What is "Marketing"?
Marketing means the holistic integrated management of exchange. This management directs decisions about Product, Price, Promotion, Distribution, People, Processes, Positioning and Politics… all described as the 8Ps of Marketing. (Described below for your convenience.)
The PIMS Database
Only a select few know the secrets of the PIMS Database (the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies)… the tools of international consultancies and multi-national corporations.
Prac-ademic Know-How
True Leadership Empowerment comes from decades of applying these tools, models and secrets successfully with repetitious commercial success.
One of the co-dependent “8Ps of Marketing” is…
Product
“People don’t want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes.” – Theodore Levitt
What is your product “type”? What is the product category across different segments? Where does it sit in its product life-cycle? What should be done in new product innovation & development? What are the branding issues that suit?
Often, under-optimised with the “8Ps of Marketing” is…
Pricing Strategy
“Price is all your customers care about because you haven’t given them anything else to care about.” – Seth Godin
Pricing tactics, often disguised as pricing strategies, can cost business market share profits and opportunity. Sometimes, clarity and leadership are the missing pieces to fast improvements in profits.
A key component of the “8Ps of Marketing” is…
Place (Distribution)
Distribution strategy and channel management can determine your place on the market-share ladder, reinforce or destroy positioning, secure profitable segments or block access to them. Make sure yours is right!
Marketing Communications, a “P of Marketing” is also called.
Promotion
There is massive science behind managing your Promotional Mix. The strategy for ideal IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) requires vast understanding of behavioural science, multi-media, psychology, mathematics, and empirical academic findings.
Another of the co-dependent “8Ps of Marketing” is…
Processes
Some of the world’s biggest, strongest, most enduring, multi-national marketers are successful on the back of strong processes. Often the domain of operationally focused leaders, the value of this asset can be underestimated and represent hidden opportunity. Marketing disciplines can capitalize on processes potential.
Vital to Marketing & “managing exchange” is participation of
People
Employee engagement, unengagement and disengagement, customer experience (CX), “Influencer” WOM, the multi-stage mass communication model, socio-cultural stakeholders, training, motivation, path-to-purchase, demographics, segments, CVM, lifetime value, buyer readiness, brand adoption… the meld of product and service.
The 7th P” of Marketing has a few different names. One is…
Positioning
… sometimes called Perceptual Positioning, or Physical Evidence (use mainly for marketing services) or in FMCG (or CPG) Packaging is the commercially appropriate focus.
Positioning is about building trust and confidence, reinforcing beliefs and perceptions.. integral to “managing exchange”.
The 8th “P” of Marketing is a simple. commercial reality…
Politics
Leadership Empowerment can be undermined by secret agenda, silos, internal lobbying for control, egos, personalities, greed and more…
The concept of Internal branding is freely utilised in the service industry as an approach for leaders to thwart Politics.
Ask how to create A+ culture with Internal Marketing.
