I think all of the four P’s of marketing are essential to ensure a successful marketing strategy. However, without marketing the first P (product), the other P’s (price, promotion, and placement) wouldn’t matter. Therefore, I think the most important P in the marketing mix is product. The entire marketing process should start out with defining the product to the public. Defining a product includes stating its features, importance, and how it solves the problem of a market gap. If the qualities and benefits of a product are not clearly portrayed to the public, then no one will want to buy it. At that point, no better price, type of promotion, or placement of the product really matters since the product does not appeal to the public. By successfully defining the product’s important features and how it is different from or better than currently available products, a company will easily attract customers who need that product. The three (or four) other P’s of the marketing mix can then be defined to improve sales once customers are already attracted to the product. However, a combination of the four P’s is essential to attract the greatest number of customers. What are your thoughts on this?

In my opinion, I would say that the most important P would be the product. Without the development of the product or knowing if there is a market for the product, the other Ps couldn't really come into existence. I would say that knowing what your competitors have on the market that might be similar to your product can also help determine setting a price point for the device as well. Since a lot of marketing research has to go into the it before the product can be decided on or whether the development of the product will continue, I believe that it should be considered one of the most important. Yet, product development still needs a combination of the product, price, promotion and placement to help bring your product successfully into the market. Without determining a price that is within the range of the current market, the product could either be overpriced or underpriced, which could cause customers to steer away from your product or people being skeptical about how well it performs its task. Without promotion, the product wouldn't be as well known to the customers and the market that you are trying to appeal to. Advertisements are definitely needed to show off the product after its developed and try to convince potential customers that it is the best product for their needs. Lastly, placement is important so that potential customers are able to have access to your product. If there is limited access, some customers might not be able to purchase it due to their individual limitations. All of these strategies will come together and create success as long as the product appeals to the market. 

Like others have mentioned before, I also believe that product is the most essential to achieve in the marketing strategy. While the others are consequential, the process of making a well-intended and capable product is crucial for your product to be successful. Even though it wasn't added to the four P's, I believe that participation would be the hardest to accomplish. As previously mentioned in the lecture, we now have to ability to avoid and circumvent advertising overload, leading companies to become active participants in social media to show off their product and listen to their customers to understand their feelings about the devices and how to make them better.

In order to have a successful marketing strategy all Four P's need to be addressed thoroughly, but in this day and age I think that promotion is most important to a successful marketing strategy. Although the product itself is very important, a product without any sort of promotion will see very little success. The ability to get the product into the eyes of the customer is extremely important these days. Now that the average consumer has the ability to skip televised marketing strategies with streaming and show recording, it is important to find other ways to reach the consumer. Advertisements on social media have grown increasingly popular on platforms such as facebook, Instagram, and twitter to try and promote the products more and more. In addition, the importance of promotion is to set the product apart from its competitors. Beating a company in the promotion aspect of a product will surely increase business and sales compared to the competitor. On the same note, I think what makes promotion even more important is its difficulty to accomplish. As many of my peers can agree, any chance we get to skip an ad we do. Ads can be some of the most frustrating things to deal with when trying to enjoy entertainment on the tv or one's phone or computer. Overall, the ability to achieve a successful promotion is vital to a successful marketing strategy. 

I have to agree with my peers. No matter what type of business we are talking about, whether a start-up or corporation - all marketing considerations and decisions are typically formed around the product. You also do not have a business unless you can establish product-market fit, create a minimal viable product, and determine if the product is worth commercializing based on the market size, which means I would put pricing as the next most important factor since most medical devices or tests used in healthcare are not even adopted unless the cost is low or there is some level of reimbursement. 

These four items are tightly connected to each other and they are all factors in the sale of a product. but in my opinion, the most important of these is the product itself. The more functional and quality a product is, the easier it will be to market it. The quality of the product and the additional features will of course increase the production price and in this case, it will also increase the sales price. in my opinion, end users will first look at the quality of the product and then the price. On the other hand, promotion and placement come after these two P's in my opinion. therefore, the most important of these 4 P's is product, and I think price is in the second place.

