7 Ps Of Marketing And How They Apply To Your Marketing Mix
The opinions expressed by the entrepreneurs are their own.
No matter what industry your business operates in, there's competition to beat and ever-changing trends to keep up with.
You need to find a way to distinguish your business. Whether you're trying to build a name for your business or maintain your stature, marketing is essential to getting people's attention and showing them what you can do.
Marketing strategies are roadmaps that enable your business to increase brand awareness and increase customer engagement, relationships, and trust. It takes time, effort and sometimes a budget to create a marketing plan. however, it can pay big dividends.
Once you have developed your marketing strategy, there is a "7 P formula" you should use to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate your business activities. A formula can help you create a system of checks and balances for physical proof that your business is constantly evolving to ensure your marketing efforts reach your target audience.
Since technology is an ever-changing factor, it's important to update your marketing campaigns to include more than just word of mouth. Today you can use many distribution channels such as digital marketing, social media and podcasts.
No matter which platforms you choose as your marketing tools, the seven Ps can serve as proven foundational marketing tactics that you can tailor your marketing efforts to best suit your business.
The 7 Ps of marketing include:
Read on to learn more about the 7 Ps.
1. Product
To get started, get into the habit of looking at your product as if you were an outside marketing consultant hired to help your company determine whether or not it's in the right business. Ask critical questions such as: “Is your current product or service or combination of products and services relevant and appropriate for today's market and customers? Does this product solve the customer's problem?"
Whenever you find yourself struggling to sell all the products or services you want, develop a habit of honestly evaluating your business and asking yourself:
Is there a product or service you offer today that, knowing what you know now, you wouldn't bring to light today? Compared to your competitors, is your product or service better than anything else in a significant way? If so, what is it? If not, can you develop a domain area? Should you offer this product or service in today's market?
2. Prices
The second P in the formula is price. Make a habit of constantly reviewing and re-evaluating your pricing strategy for the products and services you sell to ensure it continues to match today's market realities. Sometimes you have to lower the prices. In other cases, it may be appropriate to raise prices.
And in other cases, you should research your competitors to see what similar products they are looking for in your industry space to ensure you are posting competitive prices. Many companies have found that the profitability of certain new products or services does not justify the amount of effort and resources spent on their production. By raising prices, they may lose a percentage of their customers, but the remaining percentage makes a profit on each sale. Could this be right for you?
Sometimes it is necessary to change the conditions of sale. Sometimes, by spreading the price over several months or years, you can sell much more than you would today, and the interest you can collect will more than make up for the delay in collecting the money. Sometimes you can combine products and services with special offers and special promotions. Sometimes you can include free plugins that cost you very little to produce, but make your product prices much more attractive to your customers.
In business, as in nature, when you feel resistance or frustration with any part of your sales or marketing plan, be open to revisiting that area. Be open to the possibility that your current pricing structure is not ideal for the current market. Be open to the need to revise your pricing as needed to stay competitive, survive, and thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace.
Related: How to Create a Marketing Plan - Entrepreneur.com
3. Promotion
The third marketing and sales habit is to constantly think about promotion. Promotion includes all the ways you communicate your products or services to your target market, as well as how you market and sell them.
Small changes in how you promote and sell your products based on segmentation can lead to dramatic changes and unexpected increases in results. Even small changes to your listing can lead to an immediate increase in sales. Experienced copywriters can often increase an ad's response rate by 500% simply by changing the ad headline.
Companies large and small across all industries are constantly experimenting with different ways to advertise, promote and sell their products and services. Currently. Search engine optimization (SEO) aims to improve the quality and quantity of traffic to a website.
But regardless of the preferred method of the times, there is one tried and true rule. Whatever marketing and sales method you use today, sooner or later it will stop working. Sometimes it will stop working for reasons you know about and sometimes it will stop working for reasons you don't know. Either way, your marketing and sales methods will eventually stop working and you will need to develop new sales, marketing and advertising approaches, offers and strategies.
While many may assume that email marketing and Facebook advertising are the most popular marketing activities today, most of the market has already switched to new methods.
The top five advertising techniques for 2022 include:
- Short video announcement without audio.
- Advertising in mobile games.
- Machine learning and artificial intelligence.
- Collect and share data from third parties.
- LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
4. Country
The fourth P of an advanced marketing mix is where your product or service actually sells. Develop the ability to inspect and consider the exact physical location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change of location can lead to a rapid increase in sales.
