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1 The micro-environment
The term micro-environment denotes those elements over which the marketing firm has control or which it can use in order to gain information that will better help it in its marketing operations. In other words, these are elements that can be manipulated, or used to glean information, in order to provide fuller satisfaction to the company’s customers. The objective of marketing philosophy is to make profits through satisfying customers. This is accomplished through the manipulation of the variables over which a company has control in such a way as to optimise this objective. The variables are what Neil Borden has termed ‘the marketing mix’ which is a combination of all the ‘ingredients’ in a ‘recipe’ that is designed to prove most attractive to customers. In this case the ingredients are individual elements that marketing can manipulate into the most appropriate mix. E Jerome McCarthy further dubbed the variables that the company can control in order to reach its target market the ‘four Ps’. Each of these is discussed in detail in later chapters, but a brief discussion now follows upon each of these elements of the marketing mix together with an explanation of how they fit into the overall notion of marketing.
1.1 The ‘four Ps’ and the marketing mix
The ‘four Ps’ stands for:
1. Product
2. Price
3. Place and
4. Promotion
Product and price are obvious, but perhaps place and promotion need more explanation.
Place, it is felt, might better be termed ‘placement’ because it comprises two distinct elements.&nbs ...