Mind your Ps (Marketing mix)

You might be asking yourself how all this new digital ‘stuff’ fits in to the traditional marketing mix: the venerable four Ps of Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Well, it breaks down something like this.

Place

Let’s start with the obvious one: it’s the internet. It’s the 2.4 billion plus people around the world who have decided it is better to be connected... whether it is accessed through a computer, a mobile device, internet protocol television (IPTV) or whatever else might come along. That’s really it.

Price

Pricing is critical online. You have to be competitive: this is the internet, and pricing is transparent. You don’t necessarily have to be the cheapest – but to compete you need to make sure your overall value proposition to the customer is compelling. Overprice your product and a host of price comparison sites will soon highlight the fact, as will the countless peer review communities where consumers actively debate the relative merits (or otherwise) of everything from financial products to wedding stationery.

Product

This is what you have to offer – your unique value proposition to your customers. A good product, of course, is the cornerstone of all successful marketing, but it is particularly crucial in the digital arena. A product that delivers tangible benefits and fills a real need in the marketplace – something that leaves the customer with a genuine perception of value – gives marketers the scope they need to do their job effectively. When you’re promoting something viable, it’s much easier to engage with consumers and to convince them to buy.

Conversely, the best marketing minds in the world will struggle to promote a product that doesn’t deliver the goods. And this is where the all-pervading, viral nature of the internet can really come back to bite you. If you promote a product online and that product doesn’t deliver, you had better be prepared for the backlash.

Digital consumers are no wallflowers – they are vociferous and well connected. They won’t keep the shortcomings of your product or business to themselves – they’ll shout about it from the tallest building in cyberspace, and others will quickly pick up the cry. Once that happens you can pretty much shelve your marketing ambitions and go back to the drawing board. So, it is important to make sure your product and the entire customer value chain associated with it is right from the start. You need a solid foundation if you’re going to build a sustainable online business, and that all starts with a sound product.

Promotion

Promotion is everything you do, online and offline, to get your product in front of your prospects, acquire new customers and retain existing ones. Examining those options will you in a better marketing position. Here we have the main elements in order to whet your appetite:

● Your website

● Search engine optimization (SEO)

● Pay per click search advertising (PPC)

● Affiliate/performance marketing and strategic partnerships

● Online public relations

● Social media

● E-mail marketing

● Mobile marketing

● Customer relationship management

● Content marketing...

● Display media

Mapping the Customer Path throughout the Five A’s

As I said in the other post "As customer trust their peers more than ever, the best source of influence is the army of customers turned advocates. Thus, the ultimate goal is to delight customers and convert them into loyal advocates.". So advocate is where the magic happens, and it will not happen for your business unless you know how to satisfy your customer needs. 

For you to understand the needs of your customers, perhaps how was his experience in your establishment you need his feedback, for the tools (reviews and reputation management) we have today in online environment that should be very easy. 

The New Customer Path

With increased mobility and connectivity, customers already have limited time to consider and evaluate brands. As the pace of life accelerates and their attention span drops, customers experience difficulty in focusing. But across multiple channels - online customers continue to be exposed to too much of everything: product features, brand promises, and sales talk. Confused by too-good-to-be-true advertising messages, customers often ignore them and instead turn to trustworthy sources of advice: their social circle of friends and family.

Companies need to realize that more touchpoints and higher volume in message do not necessarily translate into increase influence. Companies need to stand out from the crowd and meaningfully connect with customers in just a few critical touchpoints. In fact, just one moment of unexpected delight from a brand is all it takes to transform a customer into the brand´s loyal advocate.

Companies should focus their efforts to intensifying communication, strengthening channel presence, and improving customer interface - to improve those critical touchpoints as well to introduce strong differentiation.

Moreover, companies need to leverage the power of customer connectivity and advocacy. Nowadays peer-to-peer conversation among customers is the most effective form of media. Given this lack of trus, companies might no longer have direct access to target customers. As customer trust their peers more than ever, the best source of influence is the army of customers turned advocates. Thus, the ultimate goal is to delight customers and convert them into loyal advocates.