You can sell your products in different countries. Some businesses use direct selling by sending their salespeople to meet and talk to the prospect in person. Some sell through telemarketing. Some sell through catalogs or mail order. Some sell at trade shows or retail stores. Some sell similar products or services in joint ventures with others. Some companies use manufacturers' representatives or distributors. Many businesses use one or a combination of these methods.
In any case, the entrepreneur must make the right decision as to where or the best place for the customer to acquire the relevant information about the product or service necessary to make a purchase decision. what is yours, how should you change it? Where else can you offer your products or services?
5. Packing
The fifth element of the marketing mix is packaging. Develop the habit of stopping and critically looking at every visual element of your physical product or service packaging. Remember that people form their first impression of you within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or something from your company. Small improvements to the packaging or appearance of your product or service can often elicit completely different reactions from your customers.
When it comes to packaging your company, product or service, you need to think about what the customer feels, what they see from the first moment of contact with your company through the buying process. Consider branding packaging to make an effective first impression.
If your customer begins to experience your brand with an attractive design, they're more likely to remember that experience with good associations. Including your company logo and social media handles is another great addition to custom packaging that can entice customers to engage with your brand and drive repeat interactions.
Packaging refers to how your product or service looks from the outside. Packaging is also about people and how they dress and dress. This applies to your offices, waiting rooms, brochures, correspondence and all the visual elements of your company. Everything is important. Everything helps or hurts. It all affects the trust your customers have in their relationship with you.
When IBM, Sr. Thomas J. Because IBM sold relatively complex high-tech equipment, Watson knew that customers needed to have a high level of confidence in the vendor's reliability. So he created a dress and hairstyle code that became IBM's inflexible set of rules and regulations.
As a result, every salesperson had to look professional in every way. Every element of his attire, including dark suits, dark ties, white shirts, traditional haircuts, shiny shoes, clean nails and all other attributes, conveyed a message of professionalism and competence. One of the biggest compliments a person could get was, "You look like someone from IBM."
6. Positioning
The other P is placement. You must develop the habit of constantly thinking about who you are in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think and talk about you when you're not around? How do people think and talk about your company? How do you rank in your market in terms of the specific words people use to describe you and your offerings to others?
In Al Reiss and Jack Trout's popular book, Positioning , the authors argue that how your customers see and think about you is a huge determinant of your success in a competitive marketplace. Cognitive theory states that most clients think of you in one quality, either positive or negative. Sometimes it's a "service". Sometimes it is "excellence". Sometimes it's "quality engineering," as is the case with Mercedes Benz. Sometimes it's with the "latest car," like with BMW. The depth of this function in the minds of your customers and prospects determines how easily they will buy your product or service and how much they will pay.
Develop the habit of thinking about how you can improve your position. Start by defining the position you want to have. If you could create one ideal impression in the hearts and minds of your customers, what would it be? What do you need to do in customer interactions to get your customers to think and talk in that particular way? What changes do you need to make to the way you communicate with customers today so that it is perceived as best for tomorrow's customer needs?
7 people
The ultimate P in the marketing mix is people. Develop the habit of thinking about the people inside and outside your company who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing activities and strategies.
It's amazing how many entrepreneurs and business people will work too hard to think through every element of marketing strategy and marketing mix, and then pay little attention to the fact that every decision and policy must be implemented by a specific person. specifically. Your ability to select, recruit, hire and retain the right people with the skills and abilities to do the job you need is more important than everything else combined.
In his bestselling book, Good to Great , Jim Collins found that the most important factor applied by the best companies was that they first "put the right people on the bus and let the wrong people off." Once these companies hired the right people, the second step was to "put the right people in the right seats on the bus."
To be successful in business, you must develop the habit of thinking clearly about who will carry out each task and responsibility. In many cases, it's impossible to move forward until you step back and put the right person in the right position. Many of the best business plans ever developed today are shelved because they [the people who created them] couldn't find the key people to make them happen.
Taken from Million Dollar Habits
The P's of marketing
Marketing is important whether you're running an e-commerce business, brick-and-mortar store, small business, or large corporation. While trends may evolve, the 7 Ps of marketing will likely persist and evolve with each new trend.
Remember, as products, markets, customers, and needs change rapidly, you must constantly review your 7P marketing model to ensure you're on track and getting the best possible results for you in today's marketplace.
Looking for more marketing resources? Explore the Entrepreneur Marketing Center here to help you grow your business .
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