Extended Marketing Mix

The extended marketing mix is, as the name suggests, an extension of the marketing mix which was traditionally for products. The 4P’s are also known as product marketing mix. As services came more into the picture it was seen that the 4p’s could not justify the marketing mix.

There were 3 more elements which were necessary to actually explain the marketing of services. When products began offering services, the extended marketing mix began applying to products as well (like Maruti service stations where Maruti is a product and the service station is a service). These are the elements which were added to the marketing mix to form the extended marketing mix.

In the above figure, the product marketing mix are the first four P’s and the next 3 P’s are added to make the Extended Marketing mix. This extended marketing mix is also known as the service marketing mix.

The four ps mainly constituted the following 4 elements
Product
Price
Place
Promotions

The extended Marketing mix was brought forward by adding the following 3 elements.

Process
Physical evidence
people.

The same are explained below taking restaurants as a service example

Process in the extended marketing mix

How can you do things perfectly and make a process which matches customers expectations? That is the sole job of the process element. Let us say that you were having a restaurant. Than how many tables will be there? Will you be serving alcohol? If yes than how many waiters are needed? How many tables per cook? or how many dishes to divide between cooks? Thus, deciding on the process which makes the operation easier and faster is a key role of the extended marketing mix.

To make the process easier, a service blue print can be designed which shows how the complete process will happen, from the customer entering the restaurant to the customer leaving the restaurant and his table being cleaned. The restaurant managers work is to ensure that the service blue print is being followed to the letter.

Physical evidence in the extended marketing mix

Physical evidence are the tangible elements that you add to an otherwise intangible product to differentiate yourself or your service from others. So in the above restaurant example, the restaurant can be a budget restaurant by keeping bare necessary furniture and hiring minimum people. Or it can be a high budget restaurant where if you are serving alcohol, you can keep a bar, add good lighting and ambiance, play some good music, have exotic dishes, have excellent cutlery, so on and so forth. Imagine a McDonald’s vs pizza hut and the difference in their ambiance as McDonald’s is more like a budget fast food chain when compared with pizza hut.

People in the extended marketing mix

Probably the most important element of the extended marketing mix. The fifth P that is people is nowadays added in the product as well as the services marketing mix. This is because managers know that a business cannot go forward without the right people in the right place.

In the above example of restaurants, imagine your favorite restaurant and the serving people there. One restaurant might have a good cook who makes excellent and tasty dishes and another will have an average cook who makes average food. Which restaurant Will you visit? It is likely that your favorite restaurant will have a cook as well as serving waiters whom you like a lot and you give your orders only to them. Thus the right people make a solid difference to your business.

Overall, the extended marketing mix can be applied to products as well as services because process, people and physical evidence are nowadays very important for businesses to define their marketing mix.