Marketing – Ask Michele Today

December 18, 2023December 18, 2023

Social Media for eCommerce Businesses – Tips, Stats, Best Practices

Social media has become one of the most dependable and powerful sales tools for eCommerce businesses. Companies can go the patient route by building an organic following or the more direct route, with highly-target ad campaigns.

With 35% of millennials (and a significant number of older shoppers) making purchases via social media, there has never been a better time to get on board. Use this article as a guide for understanding the real value of social media for eCommerce, how to build an effective strategy, and tips & best practices for getting the most out of your social presence.

Why social media is crucial for eCommerce brands

The idea used to be that using social media in eCommerce was a bit wishy-washy; no tangible return to the business and “while it could work for some brands, it wouldn’t work for us”—this was a very common belief.

eCommerce businesses can’t afford that perception today. The fact is that every type of business can improve sales or grow the business using social media—with an extremely tangible return. The main reason is that for virtually all businesses:

1. 1. Your customers are on social media;
  2. It is extremely cost-effective to market to them;
  3. It helps create a solid image.

It’s where your customers are

Today three-quarters of shoppers use social media when making a purchasing decision.

Most of them use social media to actively engage with and discover brands and products to do with their interests. If you sell motorbikes, you can build a following of motorbike enthusiasts on social media—and gradually and thoughtfully sell to them.

Some brands never sell directly on social media (we cover how to do this later) but simply use the platform to build an engaged audience with awesome content…which inevitably leads to improved sales anyway. The benefits of social media in eCommerce can be massive across the buyer’s journey: from stoking awareness of the product or solution (like we’ve just described) to actively acquiring customers and then retaining them over the long term.

It’s extremely cost-effective

At its most basic, social media is free. Companies can set up their pages, post content, respond to messages, and build a following without spending a dime on the platform. There are still internal costs (mostly staff costs for planning, creating content, and handling messages) but it’s still possible for businesses to enjoy massive growth using free social media.

Paid social ads are more divisive: they can be exceptionally cost-effective (which is easy to measure since there is direct attribution) when done right. The problem for many brands is that they launch head-first into paid ads without a plan—and in those cases, the costs can get out of hand fast.

This is why the rest of this article is devoted to building and executing your eCommerce social media strategy, what to expect, and in-the-trenches advice for making it work.

It helps create a solid image

Social media allows eCommerce companies to cultivate, build and share their image. That’s why elements such as logos and cover photos are so important: over time, audiences learn to recognize your brand even when they’re not actively looking for your products.

Your brand image helps you stand out and cut through the noise of social media, which is an essential weapon because that noise can be loud!

Building a social media strategy for eCommerce

Here we’ll explore valuable, general advice for building an eCommerce social media strategy. We’ll follow this up with specific tips for building an organic following and also executing paid social media ads—these are both exceptionally powerful tactics, but each has its own set of requirements and techniques. Let’s start at the start: goals.

#1 Define your goals

Your goal is probably to get more customers, more revenue, and more growth. But when it comes to building a strategy, your big goals should be more targeted:

- - We want to drive more traffic to our website or specific webpage
  - We want to build an engaged following that loves interacting with our brand
  - We want to sell % of our products directly through social media
  - We want to bring more locals into our brick-and-mortar store

It might be a variation of one of these or something completely different, but this top-level aim is vital. When making decisions down the line, you can always say, “Okay neat idea, but is this helping bring people into our physical store?” It serves as a check against yourself.

You can then create actionable sub-targets depending on your main goal:

- - We want to drive more traffic to our website or specific webpage
  - Convert 1% of post viewers to site visitors
  - Hit 10,000 monthly site visits within 6 months
  - We want to build an engaged following that loves interacting with our brand
  - Achieve an Instagram engagement rate of 5%
  - Grow a community of 2500 followers on Facebook
  - Land 5 volunteers a month for your “Our Customer’s Story” feature posts

You get the idea. Look for measurable, SMART outcomes which you can directly attribute and tie to your larger goal. Getting a boatload of new followers sounds fantastic, but if none of them are visiting your website, it might be worthless.

#2 Find out where your audience “lives”

Nearly 3 billion people on Earth are “active social media users”. Since your customer base likely runs in the thousands (possibly the hundreds or tens) that’s a really unhelpful number. Your goal is to dominate a very specific niche, not appeal to half the world.

If your eCommerce business is just starting with social, you don’t need to be on every platform. Figuring these platforms out takes time, and you’re better off getting good at one before moving to the next.

Companies like Hootsuite, Keyhole, Google Analytics, or SparkToro can tell you where your customers spend their time. You can trace certain keywords or hashtags, search by demographics (based on your past customers) or see which social platforms are directing the most traffic to your website.

Once you have the right platform(s), it’s time to start building your presence and dominating your niche—with the most relevant content and the best interactions with the audience.

