Sep 23, 2022 | Branding, Communication, Management, Marketing, Small business
In 1960, E. Jerome McCarthy published his idea of the four foundations of marketing. Price, Promotion, Product, and Place. The world has changed in the intervening 62 years, so you must wonder if this idea is still relevant, let alone a foundation.
To my mind, they are not only relevant, but retain their place as a seminal part of the marketing process, it is just that the context in which we think about marketing has changed radically, so the role the 4 P’s plays has also evolved.
This used to be simple, there was a product, and there was a price. Whether it was a consumer product, or one sold to another business, it was simple, and uncongested with notions of service.
Life, and the environment in which we compete has completely changed. Let’s see.
Product.
The idea of ‘product’ has changed along with everything else. We used to buy a car, increasingly, we are now buying the means to get from point A to point B, and discovering new ways to pay for it beyond the options of cash, or some sort of loan from a bank.
Product rather than being a singular physical product or service delivered has become a system that delivers value. The scope of ‘produc’t has also changed from the immediate geography to global, and the channels by which this is achieved look nothing like those available 62 years ago.
Price.
The exchange of money is how the economy goes round; money is the fuel. However, the articulation of the ‘Price’ of a product/service bundle has changed as much as everything else. Along with the product and delivery options now available are the pricing options. There are now many ways to be paid, only a few of which were available 62 years ago.
In all developed economies to differing degrees, the taxi industry has been regulated over time. Nothing changed from 1962 when the ‘Four P’s were articulated until along came Uber and disrupted the cosy taxi environment. Uber eliminated the uncertainty of how long you had to wait for a ride, creating great psychological value, and introduced surge pricing that would entice more supply into the system at times of high demand.
Surge and subscription pricing have changed the face of commerce globally. Amazon uses both in their operations, adding the willingness of a buyer to pay higher prices based on their browsing and purchase history.
Place.
We used to buy products at a defined place, in a defined manner. No longer. The notion of ‘Place’ has been replaced by one of ‘How’ you buy rather than ‘where you buy’.
The old model of a set of mechanically driven distribution channels has been replaced by a melange of ‘omni channels’ that deliver value in a wide variety of ways.
Control of the channels, formerly in the hands of the sellers has moved into the hands of the buyers, who demand and are given in increasing amounts of transparency backwards into the supply chain. All this is enabled by the explosive growth of digital technology.
Promotion.
If the other factors have changed radically, there are no words to describe the magnitude of the change to the ways promotional activity has evolved.
It used to mean the way we gained attention of potential customers via a limited number of options, engaged them, then sold product through whichever stable distribution channel was available. While the core process is unchanged, how we promote out products has exploded.
This brings us back to the question posed: are the for ‘P’s’ of marketing still relevant.
My answer is ‘Yes’, but the clothes they wear have changed radically and therefore the way we think about then must change.
My response to the change necessary is to look at the marketing process more from the perspective of the customer. This brings me to the view that both customer and supplier can look at the process from within the framework of Objectives, Value proposition, Ideal customer, and the Current state. Each party to a transaction sees these four parameters differently, but they are all relevant to the way the transection and relationship proceeds.
Sep 19, 2022 | Analytics, Communication
Social media platforms all compete for your attention, not just with other platforms, but with the rest of your life. Then, once you have given it, the real test begins.
What do you do with it.
The nature of social media is almost instantaneous. When something comes through your feed, an increasingly rare event for unadvertised material, it has a second, occasionally a couple, to grab and hold your attention, and encourage you to take the next step, whatever that might be.
It is not the long slow romancing of that great looking person in a bar, or at dinner party with friends, it is more like Tinder.
Swipe left, or swipe right. In or out. More information please or no thanks.
Your marketing task on social media, if you are to use it effectively, is to pass the initial tinder test, and have the other party look for more, and then pass on the post to their networks.
So how do you achieve that end, the referral of your material to others?
Most of the advice around is pretty accurate:
- Promise an explicit outcome to a specific cohort of potential customers.
- Photos of people should be front lit, and eyes not looking directly at the camera. This is to avoid the photo looking like a mug shot from the local cop-shop.
- Simplicity and consistency of design
- Make a clear and explicit call to action
- Make it easy for them to contact you
Remember always you only have a second to make the impact that will encourage them to swipe left, then the challenge is to add value, so they stay.
Better make that first second count.
Jun 15, 2022 | Communication, Marketing
The first Elvis festival in Parkes, NSW, was in January 1993. The brainchild of a couple of Elvis fans running a restaurant in the town, who thought it might be a bit of fun. A couple of hundred people showed up.
Every year since then, except the last two, it has grown. In 2009, 9,500 showed up, at the last one in January 2020, 25,000 showed up, supported by a worldwide online audience.
How does this happen, across all the boundaries we usually use to define who we are? Colour, religion, ethnic origin, age, social status, wallet size, and so on. The Elvis festival cuts across all these boundaries.
All humans are attracted to ‘people like us’. This is how we define ourselves. For the Elvis festival to succeed, all they had to do was define ‘people like us love Elvis’s music‘. The rest was easy, well, not easy, but on some sort of cumulative automatic pilot. For Elvis fans, defining themselves that way breaks down any other barrier between them and other Elvis fans.
