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Marketing has long relied on the four P's - product, price, promotion and place - as an organizing principle. But marketing guru Seth Godin on his blog suggests a more fruitful taxonomy would be these five elements:
Data
Sometimes thought boring and thus overlooked, data can be powerful, telling you what is actually happening. Wal-Mart uses data to decide whether the promotion at an end of an aisle is working. Google Adwords advertisers use data to decide whether certain copy delivers clicks and sales. Retail archaeologist Paco Underhill observes people in stores and uses that to invigorate stores.
Stories
These define everything you say and do, because humans crave stories. "The product has a myth, the service has a legend," he writes. Stories and data form the two building blocks of your marketing, while the remaining three elements are built upon them.
Products and Services
These are the physical manifestation of your story. If your story is that you are cutting edge and faster, newer and better than your competition, than your product better exemplify that claim. And your story should tout something exceptional - average products for average people is an all-too-common story, but it doesn't spread. "When in doubt, re-imagine the product. Push it to be the story, to live the story, to create a myth," he urges.
Interactions
These are all the tactics you use to actually touch the prospect or customer. Interactions range from billboards to the approach you take to an overdue bill. There are many interactions and most of them are cheap. But make sure they don't undercut or contradict your story.
Connection
The end goal is to make a connection with your customers. But you also want to inspire a connection between your customers, creating a tribe of people who wish each other well and want to belong to this group of users. Get the first four steps right and you may have a shot at this level of enlightenment.
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Richard Hawrelak from Sarnia, Canada writes: From my 1960s MBA notes: Data is just another word for Market Analysis. Just how good is your source and what is the trend of that information.
Stories: Blind them with brilliance and baffle them with BS.
Products and Services: translates to customer service. Toady, this is a poorly spoken service from some off shore service. This is not Customer Service.
Connection: Honour your warantees.
Have things changed since the 60s?- Posted 14/07/08 at 1:05 PM EST | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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Anatoli Naoumov from Toronto, Canada writes: General concepts hardly ever change, but their application certainly does as management theory develops.
At a time I was promoting the concept of "business border", i.e. the border between the business and the rest of the world, as a critical area of business: business earns and loses money ONLY when they cross this border, every contact along this border either creates wealth or destroys it. Seems to be similar to "contacts" of the author.- Posted 15/07/08 at 11:34 AM EST | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
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