FINA 343 - MODULE 1 Place
MARKETING PRINCIPLES
The Seven P Formula of Marketing
 Product
 Price
 Promotion
 Place
 Packaging
 Positioning
 People
Note: The “Seven P Formula” should be used to
continually evaluate and re-evaluate the
business activities.
Product
- Look at your product as though you were an
outside marketing consultant brought in to help
your company decide whether or not it is in the
right business at this time.
- Is your current product or services or a mix of
products and services, appropriate and suitable
for the market or the customers of today?
- Are these the right products or services for our
customers today?
- Compared to your competitors, is your product
or services superior in some significant way to
anything else available?
Price
- Continually examine and re-examine the prices
of the products and services you sell to make
sure they’re still appropriate to the realities of
the current market.
- Be open to the possibility that your current
pricing structure is not ideal for the current
market.
- Be open to the need to revise your prices, if
necessary, to remain competitive, survive, and
thrive in a fast-changing marketplace.
Promotion
- Think in terms of promotion all the time.
- It includes all the ways you tell your customers
about your products or services and how you
then market and sell to them.
- Where your product or services is actually sold.
- Review and reflect upon the exact location
where the customer meets the salesperson.
- Sometimes a change in a place can lead to a
rapid increase in sales
- You can sell in many different places – direct
selling, telemarketing, catalogs or mail order,
trade shows or retail establishments, joint
ventures, manufacturer’s representatives or
distributors, and a combination of one or more
of these.
Packaging
- Stand back and look at every visual element in
the packaging of your product or services
through the eyes of a critical prospect.
- People form their first impression about you
within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or
some element of your company.
- Packaging refers to the way your product or
services appears from the outside.
- It also refers to your people and how they dress
and groom.
- It refers to every single element about your
company – your offices, waiting room,
brochures, and correspondence -everything
counts.
Positioning
- Think continually about how you are positioned
in the hearts and minds of your customers.
- How do people think about your company?
What position do you have in your market, in
term of the specific words people use when
they describe you and your offerings to others?
- Develop the habit of thinking about how you
could improve your position – begin by
determining the position you’d like to have. If
you could create the ideal impression in the
hearts and minds of your customers, what
would it be?
People
- Think in terms of the people inside and outside
of your business who are responsible for every
element of your sales, marketing strategies, and
activities.
 - Develop the habit of thinking in terms of exactly
who is going to carry out each task and
responsibility.
- Your ability to select, recruit, hire and retain the
proper people, with the skills and abilities to do
the job you need to have done, is more
important than everything else put together.
FINANCIAL SERVICES MARKETING FEATURES
Financial Services as Products
Independent non-commissioned advisers – paid
directly by the client also known as a fee for
service
Retail – Brick and mortar companies such as banks
FINTECH IN FINANCIAL SERVICES
Financial Technology (FinTech) – is the new technology
and innovation that aims to compete with the
traditional financial methods in the delivery of
financial services.

Separability - the production of many financial products

can be separated from their consumption.

Lack of perishability – financial services are not

products with a due date or date of expiry.
Managing inventory is easier than a standard
manufacturing setting.

Mass production – financial services are not mass-

produced as they are individualized. No two
Financial Plans are the same due to the
individual nature of the client.

Financial Services as Services/Not Tangible

Low cost of entry – due to the nature of the industry

and the product the cost of manufacturing,
inventory, and distribution is relatively low.

Speed to market – it is very simple to distribute a

financial product due to the nature of the
product

Lack of exclusivity – exclusivity is not the norm in the

financial services industry due to the lack of the
ability to create such a product

Delivery Methods of Financial Services

Direct to end user – Direct Mail, telemarketing, and

online sales

Commissioned Sales People – dedicated salespeople

who are dedicated to the manufacturer

Independent commissioned sales agents – salesperson

represents multiple lines of business and
companies
 FINA 343 – MODULE 2
STRATEGIC MARKET PLANNING
Segmentation
- This is the most basic form of marketing and is
one that has not been taken full advantage of in
the financial services industry.
Benefits of segmentation include but are not limited
to:
 Identification of the media that best reaches
your target segment
 Improves referral business
 Increases the return of your marketing dollars
 Helps narrow the focus of the message so as to
increase response rates
 Helps organizations build the proper products
for the market they are seeking
- a company that does business in certain
geographical regions would limit its target
market to potential customers in that region
- It also applies to creation of:
- Used for sales territories
- Neighborhoods
- National vs. International
- Urban vs. Rural
Life-cycle segmentation
- Based on the fact that customers need change
as they enter different phases of the life-cycle
Product segmentation
- Wealth management vs. private wealth
management
- BMW 3 vs. BMW M3
Lifestyle segmentation

Methods of Segmentation - Form of ps

 Demographic segmentation
 Geographic segmentation
 Life-cycle segmentation
 Product segmentation
 Lifestyle segmentation
 Customer value segmentation

Demographic segmentation

- The most basic kind of segmentation

- Financial institutions targeting specific age
groups are practicing demographic
segmentation.
- It is based on observable, measurable
characteristics

Demographic variables
- By age
- Personal income
- Household income
- Marital status
- Number and ages of children
- Homeownership
- Education
- Profession

Geographic segmentation

- also a basic, measurable segmentation variable