#3 Create and optimize your profiles

When creating your company profile, it’s incredibly important to get the basic information down first:

- - What’s your company called and what do you offer?
  - Where are you based?
  - How do I contact you?
  - How do I buy from you?

It’s incredible the number of businesses who neglect these essential details. The use of relevant keywords and hashtags, clear CTAs, and minimal jargon is essential. Optimizing for eCommerce means having clear buttons and CTAs, website links to any products showcased, and never forgetting that the end purpose of your social media profile is to convert.

#4 Start posting

The fundamental key to building an engaged organic following is content. This can be virtually anything:

- - Blog posts and helpful tips
  - eBooks, Guides
  - Customer success stories
  - Collaborations with industry influencers or partners
  - Webinars, Videos
  - User-generated content

We’ve listed most of the big hitters in terms of longer-form content. However, in 2021 we are seeing a massive rise in the popularity of snackable content: infographics, memes, quotes, and video clips are popular attention-grabbing formats for social media scrollers.

As long as it fits your brand and resonates with your audience, your social media profile is boundless. Inject your personality into everything—doesn’t matter if you’re funny, serious, insightful, playful, antagonistic, or flamboyant. As long as it’s consistent, high-quality, and on-brand.

Not sure where to start with content? Start by thinking about any questions your customers might want answers to—and turn the answers into content! Getting inspiration from your competition is also fair game, as well as deploying social listening: this is a relatively new technology that lets you “listen” to what people are saying about your brand, competitors, industry, or product type across social media and the internet in general. Use this data to inform content ideas.

#5 Use tools to automate

The biggest hurdle to social media success is the sheer amount of time you can lose racing down rabbit holes, analyzing the competition, responding to comments & DMs, creating and scheduling content, and producing analytics. From day one (and long before you see any kind of payoff) there is a lot of work to do.

Here are a few ways you can optimize your workflow without losing your personality or credibility:

- - Schedulers—There will be a most active time window for your audience. Use post schedulers to prep content in advance and always release it at the optimal time.
  - Sophisticated replies—As a rule, automating replies to your brand is an awful idea. It’s disingenuous and off-putting. But some tools allow you to save authentic, pre-written responses to common questions. When a question comes through, you can send the appropriate response with a single click, which can save time for some companies without any reputational damage.
  - Customer support chatbots—On social media, it’s generally accepted that chatbots are a reasonable first line of defense. If you get a lot of simple queries, it might be worth having a bot direct them to other resources (like guides or FAQs) or whatever ticketing and support system you use for more complex queries.

#6 Interact with and engage your followers

Any time a person comments on a post or sends you a private message, you should always take the time to respond—without copy pasting or giving very short responses. Apart from an inundation of similar queries (like we talked about in the last section), it’s always worth the effort to give personal, personable replies. Everyone builds your brand, credibility, and relationship with followers.

Research shows that 29% of consumers expect this response within an hour; the vast majority expect to hear back within a day. For successful eCommerce businesses, social media is becoming a valuable extension of traditional customer support. Not only that, but when queries are handled well and customers are delighted, social media can become a lucrative source of customer reviews.

Tips for building an organic following

You’ve already done the required legwork: you know who you’re targeting, you know their interests, and you’re actively building out content they’ll value. The first step to building an organic following is to keep up this effort with total consistency: keep creating, keep publishing, and don’t give up when nothing changes overnight.

Ideally, you’ll use your analytics to learn to publish the right content at the right time for your audience. Maybe you get huge engagement with your hilarious snackable content on weekday mornings, or your spike in blog traffic is always 24 hours after posting. You never know what you’ll find, but hitting your audience with well-crafted and well-timed content makes for a powerful one-two punch.

At the start, simply promoting your social media profiles is key. Promote them everywhere. After building your strategy, you need to let people know you exist! Leverage your employees’ accounts, ask industry friends and colleagues, and add it to your signature or business cards—anywhere you can get your name out.

Another tactic to consider is identifying, following, and connecting with influencers in your industry. We’ve done a full exploration of using influencers to boost eCommerce sales, but essentially these collaborations can help bring qualified, interested followers to your channel or profile. Successful collaborations can drip-feed new followers for months!

It should go without saying that you should interact with everyone who comments on or shares your content. Being proactive (with your authentic tone of voice!) and „mingling” with followers is crucial. It’s key to showcasing your brand’s personality and building trust.

Finally, we recommend getting a hold of your hashtags. Deploying relevant hashtags can significantly increase the discoverability of your brand. Many social media users follow specific hashtags related to their interests—it’s an easy way to see industry news and what thought leaders have been up to without following tonnes of accounts.

Make sure to search hashtags yourself before using them (some hashtags are used for nefarious purposes!) and where possible, create unique hashtags for your brand. On popular content, you can simply tell users, to follow this hashtag for all posts related to [subject] rather than leaving them to figure it out themselves!