There is a bloke at the local Gym I go to who from time to time creates a real stir. An Elvis fanatic, he does an occasional show at the gym for fun, during one of the classes. He dresses up and sings along ‘karaoke style’ to recorded Elvis music. He is terrible, but does not care a bit, and the classes end up being a huge, dancing, singing, sweaty party.
It is infectious. Few in that class would describe themselves as an Elvis fan, but the communal vibe breaks down all the barriers.
When you want to create alignment in your organisation, attract customers, or just be noticed, find something that everyone you want to communicate with can relate to. Find the hook that enables them in some small way to say to themselves: ‘that is for me‘
May 2, 2022 | Communication, Customers
The BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) has become an essential tool in the negotiation toolbox, yet many leave it in the box.
It is, in effect, your ‘walk-away’ point.
However, before you walk away, there are always alternatives that can be considered. Identifying these alternatives that make the ‘pie bigger’ is often a challenge only overcome after considerable work, but having done this preparation before entering the negotiation starts will always be useful.
Understanding your own BATNA is essential, but it is just as important to understand as best you can, the BATNA of the other party, or parties.
What do they value that you can deliver?
What are their ‘non-negotiables?
Will the decision maker be at the table?
How can you make the pie bigger for them at little cost to you?
There is a myriad of questions you can ask yourself that will give you a better feel for your relative position, simply by thinking about them, and assembling some information that may otherwise have been overlooked.
In a negotiation, we tend to automatically set ourselves for some sort of compromise. We assume that the net effect of the balance of wins and losses for both parties in the compromise will be the most satisfactory outcome for all.
Often it is not.
Prospect theory, first articulated by Daniel Kahneman points out that the pain we feel for a loss is much greater than the joy we feel for a gain. If we are given $50, we just say thanks, and are happy. If we are given $100, then $50 is immediately taken back, we feel pain. The outcome of both is the same, we are $50 ahead, but the balance of pain and joy is completely different.
This applies in a negotiation when trying to balance gains and losses for an acceptable outcome. At a rational level we can reach an agreement on the net outcome, but at an emotional level, a compromise generally does not allow for the impact of prospect theory on the perception of an individual of the net value delivered.
It will pay you to consider deeply how the impact of this disparity between gains and losses will be felt.
Negotiation is all about the recognition, articulation, and exchange of value.
The challenge is we all see value differently. Being able to recognise the value as the other parties in a negotiation see it will deliver hugely valuable insights to be leveraged.
In other words, understand the psychological BATNA of the other party as well as you can.
Header cartoon credit. Scott Adams and Dogbert perfect negotiation tactics.
Sep 29, 2021 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
As we all know, a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
So it is with many websites.
Digital camels.
Every page on a website should have only two objectives:
- Provide the catalyst to ‘convert’ to the next step.
- Make the conversion easy.
Not every page is a sales convertor, but each page should play a role in the progressive process towards a transaction, whether it be the first, or the twenty first, only the number matters.
The most common response I get when I make these sorts of observations are: ‘we need to educate‘ and ‘the objective of the site is brand building‘.
Both are valid drivers of the content of a website, but unless they ultimately lead to sales, they are little more than platitudes and good intentions.
Is your website just an elegantly coiffured camel?
Aug 25, 2021 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Strategy
The first QR code I remember seeing was in the early 2000’s, I think. It was a video taken in New York Zoo that showed people clicking on what looked like a square of code in front of an enclosure, and getting way more than the usual summarised information about the animal typically printed on boards. It gave detailed and varied information, linking to videos of the animals in the wild, anatomy, physiology, and the lines from which they had descended, all of which could be selected and viewed as you stood there, watching the animals in the enclosure.
This will change the world I thought. Then, almost nothing, for years.
Until Covid struck.
QR codes were invented by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 as a means to keep track of inventory. The problem was that a barcode could only be read one way, and carried limited information, whereas a two-dimensional QR code can carry 31,329 datapoints arranged in rows of up to 177 X 177. As a result, they can carry a huge range of information, the QR code acting as both gatekeeper and curator of the information.
The combination of the availability of QR code readers on smartphones and Covid has resulted in all sorts of creative ways people are using them to register, and engage in a whole range of information delivery processes.
This level of detail is highly applicable to B2B selling. Send a prospect an engaging letter via ‘Snail mail’ which has an almost 100% open rate, that had a QR code providing access to all the information a potential customer may want. Who would not click on it, even if just for curiosity?
I am nearly 70, so not looking for a job. However, if I was, a personal QR code would be all I would need.
Such a resume could include video of me speaking to a group, engaging in group activity, coaching a team member, playing sport, as well as giving the details of various achievements, spoken by referees. It would be a customisable digital asset that could be tailored to the job for which I was applying. Even better, it might serve to create a new job in an organisation for whom I had decided I would like to work. It would take a bit more work than the standard written resume, but would carry geometrically more weight.
If I was back in my FMCG days, I would be putting QR codes on all products offering information on ingredients and their sources, recipes, supply chains, video that enhanced the authenticity of the end product. At some point, the two retail gorillas will demand it, so you may as well get in front of the game.
Toyota has given the world a bank of manufacturing and process management capabilities through their wide publication of the tools and techniques of the Toyota Production System. To that bank you can add the QR code. They elected to make the technology freely available, rather than enforcing their patent rights. As a result, we have at our disposal what has become a vital tool for the management of Covid.
Imagine the revenue they have foregone in the public good, even if they had extracted a royalty of fractions of a cent every time someone clicked on a QR code.
