The 4 Cs of Marketing: What They Are and How to Use Them

It can feel like there are thousands of ways to market your business. With every turn, you’ll find someone recommending starting a blog, building a social media strategy or taking a few email marketing courses. 

If you’re having trouble keeping all of the small business marketing advice straight, it can be helpful to follow a system like the 4 C’s of marketing. The 4 C’s consist of the four main pillars of your marketing strategy: consumer, communication, cost and convenience. They can help guide you through the sea of marketing advice. 

A few decades ago, the 4 P’s were actually one of the most popular marketing concepts but the 4 C’s is a newer concept that replaced them for a more consumer-based focus. If you’re here to market your Skillshare class, new hair salon or any other product- or service-based business, the 4 C’s can help you get new customers, sell your offerings and cultivate brand loyalty. 

In 1990, Bob Lauterborn wrote a now-renowned article for Advertising Age. In it, he introduced the 4 C’s and their replacement of the 4 P’s, which was invented by E. Jerome McCarthy. He starts out the article stating, “It’s time to retire McCarthy’s famous Four P’s, the Rosetta Stone of marketing education for 20 years.”

McCarthy’s 4 P’s were Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The 4 C’s are Consumer, Communication, Cost and Convenience. Since the 4 C model focused on marketing for the new millennium and the technology and mindset changes that came with it, it has become more accepted and utilized than the 4 P’s. 

This week, you can spend some time diving in the P’s and C’s and see what you can apply from both to your business. When you’re marketing your brand, spending time analyzing the best path for your specific product or service can save you time, energy and money in the long run. 

Caption: Evaluating how much your goods cost you and how much they cost your customer can help you define their overall value. 

In the 4 C marketing mix, Lauterborn wanted marketers and businesspeople to stop focusing on pushing the most product possible at the best price and instead consciously create their offering and marketing plan with their ideal customer in mind. 

Instead of focusing on the product itself, Lauterborn felt the consumer’s wants and needs were more important because you can only sell what people want to buy. After WWII, customers were looking to live better, and they did so by filling their homes with new things. From the 1990s to today, customers now choose their “things” with more care.  

Then, instead of price, he focused on the cost to satisfy the consumer’s wants or needs. He shared, “What you’re selling against if you’re selling hamburgers is not just another burger for a few cents more or less. It’s the cost of time to drive to your place, the cost of conscience to eat meat at all, versus perhaps the cost of guilt for not treating the kids. Value is no longer the biggest burger for the cheapest price; it’s a complex equation with as many different correct solutions as there are subsets of customers.” When it comes to product marketing, it’s important to remind your audience of the value you’re providing them with your product.  

Next, instead of promotion, he emphasized communication, specifically creating a dialogue with your customer base. By cooperating with the client instead of manipulating them with ads, you’ll form a stronger relationship with them. 

Finally, he chose to focus on convenience to buy instead of the physical place itself. Since people can buy the same thing in a lot of different places—in a shop, online or on social media—it’s less about the place itself and more about choosing the place where your customer prefers to buy. The more places you can be and still offer a high-quality experience, the better.

Despite the fact that it was invented over thirty years ago, the 4 C’s of marketing still have a lot of modern advantages. By focusing in on who your customer is, why they would be interested in your offering, and where they’ll get access to your product can help:

The best way to use a marketing system like the 4 C’s is to adapt it to your unique product or service. It’s also important to make sure your strategy is attainable and sustainable. If you create an incredible marketing system that you don’t have time to use or don’t have the resources to carry out, it’s like not having a marketing system at all. So take time over the next few weeks to really evaluate how you could best fit the 4 C’s into your business. A few tips to keep in mind are to: 

The best marketing strategy is the one that is optimized to your skills, your offering and your ideal audience. Getting to know your audience and the market can help you use the 4 C’s to the max. Today, you might spend some time evaluating how your business currently utilizes the 4 C’s and see if there are any areas where you could improve. If you need more guidance, Skillshare has the best class selection from beginner to advanced for taking your marketing strategy to the next level.