Tips for executing paid social

There are two challenges with organic social media as a strategy: success is not guaranteed, and it’s slow. Despite being immensely powerful once you get going, most companies will put in months or years of effort before their organic social account is thriving.

eCommerce ad campaigns are much more direct: you pay to get your content in front of highly specific audiences instantly. When the content, audience and offer align well, you can get tremendous results. Such campaigns attempt to:

- - Spread awareness about new products or causes
  - Increase post engagement and/or your follower count
  - Increase overall traffic to your online store
  - Promote a specific product, catalog, or event (like a sale)
  - Bring potential customers in-store

Leverage audience segmentation, targeting, and personalization

Knowing your audience is a useful yardstick for organic social media. For ads, you can target this specific audience and exclude everyone else! Big social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest all allow you to segment audiences and create ultra-personalized campaigns.

Say you run an online apparel store. If you understand the demographic that’s most likely to purchase a certain line of clothing, you can build that audience on Facebook and then target them with highly specific ads—but demographic is only one data point. You can also build audiences off:

- - Specific brands that prospects follow
  - Geographic location
  - Job title or income level
  - Hobbies and interests
  - Behaviors, partner connections, and more.

With a bit of practice (or by hiring an expert to help), this personalization creates superpowered ads.

Understand Ad Types

If you’re new to paid ads, you might be surprised by how many different options there are. To avoid overwhelming you here’s a quick intro to some of the most popular ad types:

- - Image ads—These are the staple of social media advertising. An engaging, text-light image that catches the user’s attention. Most of the ads on Instagram and Facebook are image ads, with some descriptive text underneath or to one side.
  - Carousel ads—Carousels are used when a single image isn’t enough. They allow users to swipe through various images or videos, typically for things like full product lines, seeing multi-step processes, or companies offering an array of solutions.
  - Product ads—These let customers see the prices for every item in the ad. As Social Commerce takes off, we’ll be seeing more and more of these ads across social media.
  - Stories ads—Brands can insert ads between users’ stories on Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram. These are becoming increasingly interactive, allowing users to click and navigate ads in a more immersive experience. You’ll need a good design team on-hand for these!
  - Text ads—Your classic text-based ad still has a role for many companies, though image-driven posts have become the significant majority.

Design ads with a mobile-first focus

79% of users exclusively access social networks on their smartphones—if your ads are still set up for desktop, they’re set up to fail. The easiest areas to focus on are:

- - Simplicity. Keep all artwork, text, and designs simple and easy to understand.
  - Concision. Convey your message impactfully, but with as few words as possible.
  - Display. Build all aspects of your design around smartphone use, then scale up for desktop users. It’s all about tapping, scrolling, and swiping.
  - CTAs. Make all buttons and CTAs as obvious and prominent and easy to find as possible.

One interesting idea is the B2Bob framework. Instead of „business to business”, we should rethink the acronym as Brand, 2 seconds, Benefit. Or in other words, you should aim to showcase your Brand within 2 seconds by highlighting your Benefit, while speaking to a human-like Bob. Read more about the B2Bob framework.

Test, Measure, and Optimize

Testing lets you discover which of your ads works best. You iterate on the successes to create increasingly effective ads for lower costs. Once you have a successful ad, make small and iterative adjustments—if you just change everything, how will you know what was working?

Facebook in particular makes assessing and improving your ads straightforward. They provide heaps of data (including which audiences are most receptive to your ads) to help you improve. This is because they provide an out-of-the-box A/B testing tool that allows you to change the various variables in your ad campaign (such as audience, placement, or ad creative).

The difference between eCommerce social media and “social commerce”

The main ideas of eCommerce social media are building brand awareness, engaging with prospects and clients, building trust, and ultimately contributing to the final conversion. More recently another powerful function has emerged: selling products directly within your social account, and this process is referred to as social commerce.

Most of the major social media platforms now offer native shopping solutions:

- - Instagram—Shoppable Posts
  - Facebook—Facebook Shops
  - Pinterest—Shoppable Product Pins and ‘Shop the Look’ ads

Snapchat and TikTok are dipping their toes into social commerce but haven’t committed yet. Once smaller social platforms have a cost-effective way to join the party, social commerce will become ubiquitous. After all, jumping from one app to another is an extra hoop for customers and will cause some churn.

And of course, social media companies want your social commerce to succeed so that users stay on their apps for longer in general, since this all helps them increase revenue. It’s a natural partnership and the impact of social media on eCommerce is only rising—keep your eyes peeled.

Start your social media journey

If your eCommerce is considering a move into the world of social media, there’s no better time to start than right now. Across this post and our other content, you’ve got all the information and guidance you need to make a considered and impactful beginning. Power up your social media from the start with this list of 14 great social media tools to help you create images, schedule content, access analytics, and much more!

