As marketers, we should never underestimate the power of planning. For most of us, that means creating a water-tight marketing strategy, informed by analysis and data, and one that is based on objectives, a target market, and proven tactics.
We all use different blueprints depending on our industry, our target audience and our products and services. But there’s one timeless model that any marketer can use regardless of their field of work and that is the marketing mix.
Traditionally, the marketing mix is a framework for your marketing strategy made up of four key elements: Product, Place, Price, and Promotion.
This later evolved into the extended marketing mix, or 7Ps, which contains the original four elements plus three more that are critical, especially for services and modern experiences: Physical Evidence, People, and Process.
It’s important to note that while the marketing mix can influence your strategy and provide a greater understanding of the wider market (and your own business), it doesn’t work in isolation. The marketing mix is a tactical framework that works best when it’s used regularly or semi‑regularly as a structure for planning, executing, evaluating and re-evaluating your marketing activities in line with changing customer behaviour and market conditions.
The concept of the marketing mix was originally developed by Neil H. Borden, who built on James Culliton’s description of business executives as “mixers of ingredients” – those ingredients being different marketing features and practices.
The idea was later refined by Jerome McCarthy, who specifically identified four key components: Product, Place, Price and Promotion. McCarthy wrote about the 4Ps in the 1960s in his book “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach”.
As marketing and business matured, especially with the rise of services, the original 4Ps became too narrow. In 1981, B.H. Booms and M.J. Bitner expanded the framework, identifying three additional elements they saw as key: Physical Evidence, People, and Process. Together, these form the extended marketing mix we know today as the 7Ps.
It makes sense that these three were added because:
Without these, the model struggles to capture how modern service and experience‑driven businesses actually operate.
The original 4Ps of the marketing mix covered the fundamental factors of business and marketing at the time – when physical products and traditional retail dominated.
However, as services, experiences, and digital‑first businesses grew, it became clear that the original mix didn’t fully capture the realities of customer experience. People, Process, and Physical Evidence all directly influence how customers perceive and interact with brands, especially in service‑heavy sectors like hospitality, SaaS, healthcare, or financial services.
That’s why the shift to 7Ps matters: it broadens your view from just “what we sell, where, how much, and how we promote it” to how we deliver the whole experience, who delivers it, and how customers know we’re trustworthy.
Now that you know what the 7Ps of the marketing mix are and their origins, let’s dive a little deeper into each.
Product refers to what is being sold - a physical product, service, or experience.
No matter how you position yourself as a brand, your product or service is always going to be at the centre of your strategy and will influence every aspect of the marketing mix. When you think of your product, consider factors such as:
Product in this case, then, is about crafting something that meets the needs and desires of your target audience. This means understanding their preferences, pain points, and aspirations. By meticulously aligning your product with customer expectations, you create a solid starting point for your marketing endeavours. Over 30,000 consumer products are launched yearly. Out of these 30,000 new products, 95% of them fail woefully without having any significant impact on the market.
In 2026, “Product” goes beyond the physical: it includes UX, integrations, onboarding, and support. For digital products and SaaS tools, your interface, documentation, and customer success resources are all part of the product experience.
2. Place
Place is about where and how you distribute your product so the right customers can access it easily.
Choosing the right distribution channels significantly impacts your product’s reach, visibility, and sales. Effective placement ensures your product is available when and where your target audience wants it.
Today, Place doesn’t just mean physical locations. It includes:
With 48% of consumers choosing ecommerce for its convenience, understanding how they shop is critical. This is where AI transforms guesswork into strategy. AI tools can analyze vast datasets of customer purchase behavior, search trends, and even real-time inventory levels to recommend the most profitable distribution channels and optimize stock allocation across them.
This helps you:
If your audience is global and primarily online, relying only on a single high‑street store simply won’t work. Place is about being present where your customers naturally are, not where you wish they were.
Source: GWP Group
3. Price
Price is the amount customers pay for your product or service, and it’s one of the most powerful levers in your entire mix.
A misstep in pricing doesn’t just hurt your ROI, it can also alienate your customer base or undermine your brand positioning. With over 80% of consumers now comparing prices, it’s vital that price reflects:
There are many pricing strategies:
In recent years, dynamic, AI‑driven pricing has become mainstream in sectors like travel, ride‑sharing, and eCommerce. For example,the price of an Uber ride can double on a busy, rainy Saturday night compared to a quiet weekday afternoon, not by accident, but based on an AI algorithm balancing real‑time supply and demand.
Whatever strategy you choose, ensure it:
Regularly review pricing in light of inflation, competitor moves, and customer feedback.
