The marketing mix is the pillar of a marketing strategy and consists of a series of tools to guide a company

through the ups and downs of its industry.

It drives decision making during the whole process of bringing a product or service to the market.

There are many models of marketing mix that have followed over time.

Let’s see what they are and how they have evolved.

The first model was presented in Basic marketing: a managerial approach by American marketing
professor and author, Edmund Jerome McCarthy, in 1960.

McCarthy classified various marketing activities and grouped them under four dimensions:

• Product;

• Price;

• Place;

• Promotion.

About twenty years later, the community of economists and theorists started thinking of a more complete
model to suit the complexity of services. The 4Ps of marketing mix is too simple to serve this purpose.

How have the 4Ps of marketing mix changed over time?

In 1981, the professors Bernard Booms and Mary Jo Bitner published Marketing strategies and
organizational structures for service firms where they presented the 7Ps of marketing mix.

This updated version added 3 dimensions to the original 4Ps: people, process and physical evidence.

According to Marketing and management of Kotler and Keller, marketing mix needs 8Ps to represent the
modern panorama.

This model is based on the concept of holistic marketing: an interdisciplinary and interconnected subject
founded on four pillars:

• Relationship marketing;

• Integrated marketing;

• Internal marketing;

• Performance marketing.

The 8Ps of marketing mix starts from the 4Ps model and adds people, processes, programs and
performance.
Programs represents the integrated marketing aspects. Specifically, it enables marketers to consider a
company’s overall portfolio of marketing activities before starting a new one. In this way, all marketing
strategies and systems are integrated and supported by each other. This whole of marketing activities,
offline and online, can successfully pursue multiple goals of the company.

In brief, performance represents all the financial and non-financial outcomes of a company. It represents
implications that go beyond the classic revenue or profit concepts, in fact it includes elements such as:

• Profitability;

• Brand equity (monetary value of the brand itself);

• Customer equity (total monetary life-time value of a company’s customers);

• Social responsibility;

• Legal responsibility;

• Ethical responsibility.

In 1990, the professor of advertising Robert Lauterborn shared a different approach to the 4Ps of
marketing mix. In his work New marketing litany: four Ps passé: C-words take over published by the
broadsheet newspaper Advertising Age (now become Ad Age), he presented the 4Cs of marketing mix:
consumer, cost, convenience and communication

In 1973, the professor Koichi Shimizu presented an alternative model to the 4Cs of marketing mix and
finally depicted it in his first edition of Advertising theory and strategies published in 1989.

Shimizu’s 7Cs Compass Model is a framework tailored to master co-marketing variables.

What is co-marketing?

Co-marketing is a collaborative model of marketing where multiple companies can work together on a
project and pursue a common goal. They unite to market, promote and communicate a shared offer in
different channels (it can be a piece of content, a co-branded product/service or something else).

It differentiates from co-branding, because the latter is when companies combine their expertise or
product/service characteristics to make a superior offering.

Shimizu co-marketing refers to a much broader range of activities and they include co-creative and
commensal marketing.

Co-creative is a marketing strategy that involves consumers in the creative process. For example,
companies can give away beta versions of their product/service and improve it with customers’ feedback.
In the entertainment industry, co-creative is the marketing strategy adopted by all UGC (User Generated
Content) platforms.

Commensal marketing or symbiotic marketing is when companies are able to establish mutually beneficial
partnerships with other organizations or consumers.
For example, in 2001 the cereal giant Kellogg and Müller joined forces and launched a new dairy product:
a yogurt with additional cereals. Customers could open the yogurt, reverse the cereals inside and eat a
new delicious mix.

This joint venture represented a great chance for both brands to expand their market.

7Cs of Marketing

1. Customer

‘Product’, rather than being something that a company has to sell, can be thought of as a ‘Customer value
and benefits’ – meaning the bundle of service and satisfactions wanted by customers. People do not buy
‘products’ as such, but rather solutions to problems or good feelings. Retailers and e-retailers now specify
(and sometimes design) products to a much greater extent than previously, reflecting closeness to the
customer and appreciation of benefits that customers want in terms of choice, style, uniqueness, and so
on.

An essential task of retail and e-retail is selecting the range of products offered for sale – assembled for
target markets from diverse sources. The wide and deep range that can be offered is one of the areas
where the ‘clicks’ e-retailer can score relative to the ‘bricks’ retailer. The lowest price does not always
result in the highest sales, as many shoppers may value aspects such as style, design and fashion, for
example.

When buying online, customers are far less likely to request help than they are in the store. Rather, e-
shoppers who need help in understanding a product are more likely to abandon the transaction and find
an alternative supplier or even buy through a different channel. E-businesses, therefore, need to be
particularly careful about describing products clearly in Customer value and benefits terms.

2. Cost to the customer

‘Price’ may be what companies decide to charge for their products, but ‘Cost to the customer’ represents
the real cost that customers will pay. Cost represents the total cost of ownership for a product or service.
The price is only a part of the costs borne by consumers. Lauterborn explains how other factors like time
for accessing the offering (cost of time), effort for changing or implementing the new product/service or
the choice for not selecting competitors’ products/services affect the purchasing cost.

The cost of conscience comes into play when consumers buy something that has social, ethical or other
broader implications.

For example, a lot of consumers love IKEA’s fast-furniture: like fast-fashion in the clothing industry, it
offers cheap furniture that can be easily changed as soon as another trend pops up. The fast-furniture
culture has a huge negative impact to the environment. Jennifer Nini, activist and founding editor of Eco
Warrior Princess has raised a legit question:

Can a company that relies on a low-cost, high-volume business model that encourages mass-consumption
ever be sustainable?

3. Convenience for the customer

‘Place’ (from the 4Ps), rather than implying managements’ methods of placing products where they want
them to be, can be thought of as ‘Convenience for the customer’, recognising the customers’ choices for
buying in ways convenient to them.

