Promotion alone won’t cut it 👀

In 2010 I studies for a diploma in marketing.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I drove to Stoke-on-Trent in my 1986 Nissan Micra for evening classes with the Charted Institute of Marketing.

I’m feeling nostalgic just thinking about it. Look at her:

To be honest, a lot of the diploma felt irrelevant.

It was about supply chains and international markets, in a time where marketing was in purgatory – digital was emerging but not a viable or understood channel.

It was helpful to a point.

It taught me a few things – most surprisingly that there’s a university in Stoke-on-Trent.

The one thing I remember above everything else is the Four P’s of Marketing.

But before I get into that, let me tell you a familiar story:

When fundraising, sales or revenue aren’t going to plan, the CEO tends to be straight at the door of the marketing department. A “what can we do to move the needle” chat. A request to see the analytics. A demotivating tone that the latest campaign has seen disappointing numbers.

We all know the scenario, right.

But don’t worry, you’re in a safe space here in this marketers’ community, and I’m pleased to tell you that it’s not all your fault.

Back to the Four P’s of Marketing: The four essential elements, with equal weighting, that contribute to your success:

• Product: Is what you’re ‘selling’ any good? Can it be improved?
• Price: Is the price point representing value? Is it affordable and reasonable?
• Place: Is the place people buy it easily navigable? Is your marketing where people are?
• Promotion: Is your marketing message effective?

All four are elements of marketing, and as marketers we have to take responsibility for all four, even though two of them are hard for us to influence.

Promotion is only 25% responsible for your performance.

So when campaigns, products and sales flop and it’s time to do a post-mortem, why do we put a disproportionate amount of attention on promotion? If you think back to your last failure, can you analyse the whole, taking into account all four P’s not just one?

In my experience, the main culprit for underperformance is the Product itself.

We often think our product/service/charity has a right to exist.

Or that there’s an audience desperately waiting for it.

That’s just not true, and a lot of commercially successful start ups that get profile for having great marketing campaigns actually understand that it’s a combination of promotion, product, price and place.

If you were to improve your product, price and place, what steps would you take?

That’s all for today.