Where is the third P of marketing? All about price...

We all learnt about the 4 P's of marketing... product, place, price and promotion.

It seems to me, the price P is very elusive for marketers.

Perhaps it's the role's I've had or the companies I've worked in, but I'm not so sure...

I've been involved in the packaging of the price - should it be a subscription, a package, let's not do any discounts... but the actual price setting - not in memory.

Am I the only one, or is this element of the marketing mix gradually being removed from our realm altogether?

One interesting point I read recently was that the control of pricing will turn marketing into a profit centre. That all the other P's rarely yield the same returns.

If this is the case, then perhaps it's time for marketers to wrestle back some say in the pricing strategies.

Of course for us to have some control, we need to have something useful to contribute, which leads back to the value of market research, customer insights and data.... magical data.

With these three combined, surely we all have something useful to say about the third P?

Control of pricing will turn marketing into a profit center. All of the other Ps involve risks but rarely yield significant returns. Optimized pricing can make a tremendous positive impact, especially in a highly competitive market. While big data analysis has become the central element of pricing over the last five years, historical data in isolation is an insufficient basis for modeling. Customer opinions remain important and are accessible through customer panels, surveys, and even mobile phone apps, among other options. The combination of contemporary and traditional pricing methods will generate insights that represent the best of both worlds.