For the bricks retailer, ‘Place’ incorporates what can be the most critical decisions concerning ‘location’,
reflecting shoppers’ preferences for short travel journeys, easy access, parking and so on. For the e-
retailer, this is also important, as many customers prefer a multi-channel approach: browse on the web,
buy in-store or vice versa – or buy on the web, return to the store for a refund!

‘Location’ for the e-retailer also means virtual location and the ease of finding the website. This entails
registration with search engines, location in e-malls and links from associates.

Convenience also includes key aspects of website design such as navigation, layout and ease of purchase.
For the ‘bricks’ retailer, convenience decisions include shelf space allocation and layout. The equivalent
in ‘clicks’ e-retail is site design and page layout.

4. Communication

Communication’ is equivalent to the final ‘P’ in the 4Ps: ‘Promotion’. Promotion suggests ways in which
companies persuade people to buy, whereas communication is a two-way process also involving feedback
from customers to suppliers.

Communication is not just advertising, though, but all the ways in which retailers communicate with their
customers, including, for example, marketing research surveys, public relations (PR), direct mail, e-mail,
Internet, marketing database and loyalty schemes.

The sales representative selling face-to-face in the ‘bricks’ retail store can use verbal and non-verbal (body
language) communication to build personal relationships with customers, enhancing the emotional value
of products. In trying to replicate the physical buying experience, the e-retailer is at a disadvantage. On
the other hand, with transaction data ready-digitised, the e-retailer is well placed to enhance product
value using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) techniques.

For example, data mining can be used to build a picture of products most likely to be wanted by individual
customers. Products tailored specifically can be offered proactively. Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk), for
instance, uses such a system to match new books to existing customers likely to be interested in them.

5. Credibility

‘Physical evidence' has been replaced by credibility. Credibility is defined as a multi-dimensional variable
attributed by the consumer to different objects (spokesperson, salesperson, advertisement message,
company, medium). Credibility describes a person’s perception of the truth of a piece of information.

There’s a cupcake shop in Chicago with amazing flavors. Their food was so delicious, it ended up getting
them lots of press. The press helped build their authority and credibility, and got people coming to their
store in masses. Customers suddenly viewed them as the experts in the cupcake arena in Chicago simply
because people were talking about them.
When our products are so good, our customers will talk about them. This increases word of mouth
marketing and can lead to things such as attention from the press.

A woman Jill worked with at Founding Moms created a nail product. It was a rubber cement for your
cuticles so you can peel off your nail polish easily. The woman worked really hard, spread the word,
came to meetings, got the word out to influencers, and now her product is in every Sephora and she
travels the world sharing her business. Slowly, but surely she built credibility.

Her success was largely due to credibility and showing people her products really work. She showed her
customers testimonials and reviews. She proved to them that her product was really as great as she said
it was.

6. Connection

‘Process’ has been replaced with connection. Connection Marketing uses the power of human
connectivity to attain specific business goals. In a world where “more for the sake of more” has been the
norm for too long, we’ve reached a critical point of diminishing return in regard to the way we connect
with others. More friends, more likes, more followers, more events, more introductions, more, more,
more.

Do you visit your usual social networks each morning to find new friend requests, followers or pending
invitations from people you’ve never heard of? The majority of people looking to connect with you don’t
represent an opportunity for mutual value to be exchanged. Connecting with the right people instead of
just more people is a refreshing thought

Humans have been connecting with each other since the earliest forms of civilization; it’s a natural
instinct. As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson states,

“We are all connected; to each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe
atomically.”

For business owners, harnessing the power of connections has and will continue to be the best source of
new customer. Think about a local business owner, how do they generate new customers? Most
business owners don’t have the time, resources or budget to put together a truly consistent and efficient
marketing program; they just don’t. So what happens?

Owners rely on their ability to spread the word of their business through their connections. This includes
customers, prospects, family, friends, colleagues, industry peers, anyone they’d consider a connection.

First, you network.

Second, you increase word-of-mouth.

Finally, you generate referrals.

Networking can happen both on and offline, a few examples below:

• Offline — Events, meetups, conferences, clubs, associations, chambers, organizations…etc

• Online — Social media, Alignable, LinkedIn, industry-specific communities, blogs

7. Customer Service

‘People’ has been replaced with customer service and care. Customers feel frustrated when each touch
point of a business is soiled in its own department. It can lead to misunderstanding, a feeling of not being
valued, and ultimately a negative view of the brand. It’s as simple as a marketing team reading an enquiry
message to the company Facebook page, and forgetting to pass that on to the service team. Or the service
team neglecting to inform marketing about a customer’s preference to only be contacted via email.

Customer service team is well-placed to inform marketing on content ideas - as the first point of contact,
particularly for issues resolution, the service team can tell you what customers are struggling with.

Adidas wanted a better understanding of customer journeys and their preferences. Using Service Cloud,
Adidas were able to capture what they knew about the customer’s preferences to improve and innovate
products and keep them one step ahead.

Beyond simply presenting information or content to a shopper, Adidas uses its knowledge of individual
consumers — and their preferences, gained through Commerce Cloud — to create better products and,
in an increasing number of cases, even custom-made products. These products can be manufactured on
the fly and delivered to consumers remarkably fast.

M Capitol recently made the switch from mortgage broking to mortgage management, and are aiming
to provide a more personal and digital-centric experience to their customers. They implemented Sales
Cloud and Service Cloud to better understand customers and use predictive intelligence to recommend
additional products. They’re also planning to use Marketing Cloud to further personalise customer
journeys and send automated alerts at each stage of the origination process. These products are tools
that support M Capitol in better understanding their customers, which has led to a 10x increase in
average partner referrals per week