Source: 2checkout.com ~ By: Stefania Oprea ~ Image: 2checkout.com

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023

Supercharge your revenue growth with these 4’P’s of eCommerce Marketing

What do you think is the most important reason for the success of an eCommerce business?

1. A wide range of products?
  Yes, customers love options.
2. A good website?
  Of course, it’s like your actual shop – you need to keep it appealing.
3. Excellent customer service?That’s everything! Customer service is the key to the success of any business.

Imagine you have got all three—great customer service, website, and products, and your eCommerce store is still sinking… what could be the possible reason?

You might have the world’s best products, but how will you take them to the people who will appreciate them? The answer is marketing. While eCommerce growth and success depend upon a whole lot of factors ranging from the tools and platforms to brand reputation and customer satisfaction, the role of marketing is pivotal in taking your brand to the next level.

The world of eCommerce is evolving at a staggering pace and staying in the know of the latest trends and advancements has never been more important. Customer expectations have massively changed. Those changes necessitate businesses to be on the lookout for novel marketing approaches. However, the core of marketing always remains to win the customers’ trust which is not a mean feat. Understanding customer needs, shopping preferences, purchase trends, behavioral patterns, emotions, and psychology helps you devise a winning strategy for your e-commerce success.

This article sheds light on four important aspects of eCommerce customer psychology (often referred to as the 4 ‘P’s) and how they impact the customer experience, loyalty, and retention in the long run.

What are the 4 ‘P’s in eCommerce marketing?

It refers to the four major factors that act as the pillars of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

Product: It’s what you sell, provide, or offer. It might be a good, service, etc.

Price: This refers to the product price, service charges, shipment, and transaction fees if any, and how this pricing impacts the customer experience.

Place: It refers to both the location-based factors as well as the channels of distribution.

Promotion: It refers to the advertising and marketing strategies that you adopt to popularize your eCommerce store and the products it sells.

These parameters might look easy at first glance, but it requires a great eye for detail to perfect these 4 Ps and align your marketing efforts on the same page.

Let’s dive into the graphic details of each of these 4Ps and understand how you can apply this to the growth of your eCommerce store.

#1 Perfecting the first ‘P’ – ‘Product’

E-commerce is all about the products you offer and how you position them. You might sell footwear, fashion accessories, or an Ed Tech subscription service—regardless of what you sell, three major factors determine the success of your product

- The problem solved by your product (or the purpose your product serves)
- The quality of your product
- Product content

Purpose served by your product:

To create a stunning product and make more customers buy it, it’s very important to ask yourself these questions:

1. What problem does your product solve?
2. How to make your product better?
3. Why should your customers buy it from you?
4. What is the biggest benefit of your product?
5. What’s the unique selling point of your product?
6. How different is your product from that of your competitors?

Answers to these questions will not only help you to get an idea of the strengths and shortcomings of your product but will also help you define your next best steps. Your product goals directly define your marketing outcomes. Well-defined goals help you understand how to create a successful eCommerce business. If you need to accomplish your revenue goals your product should help solve your users’ problems better than your peers and competitors.

Product Quality

If you want to stand apart in the huge crowd of competition, your product quality should do all the talking for you. Your product quality not only sets your brand apart but also acts as the USP factor that boosts your eCommerce conversions and sales.

But it doesn’t stop right there; your visitors should know the quality before even they buy your product. Perhaps the quality should entice them to buy the product immediately. Wondering how to achieve this? That’s where product content comes in.

Product content

You should leverage content to clearly and vividly emphasize the quality of your product and its benefits.

Your product content can make or break your brand. Product content provides you with a chance to showcase your product quality and authenticity. You can tell your customers why they should choose your brand and why you are a perfect fit for them with the help of highly effective and well-optimized product content.

Besides being rich, the content needs to be simple and easy to understand. Guess what? A recent survey states that over 60% of online shoppers purchase a product purely because of their high-quality product content.

You need to optimize every part of your product content to drive maximum engagement and conversions.

How to optimize eCommerce product pages through content?

Here are the different parts of eCommerce product content that you need to optimize effectively to drive higher product page engagement and conversion:

- Product image
- Specifications
- Product Description
- Product images
- CTA buttons
- Social proof
- Product recommendations

#2 ‘Price’ – The second ‘P’ of marketing

Among all the 4 ‘P’s, the most crucial one is the pricing. Fixing your product prices is tricky. It needs to be competitive, profitable, as well as advantageous for the shoppers.

In the highly competitive space, of the eCommerce world today, customers are empowered with overwhelming choices and options. If your product is high-priced, your customers will readily move on to something else that’s cheaper and affordable, irrespective of the quality.

There’s another side to the story too. If you lower your profit margins to stay ahead in the competition curve, your authenticity becomes questionable too. Thus pricing your product right gets tricky and complicated, but when done right, it can become a win-win for both you and your customers.

