4ps and How the Firm Position Their Products for Maximum Competitive Advantage in the Marketplace

Introduction Companies today recognize that they cannot appeal to all buyers in the marketplace, or at least not to all buyers in the same way. The reason are follow: 1. There are too many buyers, too widely scattered and too varied in their needs. 2. There are so many competitiors which focus on their connected customer. 3. Most companies have identifying market segments, selecting one or more of them, and developing products and marketing programs tailored to each.

If the company wants to focus their target marketing, they must follow the three major steps: 1. Market segmentation, which is dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers with different needs characteristics, or behaviour who might require separate products or marketing mixes. 2. Market targeting, which is evaluating each market segment’s attractiveess and selectingone or more of the market segments to enter. 3. Market positioning, which is setting the competitive positioning for a product and creating a detailed marketing mix.

Market Segmentation Markets consist of buyers, and buyers differ in some respects. They may differ in their wants, income, psychographic, geographical, personality, demograhical and gender. *Geographic segmentation: it calls for dividing the market into different geographical units such sa nations, states, regions, counties or cities. The company can decide to operate in one or more geographic areas or operate in all but pay attention to local variations in geographic needs and preferwnces. * Psychographic segmentation: in psychographic segmentation, buyers are divided into different groups on the basis of social class or lifestyle. People within the samedemographic group can exhibt very fifferent psychographic profiles. *Income: income segmentation is another longstanding practice in such product and service categories as automobiles, clothing, boats and travel. However, income does not always predict the