The 4 P's of Marketing; no longer relevant.

The 4 P's of marketing? More like the 4 E's of Marketing.EXPERIENCE Discover and map out the full Customer Journey on your own brand – in your own country.

"EVERYPLACE
Develop your knowledge of new media and channels the way a chef masters new ingredients. Try new things – do something that doesn’t start with TV or print.

EXCHANGE Appreciate the value of things, not just the cost. Start by calculating the value of your customers – and what their attention, engagement and permission are worth to you.

EVANGELISM Find the passion and emotion in your brand. Inspire your customers and employees with your passion."

What do you think?

Well, in Marketing 101, we are taught the four Ps of traditional marketing - Product, Price, Place and Promotion. While these fundamental elements are still relevant, they are not near as important in business today as the four Ps of "inbound" marketing -

Personas, Participation, Publishing and PageRank.

Inbound marketing is permission-based marketing strategies. Blogging, social media networking, search engine optimization, and RSS feeds, in which you connect with prospects online when they are actively looking for what you offer. The result is a more measurable, efficient and effective lead-generation system which is powered by social media relationships, website traffic, inbound links and search engine rankings and customer personas are the foundation of effective inbound marketing campaigns.

Participation - The social web has given businesses the opportunity to share knowledge, influence audiences and affect change. At the same time, it gives the public unlimited access to information, and the power to influence the opinions and actions of consumers and businesses around the world, 24-hours a day. (Apartmentratings.com) So what can businesses do? Participate! Don't ignore negative feedback, address it. Monitor RSS feeds from blogs, forums and news sites. Comment on blogs, utilize social networking sites, post ratings and reviews, contribute to forum discussions, and connect with customers.

Publishing is inbound marketing powered by content - blogs, podcasts, videos, optimized press releases, case studies, white papers, eBooks and articles. And unlike traditional outbound marketing, in which you have to buy space in print media or airtime on broadcast media, the social Web has created an almost endless array of low-cost and free distribution channels to directly reach and influence consumers. Every business should have a content publishing strategy designed around the needs and interests of its buyer personas. Success comes from a long-term commitment to continually publishing high-quality, relevant content that earns links and dramatically improves your probability of ranking for keywords on major search engines.

PageRank is a numeric value assigned to Web pages that was originally developed by Google. It was theorized that you could rank a site's popularity by counting the number of inbound links pointing to the Website. Search engine optimization (SEO) and content publishing are the two key inbound marketing strategies.


What are your thoughts on the four Ps of inbound marketing?

Hi Rhoda, I think your 4 points are valid, though the last is a dying breed. Companies need to think now more about their reach through the digital islands (mobile apps and social networks) and how to generate the returns being measured. Refreshing reply...glad to have you on the space and look forward to more of your commentary.

Carmen