Whether you have recently started a new business or have been forging your own path as an entrepreneur for years, marketing is an extremely vital part of your business.
A good marketing plan can be the difference between your business being a success or a lesson for you to learn from. So how can you ensure a successful marketing strategy and mitigate any potential disappointments?
That’s easy; you use the marketing 3 P’s while crafting your marketing strategy! The 3 p’s consist of pricing, product, and promotion. These 3 Ps are also known as a marketing mix.
So enough preamble, let's dive right on in and get you up to speed on the 3 p’s so you can create a killer marketing strategy!
The history of the 3 marketing p’s
Introduced in the 1940s, the marketing mix went through an incubation period of 20 years before the 3 core p’s, which we will be discussing today, started off as the 4 p’s in the 1960s, which included product, price, promotion, and place as one of the p’s.
However, as we progressively became more digital, the world shrank more and more by the day, and the emphasis on place in the original marketing mix faded away. As where you are situated does not affect who and how you can sell your product or service.
In the following decades of the early 20th century, more p’s were added to the marketing mix model. There are now 7 or 8 p’s comprising of product, price, place, promotion, people, positioning, packaging, and performance. However, not all service marketing professionals recognise the performance P as essential.
How to use the 3 p’s to create a killer marketing mix
The other p’s can be rather distracting to the scope of today’s discussion, so we will focus on the core of the marketing mix pricing, product, and promotion.
We will go over what each individual P consists of, and then we will cover core ways to implement that particular P into your marketing plan.
The pricing strategy p!
Price is one of the most challenging things to figure out for a given product or service. If the market perceives a price to be too high, then your product may never take off. On the other hand, however, your brand may be linked to lower-quality services and products if it is too low.
So how do you hit that sweet spot of pricing where customers feel they are getting a good deal and your products can stand proud as the beacons of quality and workmanship that they rightfully deserve?
Types of pricing strategies you could use
Luckily for you, there are many great pricing strategies that you can take advantage of to ensure you are in the narrow field of correct pricing! We are going to go over the 3 most commonly used and successful pricing strategies.
The Cost-based or cost-plus pricing strategy
Cost-based pricing may be the most well-known pricing strategy in the world. Cost-based or cost-plus is when you calculate all your costs for a given product or service and then add a standard margin to create the product’s price.
For example, if all your materials, shipping, storage, and labour costs for a product come up to $10.00 per product, and you add a 25% markup, you would charge $12.50 using this model.
The market-based pricing strategy
A more modern form of pricing would be using the market-based pricing model. This s is a pricing model that you would use when establishing your place in a given market. How you would do this is by pricing your service or product around the same price as your nearest competitor.
A great example of this kind of market-based pricing is mobile phones. For example, both Samsung and Apple’s flagship phones are similarly priced. In contrast, your more basic phone experiences are priced at a similar lower price, such as the Samsung mid-range phones and a brand like Google’s Pixel.
Alternatively, a market-based price could be determined by what a given market is willing to pay for a resource. The precious mineral industry is built upon this pricing strategy, as the price of iron ore, gold, or even sugar is based on what the market is willing to pay for it.
The value-based pricing strategy
Value-based pricing may be the most difficult pricing strategy to execute. This is when a business determines the value of a product or service from a buyer’s perspective and how they would perceive the value of said service or item.
A fantastic example of value-based pricing is a V.I.P. experience at an event. The price of the experience is determined by how much value a consumer will find in the “extras” that the experience is offering.
Be that a meet and greet with participating performers, extra free gear, a swag bag, or discounted rates at the event’s stores.
Of course, it is difficult to know what the tangible value is of such an offer, so this kind of pricing usually has some trial and error to it. However, doing some market research may help mitigate any wrong steps.
The product strategy p!
The product is the most important thing when it comes to marketing. If there is no product, there can be no marketing. Therefore, understanding the product is vital to any marketing campaign.
A successful marketing campaign relies on you to define the product and its qualities and introduce consumers to it in a creative and alluring way. So how do you do this? Well, you can break this requirement down into two fundamental questions.
Who needs your product or service?
The first thing you should ask yourself before planning your marketing campaign is who is your product or service for? Is it a tool that can reshape a segment of the service industry, or perhaps it's a service that can significantly cut down on downtime for the IT or software industries?
Answering this question will help you determine the tone and themes of your marketing materials, as well as the overall message.
Why do they need your product or service?