While I agree with gdecarvalho's & kaf43's assessments that all of the 4 Ps are essential, I want to make a case for "Placement". Placement determines everything about the how, where, and when the product is sold. I feel this is important because you may have a product that addresses a need better than the competition but would never reach the customer due to supply issues, misidentification of the purchasing entity, or delay reaching the market relative to a competing product that adequately serves the customer needs. Proper planning of market entry, supply ramp, and salesforce consumer identification are critical to ensuring that a product is introduced to a market ready to consume it.

While I agree with the above posts that having a defined and quality product makes the remaining P's easier to accomplish, I do believe that promotion has an important role as well. You could have an amazing product but it wouldn't be worth anything if it isn't promoted properly by the marketing department. Similarly, a sub-par product with excellent promoting could a lot of money for its company. While the remaining P's are very important, when I think of promotion I remember hearing the saying "A great salesman can sell anything". I believe that this explains why promotion is as crucial as the product. 

All of these hold importance but one of the most essential would be promotion. The product and price itself are important because these are the steps that meet the need and then bargain how much the company gains back in profit but there is no profit without good promotion. Promotion needs to be done efficiently and often enough that it is seen by the correct group enough times to have them consider it. It needs to be marketed toward the group that would benefit the most from it and it needs to ensure that it is not overmarketing because nowadays, seeing an advertisement too often makes the user not want to purchase the product out of spite. It can be a difficult step but done correctly promotion can be very influential to the whole marketing strategy. As for the most difficult to accomplish, it would be the one that is not on the list but the most recent addition, participation. Phones and any other mobile devices allow for a whole new platform to promote products but as easy as it is to place an ad online, it's even easier to skip it or scroll past it. So promotion must be effective enough to capture the attention of the customer because once the connection is established it focuses on the customer on whether or not they go to purchase the product, which can be difficult. Reiterating that promotion is essential and ensuring participation is one of the most difficult.

I feel that all 4 of these P's need to work in unison in order to truly market a product towards a successful lifecycle so it's hard to single one out as "most important". If I had to choose, I would say the most important P would be promotion, as you can develop the nicest looking and well-functioning product on the market but without any sort of promotion behind it, the product is not going to reach to a wide range of consumers and thus, the lifecycle of the project shortens. While yes, you cannot market any product without an actual "product", I think this tends to diminish the value of the other P's which are also so important. I think for any successful product, all of these P's must be working together and all must have special care and attention paid to.

As many have said before, I think the product is the most essential aspect of marketing. Obviously this is due to the fact that of the 4 P's, without a product there would be no incentive for any of the other P's. And your market impact and saturation is first and foremost affected by the definition and confines of your product and how effective it is at it's function. I think the most difficult of the P's to accomplish would be promotion. All things considered, product, price and placement are terms that fall under the general umbrella term of "Promotion". Promotion encompasses all three, and as such is the term that describes the culmination of your marketing capabilities for your product. As such that is the most difficult to accomplish as you would have to, technically accomplish the previous 3 P's. 

@jbdoddo1 I thought I was the only one playing devil's advocate by saying placement is the most important of the four Ps. As someone with over 15yrs of retail and customer service management experience, I can say that where you place a product in any store is crucial for the positive sales potential of that product. When I managed a retail sneaker store, I deliberately displayed the new and higher priced items at eye level on the wall and at the front of the store close to the entrance to drive sales of the sneakers. When placed at eye-level on shelves, items are purchased more often than products outside that area, regardless of price. Also, new items will often have bold marketing for promotion. The placement of the marketing signage is also a factor in driving product sales.

All four Ps are very important in reference to marketing strategies; however, the product is essential. The aspects of the product, such as the quality paves the way for the other Ps. The product is the main factor. It is the reason why. Before you can consider the price, type of promotion, or the placement, what you plan to sell has to be discovered first. The P that is most difficult to accomplish is the price because you have to make sure the price is right. You have to factor in things like the type of audience you want to reach, what materials you are going to use, profit estimates. I feel like the financial aspect would be  take a lot of time.

The four Ps of marketing are the key considerations that must be thoughtfully reviewed and wisely implemented in order to successfully market a product or service. They are product, price, place, and promotion. I feel like people who own a business need to thoroughly detail the 4 Ps in order to have a successful business. These are often referred to as the marketing mix. As a whole they encompass a range of factors that are considered when marketing a product, including what consumers want, how the product or service is perceived, how it stands out from the rest. The 4 Ps have been implemented since the 1950s therefore it is crucial to follow that market strategy.