Too often, companies point to promotions, or lack thereof, for lackluster sales and disappointing commercial success.
“Oh, have you seen IUROUE? Their marketing is horrible! They have awful brand awareness and very bad advertising.”
While it’s important to develop a robust promotional strategy and execution plan, many businesses – especially start-ups or those working within immature markets – have little or no understanding of the other P’s of marketing. Most see the value of each P in isolation, but do not appreciate the connection and interplay of all the components working in tandem.
“What we really need to do in marketing is beef up our social media presence. We need to hire some young, hungry person right out of school who can help us expand our digital marketing.”
If you’re looking for a comprehensive marketing approach that drives meaningful sales performance, you can’t forget a P.
Product
First, let’s look at product. It all starts with the product. Who is your target audience and what do they want? What features must be included to meet these needs? How and where will they consume it? How should it look? What is the unique sustainable advantage? How does it stand out against competitive products? What is the branding strategy? If you don’t have a product people want to buy then nothing else matters.
Price
How sensitive is your target audience to price? What’s the perceived value of your product / solution and how does your pricing strategy compare to the competition? If you’re charging a price premium, what is it based on? Are these factors that are important to your audience? How are you communicating this value?
Place
What are your distribution channels? Is there anything you can do to develop other points of purchase for higher sales conversion? What is your supply chain and how can you streamline product development to increase your margin? How are you going to design your sales structure and what are your sales incentives? How will you beat the competition in certain channels? Distribution issues, in and of themselves, can squash even the most well regarded, competitively priced products.
Promotion
When all of that has been fully analyzed and adjusted to reflect the market conditions, then think about your promotional strategy. How will you increase brand awareness? What is your advertising strategy and promotional mix? What is your content marketing strategy? How will you adjust your strategy based on the sales funnel? Will you focus more on top of the funnel lead generation or bottom of the funnel sales conversions? How will you handle promotion at the point of sale? What is your merchandising and add-on sales strategy?
Thinking comprehensively about your marketing strategy works to move the sales needle for anything! Whether it’s a new catheter, a new graphic design service, a new car, or even a new medical cannabis capsule – define the four key marketing factors, and you’ll be much better positioned for stellar sales performance.
For you inquiring minds out there, Susan Kirkland does a great job explaining this is much more detail – plus the 3 new modern marketing P’s for the service sector – Process, People, and Physical Evidence. Read more.