Suppose
you are the marketing honcho of a passenger car company and you begin to
conceive of the marketing mix for a new car that you have in mind. You will
probably use the "4Ps" model and write down on a piece of paper these
.. Product, Price, Place and Promotion. You seem to have started well and
systematically but beginning is only a part of the effort; let us see what you
do next.
You
start with the 1st P : Product. There are many things to be defined when you
define a car but let us take only one part - but a major part : the engine.
Your R&D informs you that they can offer you a choice of 3 engines :
1000cc, 1400cc and 2000cc. Now it does not seem to be so simple any more because
each choice adds value as well as costs. 2000cc engine is technically the best
because it will give heart thumping acceleration and an ability to easily
overtake even on expressways. But then the engine will be costly and will push
up the price of the car.
You will have the same very problem for every
element of the marketing mix : you will not be able to look at one element of
the marketing mix and take a decision in isolation of other components. That is
the reason for my saying that you should "position" your product /
service first and only afterwards begin arriving at the marketing mix.
The positioning
template has 7 components.
When you answer these 7 questions; you can begin work on marketing mix.
- Who - and what application - does the product plan to serve : Who are the Target Customers ? They are the protagonists of the positioning story. Always tell the story in their paradigm and their language.
- What is the payoff they are looking for : by using the product or service what are they trying to do at an emotional level : what do they want to fix? or avoid? or achieve? What provides tension relief?
- How ready are the customers to accept what we plan to offer: How many of them have an active mission to purchase : budget, organization, criteria?
- What are the needs, which are unfulfilled and which really matter? What matters to target customers? Which of these are over serviced and which are under serviced? are we selling a solution or a component ?
- Who are you competing against ? Who are our competitors and at what stage of buyer behavior they actively compete against us? who is the villain ?
- What is our source of growth ? Will we primarily focusing on the need or a given competition ? or both ? what sort of fight : are we maker developers or market fighters?
- What is the product / story we offer ? This should be stated in customer language? what it our weapon ?
- How is it better than whom we are competing with ? what is our differentiation? how is our weapon better than that of the villain's?
Indeed Online marketers should also never forget to involve their subscribers in the process because it is a good way of getting feedback from them. This is an ideal way of creating a quality list.
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