Understanding Modern Marketing: The Digital Evolution

Are the 4Ps still important? Has the emergence of customer-centricity supplanted them? How has digital changed the marketing and sales funnel? What’s the new relationship between Marketing and Sales?

This article explores the rise of “digital” in marketing—its origins and its impacts on traditional sales and marketing strategy.

Are The 4Ps of Marketing Still Important?

The 4Ps model—product, price, promotion, and place—was the marketing strategy of choice for much of the 20th Century. It made complete sense for marketers primarily tasked with reaching target audiences without any direct communications channel, nor ones that afforded meaningful feedback. Print media, television, and radio were the dominant marketing channel groups from which 20th century buyers would gain knowledge of products, services, news, events, and trends.

Advertisers would match their assumptions about their customer groups to relevant channels: homeware products marketed through daytime television, sporting goods through sports magazines, and toys during Saturday morning children’s TV sessions.

The following diagram illustrates how the 4Ps model worked: To reach your target marketing, simply set an appropriate “marketing mix” of product, price, promotion, and place.

The Emergence of Customer-Centricity