A discussion about the software industry and their coders

For a long time, I have been looking for alternatives to / redefinitions of 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) for Web and Social Web Marketing. These 4Ps have been one of the most powerful ways to think about Marketing Mix in Traditional Marketing. But as soon as you enter the domain of Search Engine Optimization, Viral Promotions the 4Ps dont seem as useful. The world has moved on from Products to defining Experiences and doing Emotional Marketing. A useful rethink of the validity of the 4Ps is done by Francois Gossieaux on his Emergence Marketing blog:

Product - I guess this one stays :) - although are you sure that people are always buying your "product"? Or are they buying an experience associated with your product? Or perhaps a "personal identity" that comes with the use of your product?

I don't quite agree with the full statement of Gossieaux here. Regarding Product -- buying an experience or personal identity is fine -- these are benefits associated with product purchase. However MySpace is a Social Networking Web based Product. No argument there. If you consider Services where intangibles get exchanged or situations where the actual product is an experience not the tangible object consumers interact with then even "Product" becomes a tough candidate to hold on to. Example INOX in India sells an experience which involves a movie, food, comfortable ambience, family friendly enviorment -- and charges 5X times over normal market rates for pop-corn and cola once you are inside an INOX theater.

Place - is amazon.com a place? Is a search engine placement a place?

This is again an area where the Web has disrupted a traditional Marketing Definition.

Promotion - people are not taking your corporate BS anymore...And according to the Strategy and Business article I posted in the Facebook "posted items," 80% of all insurance policies will be bought based on information not provided by the insurance companies! So does promotion in the insurance industry still matter? Maybe - if you think that the company can participate in the creation of the user generated content that people will base their decisions on without hiring corporate "shills."

Promotion is one of the Traditional Marketing concepts that the Social Web has hurt very heavily. User buzz, word of mouth, voting, refrences and reviews have taken over. E.g. Traditional or UGC Content gets "promoted" via user votes on Digg.com or YouTube.

Price - many new business models have funny pricing schemes - as in "free"  

There is nothing "funny" in free actually. Platform Pricing, as I explained in my post How to Build Online Marketplaces and Tech Platforms, has a strong rationale for making participation "free" for one or more participants.  

The 7P's - People, Process, Physical Evidence

People, Process and Physical Evidence are the 5th, 6th and & 7th P's useful to evaluate Operational Marketing issues in Services.

Example -- The 5th P "People" is useful in Services Marketing Context where People directly offer a consulting or a hair cutting service. Having well trained, high quality people is a differentiator in a Service offerring.

The Process element of Services Marketing looks at the entire step-by-step experience (Process) through which a consumer enters and exits a Service. Critical to find out where bottlenecks can occur -- consider long lines at a bank.

Physical Evidence is the "physical sign" part of a Service you got. When you go and attend a 2 day educational conference -- the books and certificate of completion help close the loop for you. These are Physical Evidences of the education you received.

Wikipedia does explain very well the domain of Operational Marketing that covers the discussion of 4Ps and 7Ps etc:

Strategic marketing attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competitors in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competitors.

Operational marketing executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived for them, as well as to satisfy the customer with prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the marketing mix (4 Ps).

Use 4C's? -- Customer, Cost, Convenience, Communication

Academics chided Marketers for their inside-out approach of 4Ps that looks everything from a Company's perspective. Consumer is the King. So come the 4C's. These are actually directly related with the 4Ps as Gossieaux points out:

Though outside-in (Customer centric) The 4Cs seem fuzzy and arent as easily actionable as the 4Ps. Cost is very limited a word, consumers are interested in Value (Benefit - Cost).

Continued 3 New P's for Web / Social Web Marketing