Here are some questions that will help you do the right pricing for your eCommerce products:

1. What’s the lowest price that you can set for your products without hurting your profits?
2. On the other hand, what’s the highest price that your consumers would be willing to pay for your product?
3. How do your customers react to price changes and fluctuations?
4. What prices do your industry leaders offer?
5. How are your prices compared to your direct competitors?

#3 Place – The third ‘P’ of eCommerce marketing:

In eCommerce marketing, place refers not only to the actual location but also to the digital channels and marketplaces where you can reach out to your potential customers.

It’s important to strengthen your online presence across all channels, social media platforms, and marketplaces. Because one customer would like to shop on Instagram, while the other would rely on Google reviews. You need to make your products available across all these platforms wherever your customers are likely to buy.

While you choose the target platforms for your omnichannel marketing campaigns, it’s important to understand the nature of the platform and its users and how you can materialize the platforms.

Platforms like LinkedIn might not be a good fit for an apparel seller and Tiktok will be a misfit for an Ed-tech product. Identify the right places where you can find your customers and engage them, rather than trying to bring your customers to your place.

Here are some questions that will help you uncover ad placement insights for your e-commerce marketing:

1. Which marketplace has the biggest base of your customers?
2. Which online channels already sell your product?
3. Which marketplace is worth investing your budget in?
4. Which are the distribution channels that work for your competitors?
5. Which online source drives the highest traffic to your eCommerce store?

Geographical location is another aspect of this attribute – ‘place’. Wondering how this impacts your online sales? Surprisingly, location-based eCommerce personalization influences a shopper’s purchase decision to a larger extent.

For example, if it’s a rainy season in a particular state and you sell umbrellas or raincoats online, it’s the best time of the year to announce additional offers to that location alone.

#4 ‘Promotion’ – The most important of the 4 ‘P’s:

The core of marketing lies in how well you promote the highlights of your product, service, or your brand overall.

Even after fulfilling all the above three items in this 4 ‘P’s checklist, you still need the 4th ‘P’ – promotion to convert all your efforts into outcomes. This is what makes promotion the most important part of your marketing strategy. Wondering how to successfully run an eCommerce business? These insights will help you.

Here’s how promotions work for your eCommerce store:

1) It’s a one-time effort. Creating a stunning eCommerce store and promoting it well will get you long-term benefits when done right.

2) Happy customers will do all the talking for you. This is a side benefit of promotions.

3) You should know how to leverage happy testimonials, reviews, and positive ratings. Highlighting them in your marketing collaterals and featuring them on your eCommerce store not only enhances the trust factor but also urges your shoppers to take action immediately.

4) Satisfying existing customers is a hidden gem that is often overlooked. That will cut the cost of acquiring a new customer drastically and act as an efficient tool for organic promotions.

5) Running ‘Refer and Earn’ campaigns is an efficient promotion technique that helps you grow your brand’s visibility. It’s a win-win-win for you, your existing customers, and the new ones!

6) Build a set of rich digital assets like customer testimonial videos, images of satisfied customers using the product happily, etc. Promote these digital assets across all the social media channels and add them to your email campaigns too.

7) Promote your competitive advantages. Draw out the differences between your competitors’ products and yours, and highlight the additional benefits of buying them from you.

8) Leverage third-party review platforms for your promotions. Submit your products to relevant review sites and rating platforms. Feature their recommendations and acknowledgment on your social media handles and eCommerce store alongside your products.

9) Promote the USPs of your products or offerings. Promoting your unique selling propositions not only helps you sell more products but also contributes to building a positive reputation for your brand in the marketplace. Over time, this USP will convert into your brand’s value, and your customers will recognize your brand by your core value.

10) Influencer marketing is the order of the day in today’s marketing. Identify relevant influencers for your offerings and reach out to them with giveaway campaign ideas. A recent study states that in 2021, more than 40% of product-based eCommerce businesses have started investing in influencer marketing.

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023

The 4 Ps of Marketing: Demystifying the Marketing Mix

The 4 Ps of marketing—you’ve probably heard about them from a friend, a textbook, or even at school.

I know it sounds like a boring topic that’s common sense, but there is more to it than meets the eye.

And no, it’s not just for large companies. The smaller you are, the more important for you it is to leverage the 4 Ps of marketing.

Some key takeaways we’ll review in this post:

- The 4 Ps of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion—is a concept that summarizes the four basic pillars of any marketing strategy.
- By focusing on these four pillars, you can improve your marketing strategy to ensure that you’re effectively covering all of your bases.
- You can implement the 4 Ps of marketing whether you’re a new or existing business.

Now before we dive into it, let’s first break down what they are…

What Are The 4 Ps of Marketing?

The 4 Ps of marketing is a concept that summarizes the four basic pillars of any marketing strategy.