As you notice this really is a NEW WAY of how things work related to marketing and advertising, technology allows customers to become this way, the good strategy is to use the same technology to handle the proper way of influence customers and not only advertising to them. That is why when business stablish a foundation before posting ads online their results are so much better. I talk about this foundation on this video. 

 

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6) - Ethics in marketing

The last Human Centric Marketing attribute is Morality. Morality is about being ethical and having strong integrity. Ethics in marketing is a serious business. A person with positive moral character has the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. Most important, they have the courage to do the right thing. Similarly, brands with strong morality are values driven. The brands ensure that appropriate ethical considerations become a key part of all business decisions. In fact, some brands put ethical business models as their core differentiation. The brand keep their promises even though customers do not keep track.

Unilever, for instance, announced in 2010 the Unilever Sustainable living plan, which aimed to double the size of the business while halving its environmental footprint by 2020. It also aimed to improve the well-being of more than 1 billion people and to enhance the livelihoods of millions of people in the process. The corporate-wide moral compass was translated into brand-level initiatives in a movement to create more humanized brands within the company.

Examples Include Knorr´s effort to fight malnutrition in Nigeria, the effort by Wall´s to create micro-entrepreneurs in India, and Omo´s campaign to save water in Brazil

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

One example from myself 

Maybe everyone who is using internet may get a similar experience like me once in a while, as I am learning and working with online marketing I am always interested in courses and new technologies other people are developing and using and I end up enrolling in this program here

Morrison Education.

Getting a Education is never a bad thing, it is how you succeed in life because you acquire the necessary knowledge to make it happen. The bad thing is when you get involved in a program thinking the cost is “X” but the cost end up being “X + Y” because there are tools and other stuff you need to buy to accomplish your goal. Usually they never tell you the total cost up front, that is called up sell , now that you enroll the program and probably will not get a refund for what you have already paid, your only option is to continue is to keep buying from them…

I don’t want this happen to me when I am enrolling in any program, even if it was a good program, the problem is that this seems to be a standard business or marketing procedure… I don’t really mind to choose the less travel road, and for me this is what I called “integrity”. So I liked this educational program so far and perhaps that is something you also be interested in, so here are the total cost of the program…

You may pay the initial fee to get involved in the system, latter you will need those following tools to work in such a online environment:

Tools: (you may go and check the price of these on their website)

1)      clickfunnels (free trial)

2)       http://buildredirects.com/  account (basic $ 19,99)

3)       Get response account (free trial)

4)       Your domain - PurchaseYour.com (Around $ 20,00)

Plus the EMBASSADOR program if you choose to get involved. Embassador program is about US$ 1500,00. That will not be necessary to go on in the program but it will increase your commission enormously at the back end, meaning every time they up sell any course on their website you get to earn a commission too (the courses they up sell are the ones listed on the figure below), otherwise you only earn the first initial commission which is small compared to all the potential earning.

This is why affiliate marking like clickbank sometimes let you earn a high commission like 75% or even 90%. Because they will earn on up selling on the client you just brought in, the initial ticket is usually a small one, but when they up sell the bigger price ticket you don’t earn anything, and that is where it lies the bigger potential earning.

I think it is a great leaning opportunity here, also with great potential to make money if you don’t want do their program only for the purpose of learning. Also this post may be the true behind the scenes for you to make an informed decision. Notice that they may change the program anytime, it is not mine or me managing it.

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

Personability is the fifth Human Centric Marketing attribute. People with strong personability have self-awareness; they are conscious of what they are good at while admitting what they still have yet to learn. They show self-confidence and self-motivation to improve themselves. Similarly, brands with strong personability know exactly what they stand for. But these brands are also not afraid to show their flaws and take full responsibility for their actions.

Domino´s pizza company made a brave move in 2010 to admit their pizzas were not compelling. In an advertisement, Domino´s publicly shared customer feedback about their pizzas. In response, the company reinvented its pizzas and offered them to the critics. The company confidently took responsibility for its flaws, which made the brand more human.

Let me ask you. How do you think is the best way to give feedback to public ? I think you know the answer... by publicizing the feedback online and let it be available to anyone who wants to see it, easy and simple, that is also related to preserving your customer base (retention) and not only acquiring new clients.

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6) - Never forget to take into account "Emotions" when designing any market campaign.

