It was often known as the 4 Ps of marketing. Product, Price, Place and Promotion that made up a traditional marketing mix. Now, the digital mix includes People. In my job I have seen many businesses fail in their digital marketing, because of a lack of due consideration about how they market their products.
Lets start with the Product. It seems so obvious but are you really showcasing your products correctly? Not every product will require asset photography but it is still vital for content creation that images produced within the business for marketing are correctly viable to showcase the products. Fails here can include cropping images to not show the product in their entirety, blurred imaging, bad angles and lighting or out of date images that no longer represent what is being offered. It can be beneficial if you cant afford an asset photographer to at least edit the images being captured before being shared online.
In terms of Pricing, there is a lot more flexibility to ensure getting this right. There is no real definitive one size fits all answer. Instead how products are priced online should be more reflected by the audiences they are being marketed to. A high socio-economic class don’t need the prices crassly displayed. they may not want others to know about their spending habits. A lower socio-economic class may be searching online for a bargain and the price being included would be crucial. The pricing will be subjective to each business and the audience it is marketing to.
The Place you market your products is crucial for success. In a digital age, the correct place is everywhere your audience is. If your audience is on multiple social channels, your business must be too. I’ve seen older marketers lamenting using digital arenas over traditional marketing practices but love it or loathe it, digital is here to stay so its vital to get it right. That can be easier said than done in such a vast marketplace but targeted niche marketing is possible.
It seems almost self explanatory, but Promotion is something that doesn’t always get enough thought. I have seen a restaurant (with takeaway service) market food via a Facebook marketplace listing by the business owner. Multiple pictures used were automatically cropped not showing the food in the best light with a blurb of a description offering no structure or grammar check. There WAS a message button attached to the listing but it would only lead to the business owner’s personal account instead of the business itself. The message, media used and advertising method used are all important to creating solid engagement online.
Lastly, People. This is what I consider to be the most important and why I will always be a secret slave to Facebook. Referral marketing is the 2nd most important influence in why consumers choose their brands. The beauty of platforms like Facebook mean that when you find an engaged audience member, you can market to their circle of ‘friends’ as well. In an expanding world where global access is possible, users are still heavily influenced by by their peers. Influencer marketing has taken off for this very reason. Micro influencers are now also gaining popularity as the focus shifts from reach to engagement with their following.
Embedding the Marketing Mix into any digital marketing is crucial to success in marketing on or offline. If your a business owner who needs help implementing this, contact Defiant now!
Defiant Media & Marketing 