Components of Marketing Mix Organizations market products such as drinks, building materials, and automobiles while services include insurance, hospitality, or entertainment. Marketing as a management function focuses on identifying and satisfying human and social needs profitably. In a typical organization, the marketing department is responsible for getting the products or services to the consumers. Some organizations$$ marketing department includes Marketing administration, Advertising & Sales Promotion, Sales, Marketing Research, and new Product development functions or units. The components of the marketing mix are Product, pricing, Place $($channels of distribution$),$ and Promotion $($sales promotion and advertising$),$ commonly referred to as the $4$Ps$.$ The $4$Ps are constant in marketing management. Products or services are formulated and branded according to the needs or gaps in the market which are identified through research functions, reasonably priced, and promoted. All products have five stages in the life cycle $$Development$,$ Introduction, Growth, Maturity, and Decline as conceptualized by German economist Theodore Levitt, who published his Product Life Cycle model in the Harvard Business Review in $1965.$ A product life cycle is defined as the period of time a product or service is introduced to consumers until it dies off the market. Some products or services grow across National frontiers to become international brands such as MasterCard, BUPA, Walmart, and Automobile brands among others.