Another Human Centric Marketing attribute is Emotionality. People who can connect emotionally with others to drive their actions are very powerful influencers. Brand that evoke emotions can drive favorable customers actions. They connect with customers on as emotional level with inspirational messages. Sometimes, the brands also connect with customers by showing off their humorous side. As you may guess by now - Emotions in marketing is very important issue to take into account when planning any type of campaign.

Dove is a brand with strong emotionality. A humanized brand, Dove address the issue of self-esteem among women by encouraging women to love themselves and appreciate their real beauty. With a massive campaign lasting over a decade, Dove has managed to connect emotionally with women worldwide.

Doritos provides a different example with its SuperBowl 50 "Ultrasound" advertisement, which portrays a pregnant woman who is having a ultrasound while her husband is eating a bag of Doritos. The advertisement ends with the baby shooting out of the womb to get some Doritos. The advertisement turns our to be polarizing; some people consider it hilarious while others see it as disgusting. Nevertheless, a facial tracking technology reveals that the advertisement is the most emotionally engaging, even though the emotions it provokes are mixed

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

The third Human Centric Marketing attribute is Sociability. A person with sociability is confident in engaging with others, showing good verbal and nonverbal communication skills. Similarly, brands with strong sociability are not afraid of having conversation with their customers. They listen to their customers as well as the conversations among their customers.

They answer inquiries and resolve complaints responsively. The brands also engage their customers regularly through multiple communications media. They share interesting content on social media that attracts their customers.

For example, Denny´s Diner creates a sociable persona on social media that is friendly, fun and likeable. The brand regularly posts witty comments and jokes on Twitter that people like and retweet, making it more human. Denny´s Diner behaves as a friend to whom people can relate, thereby receiving a lot of word of mouth.

Zappos is also known as very sociable brand. Customers can converse with Zappos´s call-center agents for hours discussing shoes and other matter as friends. In fact, Zappos holds the longest customer-service call record at 10 hours and 43 minutes.

Social Referral system and services offered by online marketers can be the perfect solution if you are struggling in the area of Sociability

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

The second attribute to Human Centric Marketing (HCM) is Intellectuality. Intellectuality is the human ability to have knowledge, to  think, and to generate ideas. Intellectuality is closely related to the ability to think beyond the obvious and the ability to innovate.

Brands with strong intellectuality are innovative and have the ability to launch products and services not previously conceived by other players and by the customers. The brands thus demonstrate their ability to effectively solve customers problems.

When Tesla automotive company adopted the name of a famous innovator, Nikola Tesla, the brand promised to continuously innovate as did its namesake. The brand does not disappoint; it is in the forefront of major innovations such as electric cars, automotive analytics, and autopilot technologies. The intellectuality of Tesla creates as strong brand appeal, even though it does not advertise.

Major disruptive innovators such as Uber and Airbnb also demonstrate their intellectually by coming up with services that connect customers and service providers. Major proponents of the so-called sharing economy, Uber and Airbnb are viewed by customers as smart brands.

Now I have to point out if you are small business probably you don´t have a marketing department, and to take time from serving your customer to keep worrying how you will bring the customers to your door by advertising and keeping up with the evolving online marketing may not be a good idea. Perhaps outsourcing that area of your business maybe something you want to look into it.

Since you are just hiring a service if your marketing does not go well nothing is avoiding you to start doing the old ways, or change the person you did hire for that, what you cannot do is to stay out of using what it is one of the most effective ways to market your business, and that it is to be online active and visible.

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6) - Physical attraction improves influence.

Physicality is one of the Human Centric Marketing attributes. A person who is physically attractive has strong influence over others. Thus, brands that aim to have influence over their customers should have physical attraction that make them unique, albeit not perfect. This is another way to say that physical attraction improves influence.

For brands, physical attractions can come from their brand identities such as well-designed logos or well-crafted taglines. Consider Google with their dynamic logo system that continuously alters its logo to celebrate special moments or persons with its Google Doodle.

Physical attraction can also come from a compelling product design or a solid customer experience design. Consider Apple as an example. Apple is well known to excel not only in its industrial-product design but also in its user-interface design. Apple´s user interface is often considered very simple and unintimidating even for non-savvy users. The Apple Store design is also considered one of the best in the retail industry.

