With a spark of coffee I’m back!
Have you ever taken a marketing course, or heard of the 4P’s also known as “the Marketing Mix“? In summary, it is a theory of how we create value for our customers; through the use of Product, Price, Place and Promotion. We can combine them in a number of ways to create value: Product – we can add in features that benefit our customers. Price - we can set low to create the everyday value or high to perhaps limit the quantity or demonstrate quality. Place - think about where you shop, is it convenient? Promotion – is how we communicate with our target market, advertising, direct Mail, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion to name a few. It is here in promotion that social media has been grouped into and it is a here that I would like to discuss the evolution of the 5th P “People”.
When we create a marketing mix we do so to create value for our customers. If a company’s use of the 4P’s is not unique (ie. similar use of the 4P’s but under a different brand name), we can say that the two companies have similiar ”positioning“. In other words they are both positioned the same in the minds of consumers. An example of this might be Under Armor and Nike, both have a similar price, are available in similiar if not the same locations, offer similar products, and communicate with us typically in similar ways albeit with a slightly different message. Those planned company promotional messages ideally are consistent communications that are well executed to reinforce a company’s brand positioning to the customer (see integrated marketing communications for more on this). It is here that the 5th P-People emerges.
When I refer to “People” I’m referring to customers and people who leverage social media to convey their opinions in mass. In my opinion, to use the term “People” to refer to individuals within the organization is redundant with the first 4 P’s. For example the engineers who design and create features to benefit our customers (Product) or marketers who create messages to communicate with our customers (Promotion). What is different about the 5th “P” is to chose to engage with your customers in unplanned two-way communication, and by doing so create value for customers. However, because of the unstructured nature of these communications I believe it falls outside the traditional roll of controlled “Promotion” and hence deserves a “P” of its own. Further, I sincerely believe this will become a bigger issue for Human Resources departments in the future as companies come to terms with how to deal with unplanned messages from employees through social media about a company’s brand.
What do you think, do ”People” deserve their own category so companies can be more aware of how they an engage in two-way communication to create value for consumers?
the 5th p of marketing mix
for me that people deserve their own category and values because they have freedom to chose there own needs and wants.people can esialy communicate their right and values for being a consumers.
people can design and create features to benefit our customers.what most of the people prefer to work in individuals organization.