Marketing mixes for digital products: a study of the marketspaces in China

摘要

There is an increasing attention to the study of marketing mixes for electronic products and services. It has been suggested in the literature that none of the established marketing models, including 4P, 4C and 4S, is appropriate for digital products in a digital marketspace. In order to evaluate the suitability of marketing mixes for digital products, three criteria are suggested in considering the great differences in product properties, transaction spaces and transaction processes. We investigate the suitability of three marketing mix models for each category of digital products in a digital marketspace in this paper. We examine 45 marketing tools for digital products in China. By studying within the framework of the three established marketing mixes, we have three interesting findings. First, the trialability of digital products correlates significantly with its promotional tool's quantity. Second, depending on the category of digital products, the three established models have a varied suitability. Third, different digital products have different levels of suitability in distributional channels according to their delivery mode.