The Three New P’s Of Marketing For The Internet Age
Traditional marketing texts cover the standard four P’s of your marketing mix that you may have heard of previously: product, price, place, promotion. They have served as the framework for decades for effective marketing management.
In the age of the Internet, three new Ps become important: permission, personality, and personalization.
The Four P’s of Traditional Marketing
The right mix of marketing elements is defined in terms of what is important to your target market.
Product
Have the right mix, and provide the right products or services to meet the needs of your marketplace.
Place
This refers to the location you do your business in. For a physical location, it would be the street and the office building you are in. For the Internet, it would be how you have positioned your web presence.
Price
No matter how perfect your solutions are to solve the challenges of your target market, if your prices are either too high or too low, people will not be inclined to buy. When people don’t know enough about you or your expertise, they may tend to make their buying decision based on price.
Promotion
Your promotion strategy refers to all the marketing methods you use and what you say about your products and services.
Internet Marketing
In the age of the Internet, new marketing rules apply. I call them the ‘Three New P’s’:
To successfully promote your business using the Internet, three ‘P’s’ are important:
Permission – to increase your response rate, get permission from people first before you send them email marketing messages.
Personality – let your personality shine through in all your marketing communications to better connect with your ideal clients.
Personalization – narrow your service offerings to a very specialized niche market to make it easier for potential clients to find you.
Permission
Permission based marketing, as opposed to mass marketing, will increase your response rate because it qualifies your potential purchasers. Permission marketing occurs when you create an ongoing series of agreements with clients for them to receive your marketing material. An example would be a client giving permission for you to send them a newsletter or free report by signing up at your web site. By getting permission first, you will have a higher “quality” client list vs. just “quantity”.
Personality
Letting your personality shine through in your promotional material will help you make a better connection with your ideal client. Yes, it will eliminate those who don’t like what they see, but it will create a stronger bond with those who do like who you are and what you stand for, and will help you develop your brand personality.
Personalization
As the online marketplace grows, people are migrating towards smaller, more personalized specialty websites. The more targeted your marketing efforts, including your website, to a specialized niche in your area of expertise, the easier it will be for the clients you are targeting to find you, and the easier it will be to get their attention.
Take Action
Review your traditional marketing mix:
- Product: Look at your mix of products and services to determine if they are meeting the key needs of your target market. Can you fully explain the benefits of your services in terms that are understood by your target buyer?
- Place: Is your website well positioned to attract buyers? Can the search engines easily find you based on your keywords?
- Price: Take a closer look at your pricing strategy. Do you want to be low priced to attract lots of new business, or do you want to set your prices high to be perceived as high value?
- Promotion: Which type of promotion will best reach your target market?
Review your marketing mix for the internet age:
- Permission: Do you ask permission before you send email messages? Do you offer something of value for free to encourage people to give you permission? Do you let them know that you will not sell or trade their email address to increase their comfort level in giving you permission?
- Personality: Read through all your marketing communication material, including brochure and website. Do your personal and business personalities come through clearly in your marketing messages? Ask for feedback form someone you know and trust.
- Personalization: Look at your marketing messages and your website. Are you targeting specific messages to narrow, specialized niches, or are your messages very broad and general?
Make sure your marketing mix includes these key strategies to successfully market online and more easily get the attention of prospects who will become clients.
~ Jan
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