Not having a online presence or promoting your website is a big mistake, it will be like going out with a girl without having taking a bath and put on a perfume. Today that is not about impressing anymore, it is mandatory to have a online presence, and that is to say nothing about being a nice looking and good content website, in other words an attractive one.

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

If you were mislead to this article because you are looking to a more romantic side of attraction in regarding a relationship, perhaps not all is lost, you can come here and see this nice article of 4 things you need to know about attraction, but remember "growth mindset" is much more attractive than "fixed mindset". I hope you did learn something new today, and grew a little bit. 

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

In the book Marketing 4.0 - moving from traditional to digital - (2017) Philip Kotler talks about the Importance of Human touch in the marketing, even in the digital era that we are now.

In the literature, customers are almost always portrayed as the most powerful players. Nevertheless ,marketers often forget the human side of customers, which is clearly manifest in the digital era; they are not perfect and they feel vulnerable to marketing ploys. Hence they build communities to strengthen their positions. Perhaps this is why we so many groups in places like Facebook designed to supply any human desire to communicate and discuss in a variety of areas of interest.

Marketers need to adapt to this new reality and create brands that behave like humans - approachable and likeable but also vulnerable. Brands should become less intimidating. They should become authentic and honest, admit their flaws, and stop trying to seem perfect. Driven by core values, human centric brands treat customers as friends, becoming an integral part of their lifestyle.

Human-centric marketing, Kotler said, still is the key to building brand attraction in the digital era as brands with human character will arguably be the most differentiated. The process starts by unlocking customers, deepest anxieties and desires. It requires emphatic listening and immersive research into what is known as digital anthropology.

Although we may require the human touch to survive in the business and marketing competition arena even in the digital area, we still may use the digital tools to facilitate that human touch. Customers anxieties and desires perhaps can be satisfied with information on your website that can be easily located on the internet because you use SEO techniques to rank better. 

Or perhaps you can listen to your customer even when they want to complain about something when you use tools for them to leave a review on your company or services, this is called reputation management.

Personalized offers can display the human side of your business even when you are using technology to offer it, like message marketing. If you are not using or have a desire to learn more what those tools and strategies can do for your business, feel free to reach out for help.  

Human Centric Marketing (HCM)

HCM Attribute: Phisicality (1 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Intellectuality (2 of 6)

HCM Attribute: Sociability (3 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Emotionality (4 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Personability (5 of 6).

HCM Attribute: Morality (6 of 6).

Market niche can be very profitable (Muzak = "Elevator Music")

A market niche is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.

Muzak – the company that brought elevator music to the masses back in the 1930s. The technology for piping audio over power lines was patented in 1922 by retired Major General George O Squier, and exclusive rights to the patent were bought by the North American Company. In 1934, under the corporate umbrella of ‘Muzak’, they started piping music into Cleveland homes.

Muzak seemed to have hit on a winning formula, but the advent of free commercial radio sounded the death knell for the company’s chosen route to market. With free music available on shiny new wirelesses, households were no longer prepared to pay for the Muzak service. Undeterred, the company focused its efforts on New York City businesses. As buildings in New York soared skywards, the lift/elevator became practically ubiquitous. Muzak had found its niche, and ‘elevator music’ was born.

So what ?? You might think.

It’s true that, compared to behemoths of contemporary media such as radio, television and now the internet, elevator music is small potatoes. But back in its heyday this was cutting-edge stuff, and it reached a lot of people. Muzak had the power to sway opinions and influence markets, so much so

that for music artists of that era, having your track played on the Muzak  network practically guaranteed a hit.

Technology has the ability to open up completely new markets, and to radically shake up existing ones. Internet is doing just that to us. The following video show that online ads only is not good enough, you can do so much better by doing it properly, and by that I meant doing some branding or providing opportunities to engage your audience before running ads

Branding is the  promoting of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand, it can be done in many ways, running ads is only one of them, perhaps one of the most expensive ways, but surely you can try other methods before running ads, such as having a website, writing articles, maintaining a blog, or posting in your social media.  