Once you have figured out who your product or service is for, the next thing to focus on is why they need it. This will form the focus of your marketing materials and help shape the voice of your marketing campaign.
This is where you can highlight any features as benefits to your clientele’s needs. For example, how the feature of a 65Wh battery equates to all-day battery life as a benefit.
Another aspect you can highlight in this section is whether your product is the first to do something. Being first to market for anything is a huge marketing opportunity and usually buys long-term real estate in the consumer consciousness.
For example, look how Google has become a verb for researching a topic online. Sure, Google wasn’t the very first search engine, but they were the first to do web searches using keywords that link to the body of text on the web pages instead of just URLs and article headings.
The Promotion strategy p!
The promotion p in the marketing mix encompasses all of the consumer-facing aspects of your business. The public relations, marketing, and overall media strategy for introducing your product or service. This is where you will intricately plan out all of your marketing avenues.
But what avenues are available to you? There are two absolute powerhouses you can call upon in your marketing campaign that will help your product or service reign supreme over your competitors. These superpowers are pay-per-click marketing and email marketing.
Types of pay-per-click marketing campaigns you could use
Pay-per-click marketing has revolutionised the digital marketing space in the modern era. From affiliate marketing to personalised ads being served directly to potential customers through platforms such as Google and Facebook. There is no time like the present to get your product exposed and sold!
Social media marketing strategy
Social media runs a wide gambit of opportunities for you to generate brand exposure and sales. You could employ the tried and tested affiliate marketing campaign, where influencers and professional affiliate marketers do the promotional work and earn a small commission from the sales they generate.
The alternative avenue of social media marketing you could explore is having an entertaining and intriguing social media presence that does not directly advertise your product, but instead.
It creates brand recognition and trust. This technique relies on sales being generated later down the road instead of immediate sales that the above-mentioned marketing has the potential to generate.
Google and Facebook ads to your target market
Google and Facebook ads are the closest things to traditional marketing you will find in this article. In this marketing plan.
You will be providing a pre-created piece of content and the selected parameters for Google or Facebook to meet, such as how many accounts the ad will reach and what the purpose of the ad is.
Google and Facebook will only charge you for the number of clicks the ads generate, which is great if you are working on a budget.
Types of email marketing campaigns that you could use
If pay-per-click marketing is the gun to traditional marketing’s sword, then email marketing is a world-dominating moon-based death ray!
Email marketing is a direct line to not only potential customers but also customers who have shown an interest in the niche your product or service falls into, with, in some cases, the added benefit of clients with a proven buying record.
Solo email campaigns
Solo emails have the potential to generate immediate sales and instant brand exposure to those who need to know about your brand and service or product as soon as possible. People who have shown interest in or closely related subjects to your product or services.
If solo emails are utilised properly, they can hold a huge increase in sales for your business, and on the flip side of that. If you are not utilising solo emails at all, you are missing a massive opportunity to grow your business.
Transactional emails
Transactional emails are one-on-one email exchanges between you or a staff member and a consumer. These usually come from an exciting service, such as a Contact Us webpage. This can give you direct feedback on how to tweak and pivot an existing marketing campaign.
More importantly, it allows you the opportunity to convert unhappy or questioning customers into happy new purchasers of your service or product.
Drip campaigns
Drip campaigns are a powerful tool that can lead potential buyers directly to your sales force so that they can close the deal. You can use drip campaigns to inform previous buyers of new promotions and product,s as well as remind them of items that were left on a wishlist or cart.
Types of SMS marketing campaigns that you could use
The SMS part of marketing is very similar to the email aspect. However, SSM marketing holds some advantages that email marketing does not. Thanks to the nature of short message services, you can reach consumers wherever they may be. Be that at the office, at home, or travelling from state to state for meetings.
It also has the advantage of real-time communication that offers unique situations for you or your marketing team to market or interact with consumers.
Personalised promotional SMS strategy
SMS marketing allows you to send personalised promotional material to customers via data collection, such as consumers who have left an item in their cart or have recently added your product or services to a wishlist.
You can also use SMSes to inform customers that you are running promotions on items or services they have shown interest in before.
Update or reminder SMS Strategy
If you are in the service industry, SMSes are a fantastic way to remind clients of upcoming appointments or update them on ongoing projects.
For example, if you are servicing their car, you can send an update SMS on parts being ordered and delivered, as well as the general progress of the repair.