With a digital landscape that is changing every second (seemingly), and a new global marketplace that’s developed over the last 18 months online, your company has got to be taking part in this thrilling new circus.
But to get you there, you’re going to need a dynamic plan that focuses your brand on a few key elements. Now, this can mean a highly sophisticated and complex set of strategies that inform your marketing and sales decisions; however, at their core, every marketing plan, no matter how smart or intelligent they become, will start with these four core principles.
An ever-changing landscape needs ever-changing principles to guide it, right? Not so much. There is a comprehensive approach to steering a company through choppy, unpredictable waters, and it takes in various concepts of the marketing function to do it successfully.
The primary marketing principles cover four topics, and if you get these right, you can build on your marketing plan exponentially.
They are:
PRODUCT
Known universally as one of the essential principles of the marketing function, “product” means knowing absolutely everything about your product. Remembering that your product could be something tangible or a service, it’s important to know that if you have not thoroughly understood your product and its placement in your market - you don’t know your business.
So if you have not done so yet, embark on a decent product management drive to gain critical insights into how your product looks, feels, and works - from all perspectives.
PRICE
The price at which your market or sell your product cannot just be determined by your profit margins and development or manufacturing cost centers. It has to go deeper than that.
To fully comprehend your product’s price element, you have to know not just what that price looks like to you as a company but what your competitors are charging and what those differences mean in your marketplace.
PLACE
This is the process involved in bringing your products or services to your customers. One of the more essential parts of your marketing plan because knowing all of this goes a considerable way to understanding how your customers access and interact with your product or service at the point of delivery.
That means that meticulous planning of how the placement and distribution of your product are completed is critical.
Knowing this side of your plan intimately will lead you to a greater understanding of where your customers currently access your product and where you can do better in that regard.
PROMOTION
Now we’re having fun. This is a crucial developmental goal of any great marketing plan. How are you going to promote your product successfully? Now you start getting creative with online campaigns, events, calls to action, consumer-driven campaigning, sponsorships, and more.
Here we talk social media, a decent branding kit, television, radio, events, and so on.
Get these four principles down, truly understand them, and you would have cracked the marketing code regardless of the size or sophistication of your business.
Have fun out there, and as you start getting a handle on all of this, remember to monitor your online presence and check in with your reputation.
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