Adding PEOPLE as the Fifth P in Your Marketing Mix
The classic “Marketing Mix” created in 1953 by Neil Borden and taught in business schools around the world needs to be officially updated. Originally consisting of Product, Placement, Promotion, and Price, it outlined the fundamental issues a company should consider when developing a marketing strategy.
PEOPLE - The 5th P in the Marketing Mix
PEOPLE – The 5th P in the Marketing Mix
The social web is now so critical for companies that it’s time to update marketing textbooks, strategies, and approaches. PEOPLE, and the way the share opinions, recommendations, and personal stories are critical to a company’s success.
The importance of PEOPLE is obvious to most readers of this blog…so why the post? By looking at how companies treat the other 4 Ps, we can make recommendations on how to treat PEOPLE as the 5th P.
Businesses take action with the other 4 Ps by staffing an organization, investing money, & partnering with other companies.
STAFFING
Product, promotion, pricing, and placement all have large roles in an organization. Entire org charts are filled with PRODUCT Managers, PRICING Analysts, PLACEMENT Specialists, and PROMOTION experts. Now it’s time to add Social Media to the organization chart.
Hiring staff focused on the PEOPLE aspect of your marketing plan signals does the following:
- Signals to the organization that PEOPLE are a key piece of your marketing strategy
- Makes the responsibility of engaging the consumer a full time job rather than a side project of an existing role
- Holds someone accountable for executing the strategy and measuring the results
INVESTING
Companies spend millions of dollars on PRODUCT development through R&D. Additionally, major capital investments in distribution (PLACEMENT) technology help get the product where consumers can actually buy it. Oh and then there’s PROMOTION…you see how much a Super Bowl ad costs nowadays?
Making an investment on the PEOPLE aspect of your marketing plan does the following:
- Improves a company’s ability to execute quickly and effectively on strategy
- Drives results by forcing actions to tie back to Return on Investment
- Signals to the organization that a PEOPLE aspect of a marketing plan deserves as much attention as other functions and projects
PARTNERING
Advertising agencies, distribution experts, retail agreements, and product development firms are all multi-billion dollar partnerships for a reason. They provide incredible external value to an company looking to specialize in what they do best.
Forming partnerships with agencies, bloggers, social networking sites, and technology consultancies is critical for the following reasons:
- External partnerships help spread best practices to your organization as outside sources typically see a broader perspective of the space
- Outsourcing work to experts is not only more resource effective, it typically leads to better results…Unless you didn’t ask your Social Media Consultants the right questions
- Working with bloggers can increase the potential for earned media and also create a steady supply of traffic and link juice
It’s time to place PEOPLE at the same level of importance as Product, Placement, Promotion, and Price. What other areas of business can we apply to PEOPLE to drive organizational change?
Photo Credit --> Jim Kuhn via flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0
