The New 4 Ps of Marketing

This article was first published in the Marketer – Journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS).

Product, price, place and promotion are still referenced as the cornerstones of the marketing mix. However, today’s business environment demands taking an equally hard look at four additional “P” factors for a thriving brand and real marketing ROI.

Purpose

Today’s customers seek to do business with companies that demonstrate a greater vision – one that goes beyond promoting quality products and services delivered at a great price. Simply put, the traditional 4-P marketing mix of today is not enough. Companies need to think about their larger purpose.

Developing your firm’s purpose is an exercise in peeling back the onion. You need to keep asking, “Why?” “Why do we sell architectural services?” And then, “Why is that important?” And again and again, until you hit at that larger idea.

For some, their purpose might be quite straightforward and directly related to what they deliver – for example, taking a headache out of the buying process. For others, it might be much loftier and address broader societal issues – for example, creating quality of life for their employees. But whichever it is, brands that rise above will be those that tell the most compelling story about what they do to better the world.

Personality 

Personality is what humanizes brands, making them relatable and authentic – brands with which customers engage and allow into their lives.

Related to the promotion “P” of the traditional marketing mix, personality defines your brand’s voice, tone and style for all written and visual communications. It informs how a brand looks, sounds and feels. Personality also dictates how a brand interacts with its audiences.

What makes personality essential to the new 4 Ps is that expressing a brand’s distinct point of view makes it notable enough to deserve customers’ time (today’s hottest marketing currency). Brands that leave their audiences indifferent cannot possibly achieve the same ROI as brands with personalities built to engage.

So, how do you create a brand with personality? Simple. You develop your firm’s attributes as though it were a real person. Does it have a sense of humor? Is it a genius type? Develop all the personality traits you want your brand to be known for, and give it a voice, tone and style that makes its personality shine through.

Persistence

Today’s more social way of doing business allows companies to build authentic relationships with their audiences – but there is a downside: It takes time to build a real relationship.

So, you need to be persistent like never before. You need to understand that it will require more emails, more social media posts, more content, more everything to make a mark.

Firms that practice persistence will become industry leaders because, frankly, not many firms practice persistence. This means that your firm can make serious headway simply by not giving up.

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Patience

Patience may seem similar to persistence, but it adds a twist that greatly influences whether or not your marketing will generate results.

Whereas persistence is about pursuing strategies long enough to see ROI, patience is about taking the time to experiment and fine-tune in order to get better and better at converting prospects to customers.

A firm that practices patience will continue to adjust and perfect its marketing program – forever.

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At the beginning, I stated that the traditional marketing mix still stands, but proposed what are perhaps equally critical new Ps. This calls for leaving you with this one final thought:

Today, we are marketing scientists, and as such, revisiting traditional concepts should be part of our jobs. If not to completely revamp them, but to simply look at them with questioning eyes.