Thoughts on the marketing Ps

For decades, traditional business-school-style marketing has stressed the "Marketing Ps" (Typically the four Ps are identified as Product, Pricing, Promotion, and Placement, although some say there are five or six Ps including others like Packaging and Publicity).

Lots of people have gotten "clever" and added other Ps as a marketing gimmick to promote their consultancy or agency, so you see lots of other Ps out there.

My friend Steve Johnson always seems to forget one P, but happily substitutes "PowerPoint" as the final one. I've heard Steve say Powerpoint in a list of Marketing Ps a dozen times and I laugh every time.

Last year, I keynoted the TS2 conference. This is an event for exhibit and event professionals. As I was walking the show floor after my keynote, an attractive woman in one of the booths seemed to be rather popular. As I looked to see what was going on, someone leaned over to me and said: "That's Marketing Barbie. She's expert in the four Ps: perfume, polish, peroxide, and Prada." I about keeled over with laughter.

Anyway, if youre focused on the marketing Ps (choose any four), you're likely not marketing very well, because you're not telling stories.

This "Marketing P" approach is doomed to fail on the Web. Why? Because nobody cares about your products and services. Mumbo-jumbo about your products won't appeal to your buyers, because they simply don't care about you, your company, and what you do.

Success comes from the fact that people want to share stories with their friends, colleagues, and family members.

If you have been focused on the "Marketing P’s," then telling stories is different from the same old advertising and PR that you and your agencies have been practicing for years.

You’ll need to throw out some old ideas and pick up some new ones:

- Don’t obsess about being "on message."

- Don’t beg mainstream media to write about you.

- Don’t break the bank with expensive advertising.

- Do tell your story directly to an interested market.

- Do make it easy for people to share your content with others.

Comments

[Rhodri Lloyd]

Gud post, its always essential to the reinforce the 4Ps. I really liked your Rules of Marketing book. I've written a company blog using it http://tinyurl.com/cnghyn. Please check it out!! I was going to twitter you this message but it was too long.

[Alanna]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Alanna

http://www.craigslisthelper.info

[Jodi Kaplan]

"She's expert in the four Ps: perfume, polish, peroxide, and Prada."

That's.... (sorry, I can't resist)... PRICELESS!

[Mac McIntosh]

Your post reminds me of a story of a client who put all his eggs in the latest marketing media basket. Later, when tracking actual results, he saw over a million dollars in sales to new clients that could be tracked to the that tactic. However, the problem was that his other business dropped by nine million dollars because he was no longer using other marketing media to communicate with other prospects and customers.

What happened next? He shifted some of his marketing budget and resources back to funding the other media too. Sales quickly climbed. With the additional sales generated by the new media, they all lived happily ever after.

[Linas Sablovskis]

Well, I do believe in one P... Purple Cow!

see you in 6 days! :)

[Paul Baiguerra]

Recently went to a meeting with a new client - the meeting before mine was with the media people they had spent (for them) a fair whack of money with and achieved next to zero results - the campaign had not even paid for itself.
They were very open to discussing how to do things a little differently.

[Susan/Second Income Business]

Isn't it interesting that we spent so much time looking for the perfect angle of marketing tactic, that we now have to relearn the ability to geniunely interact with one another

[Steve Johnson]

While many think of the Marketing Mix as Price, Prayer and PowerPoint, I like to get product managers to focus on the Problem. Get that right and your solution will inspire a World Wide Rave.

[SpiritintheVillage]

Hello David,

Good post! These are important facts but difficult for most companies to change the "we've always done it that way mentality".

Kevin

[Brad Majors]

David,

In your discussion of Marketing's Ps, you omitted the most important one of all: the Prospect. That should be the focus of the four Ps and if we can keep that guy in mind, the four Ps do have relevance. You may enjoy a post I just submitted today at www.yourbrandreps.com. It is very much "on message" to your post.

[Hyegyu]

Hi, I wrote about your book, "the New Rules of Marketing and PR," on my post - actually it was an assignment of my class "New Media Driver's License." We, as PR practitioners, have many new opportunities in a Web 2.0 world. Yet, it is a pity for many of us just to follow old rules of PR and simply ignore the importance of social media.

[Ishwar S]

David

Very interesting thoughts. Another P which has commonly been used is of course 'Positioning' which has been at some level rechristened as 'the story'. Whatever the term might be, the story is undoubtedly the most important.

Once the story is decided, the marketer would do well to focus all his/her energies in living the story.

This can only be achieved when all the 4 P's are in line with the story and there is no disconnect between the story and the elements (4 P's) which contribute to the story.

[Mark Madsen]

A couple of other P's for thought:

Purpose - have one

Problem - show how your product / service solves it

--

I like the story approach as well. Never really thought about how easy it is to gain interest in something if there was a story attached to it. We also like showing our support for people or companies that have a good story behind them.

Good post, thanks.

[Anandmayi]

hi David,
I worked for www.retocen.com as a marketing manager. We are a online retailer for baby & Mom products In India. I keep reading your book and blogs. Its very informative and i have changed the content based upon your view.
Nice thoughts..thanks..

[Ken in Denver]

Spin Spin Spin -- nice gloss over the fundamental issue of "interested market". How the heck do you think you have an interested market without knowing them and reaching them? Yet another Internet myth-understood.

[Seh]

You are right on. New methods are in. I use video to create content that's easily shared. Then I post free at http://www.Adwido.com and allow them to target speicific keywords to explode my search engine traffic. Plus it's free to open an account. I make the videos interesting enough that people will want to share them after watching.

[Kripaluji Maharaj]

The new ideas were great to learn. I enjoyed reading all of them and as a result of it, i am so changed with my thoughts!