RIP: Marketing 101
Wednesday: September 19, 2007 6:57 AM
Marketing as we know it is dead. Like much of our world, technology has fundamentally altered the way in which products, services, and solutions are marketed, branded, and sold. If you recall from your Marketing 101 class, the basic principles are defined as the four “Ps”: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
Let’s start with the product which is basically a commodity in every definition of the word. Organization after organization is realizing that profits cannot come from a product but rather from the value add services or the customer experience. Building a car that starts in freezing weather is no longer special. Building a car that lasts 200,000 miles is the price of entry. Being the best PM or Java programmer is no longer special.
Price is a simple concept; price your product so that after to remove the cost of business you make a small profit. I recently talked to an individual shopping for a new car. Dealer A offered the car for $6,000 less than dealer B, despite that fact that the car was the exact same car. No, not the same model, the exact same car! Dealer B was going to have it exchanged with dealer A. If you go into a car dealer without researching the price then you will lose money. I have a close friend that sells computers and he was complaining that he didn’t want to post his prices since the majors could undercut him. However, when I reviewed the pricing of 20 vendors, they were all within $5.36 of each other for a $2,000.00 computer. He now understands that he sells a commodity.
Despite our spending of billions on promotion, many companies have moved to other models of promotion. The days of spending millions to spread your message to as many people as possible is dead and gone. Take Nikon, who released an outstanding new product last year. They didn’t go out and buy TV time (at first). They went to Flickr and found the most pervasive photographers and sent them a free camera. They knew they had a better product and they knew these people would create an enormous amount of viral marketing. We are inundated with hundreds of emails, signs, ads, and media messages each and every day. Most of which produce little or know value.
The final “P” is place. This area requires very little comment sine Amazon allows us to shop when, where and how we want. The store is never closed and the travel time is minimal. E-Commerce has fundamentally destroyed most businesses and will continue to give the customer the power. I can be a total brat of a customer. I can have it when I want, how I want, and I can have it now.
Hold on you’re your marketing mind, we now have a fifth “P”: Participation. While the other “P’s” still exist, the driving force of Enterprise 2.0 is participation. The key to marketing today is the amount of participation your customers have in generating your market value. The biggest reason the majors haven’t moved and embraced this element is fear. They are afraid of giving the customer a voice. Yet, that’s exactly what the customer is screaming for, participation in your brand. Welcome to Market 2.0.
Marketing as we know it is dead. Like much of our world, technology has fundamentally altered the way in which products, services, and solutions are marketed, branded, and sold. If you recall from your Marketing 101 class, the basic principles are defined as the four “Ps”: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
Let’s start with the product which is basically a commodity in every definition of the word. Organization after organization is realizing that profits cannot come from a product but rather from the value add services or the customer experience. Building a car that starts in freezing weather is no longer special. Building a car that lasts 200,000 miles is the price of entry. Being the best PM or Java programmer is no longer special.
Price is a simple concept; price your product so that after to remove the cost of business you make a small profit. I recently talked to an individual shopping for a new car. Dealer A offered the car for $6,000 less than dealer B, despite that fact that the car was the exact same car. No, not the same model, the exact same car! Dealer B was going to have it exchanged with dealer A. If you go into a car dealer without researching the price then you will lose money. I have a close friend that sells computers and he was complaining that he didn’t want to post his prices since the majors could undercut him. However, when I reviewed the pricing of 20 vendors, they were all within $5.36 of each other for a $2,000.00 computer. He now understands that he sells a commodity.
Despite our spending of billions on promotion, many companies have moved to other models of promotion. The days of spending millions to spread your message to as many people as possible is dead and gone. Take Nikon, who released an outstanding new product last year. They didn’t go out and buy TV time (at first). They went to Flickr and found the most pervasive photographers and sent them a free camera. They knew they had a better product and they knew these people would create an enormous amount of viral marketing. We are inundated with hundreds of emails, signs, ads, and media messages each and every day. Most of which produce little or know value.
The final “P” is place. This area requires very little comment sine Amazon allows us to shop when, where and how we want. The store is never closed and the travel time is minimal. E-Commerce has fundamentally destroyed most businesses and will continue to give the customer the power. I can be a total brat of a customer. I can have it when I want, how I want, and I can have it now.
Hold on you’re your marketing mind, we now have a fifth “P”: Participation. While the other “P’s” still exist, the driving force of Enterprise 2.0 is participation. The key to marketing today is the amount of participation your customers have in generating your market value. The biggest reason the majors haven’t moved and embraced this element is fear. They are afraid of giving the customer a voice. Yet, that’s exactly what the customer is screaming for, participation in your brand. Welcome to Market 2.0.
