Marketing begins with “the 4 Ps”, and the P stands for product, price, place and promotion. They combine to form the marketing mix for any product or service. Therefore, marketing is the process of planning, designing, pricing, promoting and distributing ideas, goods and services to satisfy needs so as to make a profit.

The elements of the product are:

• Features and associated benefits
• Branding (ie product identity)
• Packaging (eg there may be a bag inside a box)
• Label (eg printed on the package)

Price includes the following:

• External factors (eg elasticity of demand, customer expectations, competitor's products)
• Internal factors (eg profit required, market share required)

Place has the elements:

• Retailer
• Wholesaler
• B2B distributor
• Agent

The elements of the promotion are:

• Advertising
• Sales promotions (eg. special offers, discounts)
• Public relations
• Personal selling

As well as 'the four Ps', the term 'marketing' also includes marketing strategy. At its simplest, this includes:

• analyzing the business environment using market research
• developing new products and new markets
• responding to external forces: the economy, activity of competitors, innovation, cultural change, etc.

The phrase 'the French market' is just another way of saying 'the population of France', but marketing professionals think of a market in a more specific way. The whole population of a country can be broken down into market segments.

In a B2C (business to consumer) company, customers can be divided according to:

• Demographics: age group, gender, ethnicity, income, occupation, social class, marital status.
• Psychographics: personality, attitudes, lifestyle.
• Geographies: national or regional divisions, city-centre or suburban customers.
• Benefits looked for by the customer: price, overall value, specific features, image with peers, ease-of-use, service, etc.
• Current purchasing situation of the customer: brands used now, how and where purchased, how and when used.

For a B2B (business to business) company there may be other factors. For example, a B2B company needs to know the type of customer (e.g. manufacturer, retailer), the industry group of the customer (e.g. toy manufacturer or clothing manufacturer), their size (e.g. sales volume, number of retail outlets), the ownership (i.e. private or public), etc. B2B customers are less interested in image and more interested in things like ability to meet changing patterns of demand, consistent quality, Just-In-Time delivery, etc. They are also reached in very different ways such as trade shows and by travelling sales reps.

Once a company has decided how to segment the market, it can then do any one of the following:

• target the mass market: the company targets one large market with a single marketing strategy. This was popular in the early days of marketing (eg consumer products in the 50s and 60s), but few companies today view this option as feasible.
• target multiple segments: here, each segment will have its own marketing strategy. Most large consumer product firms do this - they offer multiple products at different price points with different messages, all within the same product category.
• target one segment: a niche market. The company targets a small market, often with just one or two very specialized products.
• target individual customers with tailor-made products: there may be a personal dialogue to establish specialized requirements, or the company may use data about previous purchases (eg Amazon's book recommendations based on what you have previously ordered from their site). The Internet has been the catalyst for this approach.