Promotion is how you communicate your value to your audience, the activities you use to build awareness, interest, desire, and action.
Promotion includes:
Effective promotion is built on strong answers to questions like:
Promotional tactics fall broadly into:
Digital channels tend to generate more interactions and richer data, but the goal is a unified omnichannel presence rather than an either/or.
Modern tools, including generative AI, can help you:
However, AI must be guided by a clear strategy and strong data. When combined with the right segmentation and performance metrics (e.g. using a Hurree dashboard), it helps ensure the right message reaches the right person at the right time, and doesn’t devolve into generic content that audiences ignore.
Physical Evidence is all the tangible and visible elements that prove your brand is real, trustworthy, and consistent.
It includes:
Customers look for cues that you’re viable, reliable, and legitimate before and after they buy from you. Physical Evidence helps them answer questions like:
To build strong Physical Evidence:
In digital businesses (especially SaaS), Physical Evidence is often:
These elements reassure customers that you’re established, dependable, and here to stay.
6. People
People refers to everyone involved in delivering your product or service and shaping customer experience:
It’s critical to the success of your brand – and your customer satisfaction – that everyone who represents the company is:
To make that happen, you need to invest in:
The stakes are high. Around 50% of consumers will switch to a competitor after a single bad experience, and 80% will switch after multiple poor experiences. Excellent customer service is non‑negotiable in today’s customer‑centric market.
Digital strategist Dave Chaffey notes that people buy from people because of the human connection we all crave. When marketers create a strategy that’s highly tailored and personalised, they can be as influential as the best salesperson, both online and offline.
Having the right people, supported by the right tools, is key to both short‑ and long‑term success.
Source: ZenDesk
Process encompasses everything that happens around each interaction and transaction – the systems and workflows behind the scenes that shape customer experience from first touch to renewal or repeat purchase.
Process includes:
Even if you have a best‑in‑class product, you can be let down by poor processes.
Questions to ask:
Regularly assessing, adjusting, and improving your processes helps you deliver a seamless, consistent experience and operate at optimal efficiency.
Source: Oracle
Regularly assessing, adjusting and adapting your processes will help to structure your business efforts so that you can function at optimal efficiency.
The core ideas behind the 7Ps haven’t changed, but the context around them absolutely has. In marketing today:
For B2B SaaS or SaaS products, you might think of the 7Ps like this:
For eCommerce or omnichannel retail:
Using a tool like Hurree to track performance across these touchpoints helps you see which combinations of Ps drive the best results, and where to improve.
The extended 7Ps model is particularly powerful in service‑based industries, where experiences matter as much as (or more than) tangible products. Think of sectors like hospitality, healthcare, consulting, agencies, education, or financial services.
In services, the three additional Ps become especially important:
For example, in a hotel:
In a B2B agency:
The 7Ps help you design not just what you offer, but how every interaction feels from the customer’s perspective.
The 7Ps of the marketing mix are important because they give marketers a complete, structured view of what drives success. Instead of focusing on a single tactic, they encourage you to:
By looking at each element together, you can build strategies that are:
To make this framework truly effective, it must be supported by accurate, up‑to‑date data. Data shows:
Hurree helps put this into action. By bringing all your marketing data into one central dashboard, Hurree makes it easy to monitor KPIs across every element of the mix. You can see:
Hurree’s built‑in AI assistant, Riva, takes this a step further by analysing performance and providing intelligent recommendations based on your results. Instead of manually interpreting dashboards, marketers can lean on Riva’s insights to understand:
The 7Ps provide the structure, data provides insight, and Hurree connects the two, giving marketers the clarity they need to make confident, data‑driven decisions.
No framework is perfect, and the 7Ps are no exception. Common criticisms include:
However, the 7Ps remain valuable when you:
In practice, the most effective teams use the 7Ps alongside a robust analytics stack (like Hurree) and qualitative insights to form a rounded, modern strategy.
The 7Ps marketing mix is more than just a theory; it’s a versatile toolkit you can use to create impactful, effective strategies.
Here’s how to apply it step by step:
Throughout, use performance data and dashboards to monitor what’s working and iterate.
The 7Ps of the marketing mix provide a clear, practical framework for building strategies that genuinely connect with customers. By understanding your audience’s preferences and challenges, you can make smarter decisions across each element of the mix – and adapt as markets evolve.
With Hurree, you can bring all your marketing and performance data together to:
The result is a strategy that stays relevant, data‑driven, and built for lasting success in a rapidly changing digital landscape.