Knowing the 7 Ps marketing mix and understanding how to use them

If you haven’t already heard of it, 7 Ps marketing mix consists of the tactics used by companies so that they are able to provide customers with a positive experience. It helps companies to know what their goals are and how they will be achieved. They are things that can be tracked and controlled and then used for your own benefit.

The 7 Ps marketing mix helps companies to review and define key strategies for marketing their products and services. By breaking down your approach to marketing allows you to dive deeper into the psyche of customers and audiences. You can discover what works and what doesn’t, helping you to refine your strategy and reach consumers in the most effective way possible. So in what ways can this be done?

The 7 Ps of marketing are: 

Product, Price, Promotion, Place, People, Process and Physical Evidence.

Product

The ‘Product’ is what your company is selling to consumers. Whether it’s a physical item, a service or even both, a product is usually developed to meet the wants or needs of customers. For example, people who NEED to wake up early need an alarm clock to help them know when to wake up, and some people WANT merchandise from their favourite shows. It’s all supply and demand. Find an audience and give them what they want.

Your product must stand out though. You aren’t the only ones trying to appeal to different crowds. Your competition will all be coming up with their own solutions to the same dilemma. So it’s of utmost importance that yours sticks out from the crowd. Innovation is key to success. As customers’ wants and needs are constantly evolving, the answers to their problems need to do the same. Increasing your range of products gives audiences an alternative answer to their prayers and is what attracts them into your customer base.

Creating companion pieces to your products, such as interactive apps, can help to provide additional value to the products and give customers what feels like a more complete experience.

Price

Out of the 7 Ps of marketing mix, price is essential in knowing how much revenue your business can and will generate. Other parts of your marketing mix are investments. You need them to succeed. However, they involve lots of time and money to be able to execute thoroughly. Price allows you to work out how much you need to earn from product sales to offset the costs required to get the products into the hands of consumers in the first place.

It’s essential that you find the sweet spot for how much you charge for your products. Setting prices high to make more of a profit can negate customers from buying your services and products, as they may have a perspective shift on your company, seeing you as greedy and anti-consumer. You need to understand what customers are willing to pay, from there, you will need to adjust your spending in other areas of production to maintain earning a profit.

Low and high prices can also change how people view your product and can increase the likelihood of people wanting it. For example, many people will view cheap products as low quality and expensive products as high quality. This may mean people will try to avoid buying cheap products as they feel it won’t meet their standards. For others, a cheaper price is a benefit, as if they don’t care as much for quality, they get to pay less. Understanding the types of people in your customer base can help you decide where to place yourself.

Promotion

Promotion is all about making your target audience interested in what you have to offer. Getting eyes, ears and brains locked on to your product line is essential to growing your business and creating success. Make your product the answer to problems consumers didn’t know they had (yet). Show how their lives can be made better if they buy your service. Perhaps produce an annoying jingle that won’t leave their heads. Your product needs to worm its way into their lives and become a mainstay.

Knowing how you will reach your audience is also key to success. Utilising a range of tools to diversify your marketing output can help you to reach people from an array of backgrounds.

Social media marketing can help you to create potential customers from younger generations. Meanwhile, paying for radio space may help you reach people from older generations. From there, you can see which methods of marketing work best, which demographics respond in what ways, and decide how you should continue moving forward.

Depending on your budget and team size, it may help to reach out to agencies to get a unique spin on how you approach marketing. Having an experienced team there to help produce a strong, effective campaign can really help take the weight from off your shoulders. You may have an internal team who can handle the marketing front, but even then, contacting agencies can help you to consider new avenues not previously thought of.

Your promotional messaging is essential. Getting the key information and guiding principles of your products and brand to be conveyed efficiently to target audiences. Avoiding misconceptions between yourself and your customer base can help to avoid confusion and disappointment. Thus improving the customer experience.

Place

Place is all about where people can purchase your product or service. Being easily accessible creates more opportunities for consumers to familiarise themselves with your company and what you have to offer. Physical stores allow customers to see the tangible, instantly buy products that can’t be shipped, it keeps competition local, you can use cash, the list goes on. Online storefronts can allow people to shop from their own home and allow business to run a shop from their own home. Not only that, but it is also easier to find new customers, costs less, is always open and contactable. Deciding your platform depends on what services you offer and what products you make, but both can help your business thrive, just find what works for you.

Once you have decided on how you wish to sell to customers, you will also need to figure out how the products will reach the storefronts. Storage and distribution creates additional costs for your business, but are important to be able to offer consumers an expert service.

People

Who represents your company? You want the best of the best working for you and giving the public the best impression of you possible. Your team needs to be on it, charismatic, creative, smart, and always thinking about the innovative ways to push your business forward. If you want to grow and improve as a team, all while improving customer experience, having the best workforce is essential.

The people representing your company also need to maintain a positive relationship with customers. Having someone who is easily exhausted by the issues customers face is not what you want in an employee. Having someone knowledgeable about the company and its products is key to providing your customer base with a consistent and reliable service. If customers  feel like they are met with employees who are hesitant to help, it could make them shy away from returning in the future.

Process

Creating a smooth plan for your journey is key to keeping things going smoothly for customers. Giving consumers the best experience possible will increase the likelihood of them returning to your business in the future. Understanding the journey customers will take from discovering your product, to eventually buying it, is beneficial in order for you to change and adapt the ways consumers interact with you. If things aren’t working as well as was hoped, you can dig deep to the root of the problem, make modifications, and analyse the results. Being aware of the sort of things that people respond positively to will help you to capitalise on various demographics.

Some of the things you will need to consider are:

• Expectations
• Customer Service
• User experience
• Efficiency
• Reacting to feedback

Physical Evidence

Finally, it is vital that you can present audiences with adequate proof and examples to back up any claims made that your work is of a high quality. Customers want the security of knowing they won’t be misled into buying a low-quality product or service.

Being able to show any awards and nominations for your work is a great way to meet the standards of your audience. Showing that people have noticed your hard work and decided it was good enough to make other people aware of it is great praise.

Customer reviews come from people who were once in the same position as your potential clientele. Having people from the same situation as themselves discuss the pros and cons of your products and the customer journey,

Case studies allow you to pat yourself on the back and show your customer base what you are capable of. Reflecting on the work you have created for customers and the positive effect it has had is yet another great way to show your skill and capabilities to those who may be hesitant to do business with you.

Outro

There are many ways you can use the 7 Ps marketing mix to adjust your strategy and improve relationships with customers, all while increasing the size of your audience. The seven Ps, while not scripture that should be followed by the book, provide overall structure for the ways you can provide a positive customer experience and create company growth.