The four Ps of marketing are:

- Product: What do you sell? Could be a physical good, services, consulting, etc. This is important because a good product helps you stand apart from competitors and win over customers.
- Price: How much do you charge and how does that impact how your customers view your brand? You need to strike a balance that drives the most amount of sales while also driving the most profit.
- Place: Where do you promote your product or service? Where do your ideal customers go to find information about your industry? If your products aren’t placed properly, you may not be visible to your target market.
- Promotion: How do your customers find out about you? What strategies do you use, and are they effective? When you focus your efforts on promoting to your audience, you can boost profits and increase return on investment (ROI).

It sounds simple and it is. The challenge is implementing the 4 Ps of marketing, which we will get into in the next sections.

The theory behind the 4 Ps of marketing is that covering all 4 Ps will result in higher sales. But, sadly nothing is quite that easy.

The origin of the concept, also known as marketing mix, goes back to the year 1960 when Professor Edmund Jerome McCarthy introduced it in his book Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach.

I know that’s ages ago, but the 4 Ps marketing mix concept is just as valid today.

So how can you implement it yourself?

The best way to gain an understanding of the 4 Ps of marketing is to see how other brands are using them. Let’s dive into the concepts and look at the 4 Ps of marketing examples to understand how you can apply this to your own company.

The First P of Marketing: Product

The product is what the company sells.

It might be a product like a soft drink in the beverage industry or a dress in a clothing store. Or these days it may even be software like Ubersuggest.

It could also be services, such as consulting a paid speaking gig, or even a therapy session.

In short, the product is everything that is made available to the consumer.

In the 4 Ps strategy, this means understanding what your offer needs to stand apart from competitors and win over customers.

In other words, what makes your product so great or unique? Because if you don’t stand out it’s going to be hard to thrive.

Examples of Product

You may know about my product Ubersuggest, but you also probably know about a handful of my competitors.

So what’s the big thing that makes my product stand out from everyone else?

I don’t focus on features, I don’t offer hundreds of reports. Instead, I focus on usability. My goal is to make Ubersuggest easy to use, especially if you are new to marketing. On the flip side, my competitors focus on ad agencies and advanced marketers.

Or let’s pivot towards a physical product example, the iPhone.

After over a dozen iterations of its product, Apple has a pretty keen understanding of features that make it stand out from its competitors. Namely, Android.

They know that some features are more important to their customer base than others, and they cater to those needs. In particular, Apple knows that its users desire interconnectivity and continuity among its suite of products over, say, open-source software and customizability.

The Second P of Marketing: Price

Price is simple, it refers to how much you charge for your product (or service).

Although it’s simple to understand, it’s really hard to come up with the “right” price. The one that doesn’t just drive the most amount of sales but also drives the most profit.

The real question is, how do you want to be perceived?

Examples of Price

Amazon wants to be the place where you can get the best-valued products from A to Z. And of course, delivered fast.

My buddy’s company, Imperia Caviar, offers high-end caviar at low prices. He’s able to get the same caviar that big brands charge thousands of dollars.

You would think having a cheap price is cheapening his brand, but instead, he is bringing transparency to the market and educating people on how caviar isn’t really expensive… it’s actually just a marketing ploy.

On the flip side, would Ferrari be Ferrari if their cars were selling for $10,000? Probably not.

If you want more information on how to price your products, check out my pricing psychology guide.

The Third P of Marketing: Place

“Place” is another word for location.

As they say in marketing, it’s all about location, location, location.

You have to pick a location where your customers are. Don’t expect them to come to you, you have to go to them.

This is true for both brick-and-mortar and digital locations.

Examples of Place

Ask yourself: When was the last time you saw an advertisement for Jitterbug, a cellular phone aimed at the senior population?

For me, it happened to be in a doctor’s office waiting room. One of those non-offensive daytime television channels was on—AMC, Hallmark, or something of the like—and a Jitterbug commercial came on. They know their audience is mostly retired and likely to be watching reruns of 1960s and 1970s television shows in the middle of the day.

That’s how you meet your customers where they are.

Just think: how effective would digital ads or a TikTok Shop be for Jitterbug? Considering the bulk of TikTok users are between the ages of 18 to 39, probably not very effective.

Fortunately for Jitterbug, they’re good at meeting their customer base where they are. Namely, via television advertisements and mailers.

The Fourth P of Marketing: Promotion

My favorite P (and the one I tend to blog about the most) is promotion.

Once you’ve optimized the previous three Ps of marketing, it’s time to promote your offer.

To be clear, when I talk about promotion, I am not just talking about getting your brand out there. I am talking about generating revenue.

What’s the point of promotion if you can’t drive sales?

With all of the channels out there, which ones do you start with first?

Well, I want you to go here and put in your competitor’s URL.