Sometimes it is better to go through the less travel road (User-centric design)

While this may seem like the most obvious point, it’s surprising how often the user is forgotten in the user experience. Business owners, marketers and web developers frequently focus on creating the web platforms they want and think are best, instead of really interrogating what the user needs.

Often, the performance of web assets is compromised when the design process is driven only by internal business needs (for instance, ensuring that each department in the company has a space that it controls on the home page) at the expense of what the user needs.

It’s essential to give users exactly what they need. (Source: XKCD.com)

When designing for the user, you need to ask the following questions:
• Who is the user?
• What are the user’s wants and needs from your platform?
• Why is the user really coming to your website?
• What are the user’s capabilities, web skills and available technology?
• What features would make the user’s experience easier and better?

Of course, many users may not know exactly what their wants and needs are! It is the User experience practitioner’s job to discover these through research and interpret them in the best way possible. Keep Henry Ford’s famous quote in mind here: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Case Study - Harley Davidson - Power of marketing.

Harley-Davidson is more than just a motorbike, a Harley-Davidson comes with a lifestyle, but how do you sell a lifestyle on a 30-minute test ride? And so 24-hour test rides were born. Here was a study case that can show you the power of marketing. You will see the metrics of this study, one of the best things about online marketing is you can see all the data and measure your results very precisely and effectively, if you hire someone to do online marketing for you, that person should be able to send you reports to tell you how the actions is performing towards your advertising goals.

Location: Australia.

The challenge: Harley-Davidson wanted to lift sales for its touring range of motorbikes and create audience-engaging content.

Target audience: Customers and potential customers of Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

Action

● To launch 24-hour test rides, the agency created the end sequence to a short film where a man wakes up with a Harley. They then invited young film-makers to view the film online, and challenged them to show how the film begins.

● This resulted in multiple films being made, all with different beginnings, but all leading to one common ending.

● The agency then staged ‘The Open Road Film Festival’ event. This was a public screening of the top eight films. The event took place at The Bucket List, a popular nightspot in Australia’s legendary Bondi Beach area, and attracted a vast audience including many of Australia’s own film celebrities.

● The festival was featured online where thousands of viewers across Australia and New Zealand watched and voted for their favourite films. Prizes were awarded to film-makers and voters, including a Harley-Davidson Iron 883 and much-desired Canon cameras and equipment.

● Inspired by the Harley adventures in these films, many film viewers went on to join a waiting list for 24-hour test rides.

● The campaign generated far more interaction than anyone had anticipated or hoped for and, importantly, met the brief of: 1) getting branded content created by film-makers that brought to life the excitement of owning a Harley through dramatizing what could happen with a Harley in 24 hours; 2) lifting the sales of the touring bike range.

Here is the metrics I talked about before - Results:

● 59,383: number of site visits over the festival and campaign period.

● 41,340: number of unique site visits.

● 33,072: total number of collective minutes spent on the site.

● 10,599: total number of views of the top eight films.

● 171: number of film-makers who signed up for film tips from Gregor Jordan and Bryan Brown.

● 65: number of film-script submissions and grant applications.

● 25: number of finished films uploaded.

● 43 per cent sales uplift: the campaign contributed to a 43 per cent sales uplift for touring models during the campaign period versus the exact same period of the previous year. A resounding success.

Harley-Davidson Open Road Film Festival

"When marketing is done right, sales take care of itself"

The Title of this article was a quotation I have heard somewhere, I tough is was from Philip Kotler, one of the important names in Marketing (I was used to teach marking using books he did authored), but I end up not finding it to refer in this article, anyway my point here today is to emphasize the importance of Marketing. Don´t get me wrong, without the product or service there will be no business at all

But if people were not given the chance to know the existence of your product or service you will not stand a chance either. To be quite honest I see you need to do much more than that, specially if you have competitors. For example managing to have Reviews from past customers available to prospective new customers can be the difference to close a sale.

Perhaps you need to ask yourself: "When I will give my business a chance to be more visible online, using all the tools and techniques that seems to be working to every other business ?" Maybe you have tried before and did not work well, but isn´t that the road to success ? You just not get to the end yet. Also there are some great starting points you can start from.

I hope you are finding my blog educative, maybe you can go and see my you tube channel as well, there are a lot of good tips there too.