This does not just include the physical features but also the extra services included with the product, for example, free delivery. The second "p", price, is the dollar value placed on the product. Marketers have to decide whether the price will be low-priced (available to all) or expensive (for a select clientele). Price is usually based on production cost plus profit, demand, and competitor's prices. Promotion, the third "p", encompasses all the activities which the marketer employs in order to make the customers aware of the product, particularly the product's benefits to the consumer, and persuade the customers to purchase the product, e.g. advertising. The final "p", place, commonly referred to as channels of distribution, focuses on how the product should be made available to customers at the time and place they desire. Together these four elements, product, price, place and promotion make up the marketer's mix.
The term "mix" evolved from the use of a cooking mix as a simile for a marketing program. Like a cook who mixes ingredients together to create the final product, a marketer must combine the four elements - product, price, promotion and place - in order to develop policies and procedures that ensure the enterprise is profitable. As well, the marketer, like a cook, can stick to a set recipe or can fashion their own in order to suit the enterprise's requirements. All the basic ingredients (i.e. product, price, promotion and place) must be included as all contribute to the final product and "no single marketing activity is sufficient to accomplish the organization's objectives." (Solomon & Stuart 2000). Clearly, the term "mix" is an appropriate name for the marketer's strategy tools.
Marketers use the marketing mix to help them make decisions about what product to create, what price and purpose should be allocated to the product, who to promote it to, and where to distribute the product.