If they are a big competitor, you’ll see data on how much traffic they are generating, which keywords they rank for on Google, the sites that link to them and talk about them, and even how many social shares they are generating.

Examples of Promotion

Have you searched a keyword on Google recently and seen sponsored results? Or perhaps you’ve listened to a sponsored ad on your favorite podcast. Those are just two ways of promoting your product offer to your customers.

The simple truth is, promotion is all around you.

Billboards. Commercials. Sponsored ads.

Heck, there’s even subliminal advertising used in all sorts of media that we consume.

But what makes an effective promotion? One that targets your ideal customer in the right place. This will largely impact the kinds of promotions you then run.

For example, if your target audience is largely Gen Z, then social media is a good bet. That’s because 90 percent of Gen Z adults use social media.

This may mean running sponsored ads on platforms like Facebook or using influencer marketing on Instagram and TikTok. If your brand is savvy enough, you may even be able to create your own viral social media page, like Scrub Daddy on TikTok:

How to Use the 4 Ps of Marketing in Your Marketing Mix

It’s easy to get started using the 4 Ps of marketing in your own marketing mix. Whether you’re just launching a product or service, or it’s been available for years, the tips below can help you to refine your strategy.

How to Create the Best Product

Now, before you go and build a product (or make yours better if you already have one), don’t invest too much time and money without getting feedback.

For example, if I were to add a new feature to Ubersuggest, I wouldn’t just build it. I would get it designed, show you first, get feedback, and then adjust from there.

That way I won’t waste months’ worth of time building a product you don’t want to use.

How can you do that? Getting customer feedback is really as simple as asking.

Go to Hotjar, signup for a free account, and run a poll. Just like the one below.

I’ve been running polls for a while now, but if you are starting I would ask open-ended questions like:

- What’s the biggest problem I can help you solve? This will give you an idea of what your product needs to do.
- What’s your favorite marketing product and why? You’ll want to replace the word “marketing” with whatever industry you are in… this question gives you an idea about who your competition is and what they are doing right.
- Why did you come here today? This will tell you why people come to your site and what they are looking for.
- How can we make our product better? This is great if you already have a product up as you will get real feedback.
- What don’t you like about COMPETITOR ABC? Replace competitor ABC with your competition’s name… this question tells you where there is an opportunity.

I want you to pay special attention to the last question. It really helps you identify how you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

How to Set the Right Price

By no means am I a pricing expert, so I don’t want to tell you what to price your product.

I will tell you to read the Paddle blog. Those guys know to price like the back of their hand and have dozens of articles that will teach you exactly how to price your product.

It’s important to think about pricing, especially if you are in a crowded space. My rule of thumb is: If you are in a new space or already a leader, you can charge a premium amount.

On the flip side, if your space is saturated and you are late to the market, you’ll want a cheaper price (if not the cheapest price).

Some questions you should ask yourself are:

- What would be the lowest price you are willing to sell your product? Hint: Be sure to add up all costs associated with product/service creation, production, promotion, etc plus add a profit margin.
- What would be the highest price that consumers would be willing to pay?
- How sensitive to price are your customers?
- What prices do current leaders in your niche charge?
- How does your price compare to the competition?

How to Find the Right Place

The web is this virtual world. And although the location (place) may seem irrelevant, it isn’t.

Think of the platforms and places your ideal customers are and be there.

That could be a specific site like Google or even an offline venue like conferences. Don’t try to bring your customers to you, go to where your customers are; it’s much easier.

Here are some simple questions to ask yourself so you can find the right place.

- Where is your customer?
- Which outlets (online and offline) sell your product?
- Which distribution channels are currently working for you?
- Do you sell directly to businesses or consumers?
- Do you sell directly to your end customer or do you have to go through middlemen?
- Where are your competitors?

The customer should always be at the center of your decision, but it’s important to also include aspects of the other Ps that we discussed.

How to Create the Most Effective Promotion

I want you to start off by asking yourself the following questions:

- Which channels does your audience use the most to consume information?
- What kind of message tends to be more effective when promoting your solutions?
- What is the ideal period for promoting your product?
- Is there any concern about seasonality?
- How do your competitors plan and carry out their promotion?

Again, you can use the tools I mentioned above to get a jump start. Another thing I would highly recommend is that you look at Facebook’s ad library.

It will show you the ads that your competition runs and, more importantly, the messaging they use.

Promoting your product takes a multichannel approach. I have several blogs that cover the basics of every marketing channel you should leverage:

FAQs About the 4 Ps of Marketing

What are the 4 Ps of marketing?

The 4 Ps of marketing are product (what you sell), price (how much you sell it for), place (where you sell and promote it), and promotion (how you promote it).

Which of the 4 Ps is most important?

Ask any marketer which of the 4 Ps is the most important, and you’ll certainly hear a different answer and reasoning behind that answer. The truth is that, while you may be able to argue one is more important than the other, the 4 Ps rely on each other in some way. By covering the whole marketing mix, you ensure you’re doing all the right things to optimize your revenue.

