- Product / Customer’s Needs & Wants – This is your book or your blog or your service or widget or whatever it is you’re providing to meet someone’s needs and wants. It is often YOU, yourself. As the marketer, you see it as a product – a thing or action that you’re offering. The customer sees it as something that will meet their needs and satisfy their desires.
- Price / Cost – This is pretty obvious. As the marketer, you decide what price you need to charge to cover your investment and make a profit (if you so desire – in business, you desire, trust me, something has to pay the bills). The customer wants to know what it’s going to cost them to have their needs and desires met by your product.
- Place / Convenience – This is not only where your product is offered, but also where you’re going to reach the customer. For the customer, it’s all about how convenient it is to find (and buy) your product.
- Promotions / Communications – This is what most people think of when they think of marketing – the ads, public relations, online marketing, social media, etc. (But you’re going to be smart enough to know now that marketing is oh, so much more). If Place is where you reach customers, Promotions is how you reach customers. For customers, it’s all about the communication – how they find out about your product, who tells them, how they can receive updates and additional information after they buy, customer service, etc.
- Product – You (not the vamp movie with that sexy hunk of meat, because that’s your desire, not your customer’s) / Customer’s Needs & Desires – Special time with you
- Price – Time with you / Cost – Having to see that annoying star with all that fake-looking make-up all over the screen again
- Place – Theater / Convenience – It’s at least playing in the one close-by with the wide seats
- Promotions – You convince your date to see your movie by appealing to his/her desires. You identify all the benefits your date will get, whether real or perceived (because, really, how special is time together in a dark theater???). You reach out to your date, communicating how this product actually meets his/her needs and will exceed his/her desires. (And you do it differently than if your customer was, say, your mom or grandma.) Communication – Your date hears all the good things that are worth the exchange, you continue making your date happy with popcorn and excellent service and you follow-up by asking how he/she enjoyed the movie. If you did a good job, they won’t respond by saying, “You are never picking the movie again.” or “Next time, I’ll go see my own movie. Alone.”
I bet you’ve done that before, right? Convinced someone to see the movie you wanted to see? And you never knew you were marketing – using The Marketing Mix – did you? And it’s all kind of common sense, isn’t it?
Next time*, we’ll delve into Product, which is, next to the Customer, the most important ingredient. Because if you have a crappy product, you won’t get very far. And for most of you, the product is what you have the most control over.
Thanks for coming! Brownies for everyone! If you have any questions, please ask. If you’re utterly confused, please let me know. Because it all makes sense to me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
*Note: Next time will be in 2 weeks because next week is Virtual Release Party and Blog Tour!!! Woohoo!!!
This is some good stuff, Kristie!
I just found your blog–this is great info. Marketing is one of the more difficult aspects of being a writer in my opinion, so I love finding things like this! Also, thanks for visiting our blog. 🙂
Also, congrats on your book release–how exciting!!
I can always use some marketing tips, so I just became a follower. 🙂