the results, or the functions that act on the data. I personally think that the results are the most important part of the 4P approach; tackling each variable one by one is not just shallow, its risky, but I can see why its more comfortable; scientific even. However, we have to remember that even in science, it is the results we choose to analyze with our tests, not the tests themselves.