How do the 4Ps differ from the 4 Cs?

The 4 Ps—product, price, place, and promotion—and the 4 Cs—consumer, cost, convenience, communication—are both examples of marketing mix models. They both aim to boost sales, but the 4 Ps is more focused on the internal processes of the marketing strategy while the 4 Cs are more focused on the external processes that may influence a customer to buy.

How do the 4 Ps of marketing help businesses create effective marketing strategies?

The 4 Ps of marketing, while effective as individual metrics, work together to make a cohesive marketing mix. If you think of each P as its own pillar, then using them all together will ensure a solid foundation for your marketing plan.

Conclusion

The 4 Ps of marketing may seem boring, but they are essential to creating a successful marketing plan.

Without them, you can’t differentiate yourself from the competition.

No one wants more of the same. We all want something unique, special; something we resonate with.

How do you stand out from your competitors? Do you leverage the 4 Ps of marketing?

Source: neilpatel.com ~ Image: Canva Pro

December 14, 2023

The 4 Ps Of Marketing

The four Ps of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion—serve as a framework for marketing success. Sometimes referred to as the marketing mix, the four Ps help guide businesses in the creation of winning business ideas that deliver what customers want, where, and how they want it at a most appealing price.

Building a solid marketing plan structured around the four Ps can help you increase awareness for your brand and its products or services, drive sales and achieve overall stronger bottom-line results.

What Are the Four Ps of Marketing?

The idea of a marketing mix was first popularized in the 1950s by Neil Bordon, a Professor of Advertising at Harvard. Drawing from Bordon’s work along with the work of other prominent marketing and business leaders, E. Jerome McCarthy introduced the four Ps of marketing in his book Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach.

You may recall from your Intro to Marketing college course that product, price, place, and promotion are the four Ps of marketing. While the four Ps have been around for decades, the concept is just as relevant to businesses today as it was when the four Ps were first introduced.

The First P: Product

The first P in the four Ps of marketing is the product. A product can come in a variety of forms, such as a physical product, digital product, service, event, or experience. The product is the actual item you are selling; the features or attributes you include or build into your products can help you differentiate your offerings from your competitors.

There are many dimensions that you must consider when deciding which products to develop and sell. Does your product solve a problem? Or does the product fulfill consumers’ wants and desires? Why would someone want to buy it? Product quality, design, packaging, variety, adaptability, sustainability, safety, and production must all be considered.

Your marketing plan should outline the key features of your product, what makes it unique, and who your target audience is for that product. This will help ensure you meet the needs and desires of your ideal audience.

The Second P: Price

The second P in the four Ps of marketing is price. Naturally, you need to price your products in a way that allows you to operate profitably. However, pricing is far more complex than calculating the cost of goods and adding on an additional amount that will let you meet your desired profit margin. How you price a product will convey its relative value and quality.

Walmart uses low-cost pricing to attract a broad audience of value-driven shoppers, while Saks Fifth Avenue sustains much higher prices, which is common among luxury goods sellers who target wealthy buyers. If you decide to serve different types of customers, you’ll need to develop a customer segmentation strategy, which will include pricing strategies for each segment you serve.

There’s also a psychological factor in product pricing, which is why products are often priced at $9.99 rather than $10. Products with prices ending in .99 seem cheaper than those that end in zero, and hence more shoppers are drawn to the $9.99 price tag.

The Third P: Place

The third P in the four Ps of marketing is place, which refers to the channels or locations where you sell your products and services.

You may want to sell products via a brick-and-mortar store or at less permanent physical locations, such as special events, fairs, pop-ups or temporary markets. Or, you may prefer to list your products for sale via an e-commerce platform—by either building your own e-commerce website or by selling through popular online marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon or Etsy.

Where you sell your products will influence how you manage product inventory and product transportation or shipping. The location also influences the relative size of your reachable market. Some businesses find they can optimize sales by offering goods and services via multiple outlets.

The Fourth P: Promotion

The fourth P in the four Ps of marketing is promotion, which is how you get the word out about your products and what tactics you use to convert prospects into buyers. Your promotion strategy may include advertising, public relations, social media marketing, content marketing, direct marketing, and influencer marketing, as well as the discounts and special offers you extend to generate sales.

Even the best product in the world doesn’t stand a chance if you don’t have a strong promotion strategy behind it. While some promotional tactics can be done on a shoestring budget—such as do-it-yourself blogging and social media—others can be costly. It’s important to factor anticipated promotional costs into your product pricing strategy.

Examples of the Four Ps in Marketing

Understanding the four Ps is the first step in creating a strong marketing mix. Knowing how to execute the four Ps correctly is key to achieving success. Let’s look at examples of how different organizations use the four Ps in different ways.