BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here
Edit Story

The New '4Ps' Of Social Business Marketing

NetApp

It’s a long-standing military truism that, "generals always fight the last war." The same goes for marketers. I urge you to break that mold.

The 20th century marketplace was successfully dominated by E. Jerome McCarthy’s 4Ps—Product, Place, Price, Promotion—but its legacy created a “technocratic” culture—one that focuses on the product’s attributes, neglecting its value and appeal to customers.

The Distinction Is An Important One

In the 21st century marketplace, goods are commoditized. Technical attributes have become mere entry-level requirements—they’re not the outstanding reason why consumers choose to buy a product. A growing force of customers—social customers—are resistant to promotion, looking for value beyond price.

A five-year study published by the Harvard Business Review, involving over 500 marketers and customers across a variety of businesses, found that the traditional 4Ps approach to marketing affected marketing teams’ focus and leads to a real disconnect between what they believe matters and what their customers really want.

In the 20th century, marketers depended on academic thinkers like McCarthy to help create the models they’d put into practice. But in the fast moving world of the now, forward-thinking companies are at the forefront of change: They’re seeing first-hand the transitions in their target markets.

Businesses of all sizes are looking to find new ways to connect with their customers that don’t simply translate into “spend more on advertising.” This is causing a fascinating transition: They begin to turn into social businesses. The modern definition of a social business is one where the profit motive that drives a company is expanded to include additional benefits to its customers and community—going beyond “here’s this product at a great price.”

The Process Leads To A Real Sense Of Collaboration

Businesses that succeed in getting near their customers begin to produce exactly the kind of goods and services that customers want. In return, customers reward such businesses with their loyalty and brand evangelism.

This approach turns every paying customer into a marketing point and every business into a socially conscious hub.

The transition is incremental. For example, Kimberly Kadlec, VP of global marketing at Johnson & Johnson, recently advocated a fresh set of 4Ps, which she called Purpose, Presence, Proximity and Partnerships.

Here’s my summary for busy people:

Purpose

In the information age, consumers are looking for brands that have relevance and add value to their lives.

This means they’re looking to do business with companies that believe in the same things they do. They want to buy products or services that add to their sense of who they are.

Recommendation: A brand and its customers now need to be in total alignment of values before any transaction can begin to take place.

Presence

The truism of the information age is that the moment information becomes plentiful, attention becomes expensive.

Brands used to be able to buy presence, in the certain hope that they’d capture enough attention—there wasn’t that much to compete against. But today’s consumers spread their attention across many screens and spend their time in many different channels.

Recommendation: A brand needs a multiplicity of presence, in different formats, or it will fail to capture the attention they need to survive.

Proximity

Big-data analytics enable brands to gain insights in the way their customers interact with them—far more than ever before.

The spread of social media like Twitter and real-time technologies like Google Hangouts can bring a brand closer to its customer base. Brands that fail to take advantage—to get closer to their customers and target them in a more meaningful way—are failing at the first hurdle of the information age.

Recommendation: Brands simply need to use the tools that are being handed to them on a plate.

Partnerships

Today, no brand is big enough to go it alone. No brand can function as an island.

Partnerships enable competing brands and even brands and their customers to find new ways of working together that create total win-win strategies. This is a radical re-think of how business is done, totally in keeping with the gradual transition to a social business model.

Recommendation: Brands must look to their partnership ecosystem for success.

The Bottom Line

For companies and brands, these 4Ps are the next evolutionary step in the marketing road started by Jerome McArthy’s philosophy.

The truth we’re facing: They’re now no longer a luxury that only a few companies can afford to experiment with. They’re now the only viable route to professional survival in the 21st century marketplace.

Agree? Disagree? Weigh in with a comment below...

By David Amerland (@DavidAmerland)

Now Read This (more from NetAppVoice)

3 Challenges In Moving To The Cloud (A CIO's Story)

Is Your Company Ready for Intercept Marketing?

Elop To Kill Xbox As Microsoft CEO? Or Do Dark Forces Seek To Undermine Him?

There's No Place Like Cyber-Augment Home [100 Words Into The Future]

Read more from our talented writers