Over the years marketers have trusted one marketing concept to help launch product or service to a new market or already buying market.
That concept is: “The marketing mix”
When it comes to selling online, once you have come up with product ideas, the Marketing Mix can help you define a clear cause to the success of your product or services
What Is The Marketing Mix?
Marketing mix deals with the set of actions and tactics that can be used to promote a product or service, it’s made of different elements that must be considered to make sure the goal of a business with a product or services is accomplished.
There are 7Ps to consider when launching a product through the online marketing world, there used to be the traditional 4Ps that makes up the different elements of the marketing mix, known as the 4Ps of Marketing, Product, Price, Place and Promotion but we are having an extra 3Ps here Packaging, Positioning and People, to accommodate the service-based industries and the new online business world.
The essence of 7Ps is to help you develop a marketing strategy that helps you deliver your products and services to the right people it’s intended for, it serves as a framework to help you define important elements that can help you achieve your business end goal.
Whenever you are to launch a product or service, you can use the 7Ps to develop a marketing strategy, if you already have a product or service out there in the market you can use the 7Ps to evaluate and validate your marketing strategy.
Below is a guide on how to use the 7Ps in developing a marketing strategy for your product or service.
To get a clear idea of what is expected of you when dealing with each of the Ps in your own business I recommend you draw 7 columns with each Ps on each one on its own column, we will answer some questions we will be defining that will help us get clear on the set of actions in each Ps.
The 7Ps of Marketing
1. Product
Products represent what you intend to offer to the market, what is your offer? that is the ultimate question.
You need to be clear on your offer.
Your offer can be physical or digital products or services.
Your product or services, in its core essence, should solve problems, creating a product should be all about creating solutions.
There might be different ways to create products, for example, it is possible to develop a marketing strategy for a product in a situation where you are not the creator of the product or service (i.e in the case of affiliate marketing), all you need to do is understand the benefits of the product and validate the product ( validate here means making sure the product can deliver on what it promises).
This is important because finding a good product and knowing the features of the product you want to sell to your potential customers is important to successfully sell other people’s products online.
Here are some questions to help you get clear about your product.
What is the problem your product is solving? What is the niche of your product? Who are the target audience for your product? What are the benefits of your product? What is the features of the product you want to offer to the market?
2. Price
Price deals with how and what you price your product, there are many factors that can be considered in pricing a product or service.
Some factors included the cost of the product, the cost of getting it to the intended customers (promotion and advertising) and the buying power of the people the products are meant for.
Your goal with your target market has to be considered also, do you want to get the product to as many as possible or do you want your products to get to selected few, maybe high-income earners.
While you can decide on any pricing strategy to adopt, you will have to define other columns in the 7Ps, before coming to a final conclusion on your price, your cost of making the product available to your customers and remuneration for efforts and ideas will always be the top two things to consider in setting a price for your products and services.
One of the opportunities digital technology has made available for us all is the ability to access technology that enables SME to build digital asset even with low budget compared to what it used to cost to set up a factory that produces solution during the industrial age.
Regardless of this, you will still have to incur cost for access to tools that will enable you effectively deliver your product or services to your customers, the cost for production and sustainability of your business is also to be considered.
On the price column,
What is the cost of the products? What does it cost to deliver the product to the ideal customers? What can the market afford?
3. Place
Place deals with where you can find your market, it includes identifying where your potential customers hang out, things to consider including whether your market extends from local to national or international market.
If you understand your target market, where to find them will be much easier to figure out.
You can simply find vital information about your target audience in your customer avatar workbook.
The place for your product will influence the promotion and delivery of your product or service.
Some of the questions you can answer to determine where you can find your potential customer include:
Where is the locations your ideal customer? Where do they hang out? How do they buy things?
4. Promotion
How do you intend to reach your potential customers? What marketing strategy are you going to use? Every other Ps in the marketing mix has to be considered here to determine the best way to promote and advertise your product or services.
When it comes to marketing online there are different marketing strategies that can be used to promote a product or service, eg content marketing, influencer marketing, paid advertising, email marketing, etc
The strategy to adopt is going to be determined by what has being defined in other Ps in the marketing mix. For example, PLACE will determine the channel, platforms, tools and even other elements like copies and creatives for reaching your ideal customers.
Questions like, who are my customers? Where do they hang out? What tools and resources are available for reaching them today?… can help you define your promotion column.
5. Packaging
Remember that people, form their first impression about you within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your business.
Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers.
Your business branding (logo, product designs, etc) and mission will greatly determine how people perceive your business.
Question like how do you want to be perceived? Can help you evaluate and package yourself or offer rightly for your market.
6. Positioning
The moments you have decided to help a target audience solve a problem, it is necessary you state clearly what you want to be known for.
To reach your target market effectively, you need to position yourself or your brand as an authority leader in the problem you are creating solution for.
Positioning is all about how you place yourself in the minds of your ideal customers. When people are discussing you or making reference to your product or services, what will they be saying?
Your positioning will influence lots of actions as you try to take your product or service to your market, it will influence your pricing, it will influence your communication and even how you package your brand and its product or service.
On the positioning column, What do you want to be known for?
7. People
People represent the workforce that is going to implement the overall business goals.
You have this amazing idea of how to solve a problem, you may need some help planning and creating the solution, you may also need help delivering the product or service.
The questions to ask here is What human resources are needed to produce and deliver the product or services.
There are more things that can be said about each of the Ps in the marketing mix, but having this basic idea about them is enough to enable you create an effective marketing strategy or plan for your product or service.
CONCLUSION
7Ps of Marketing can be used to createa marketing strategy for any kind of product or services and for any type of business, small, medium or larger, the tip here is to answer questions about different elements of your product or services using the 7Ps framework, answer to this questions will help you figure out the right actions, tools and resources to reach your market with your product and services.
Another thing here is, when using the 7Ps framework to create a marketing strategy, there are rooms for flexibility, any P can come before others, the goal is to define actions that can be taken and make marketing decisions based on knowledge and data gathered.
I hope this post helps widen your perceptive on how to use 7Ps in creating an online marketing strategy for your product or service.
What do you think about the 7ps of marketing? Please drop thoughts on the comments section below, I will be glad to hear from you.
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