mcgrawmarketing‘s insight:

This article made me squirm a number of times and I am going to chalk up my discomfort to what I hope was an overly simplistic presentation.

And here’s the part that got me squirming…

“I gather information during the entire sales cycle. By averaging data from all sales made, I can understand that it takes X site visits, Y clicks, and Z pieces of content before a visitor is ready to buy.”

I would strongly suggest that this data is a piece of the puzzle but not the entire puzzle.  You still need to know if the individual has a budget, the authority to spend that budget and a real need for your offering.

Not to rely on a ‘focus group of one’, but I have visited Marketo’s and Hubspot’s websites hundreds of times.  I have clicked on a wide variety of things ranging from product descriptions, pricing, case studies, white papers, video….

And I will never buy their products for my business because I lack the need and the budget.

And I’m not the only one doing this…and these aren’t the only companies that experience this.

So, if I take this article at face value, it seems as though we might have a misinterpretation of data driving actions and the investment of limited resources.

Am I overreacting?  Am I way off base?  Am I completely wrong?

patmcgraw’s insight:

I teach marketing to college students and whenever we get to the 4 P’s, someone will bring up the 4 C’s and the 5 C’s and the 3 A’s.  So we go through them and at the end, they realize that the 4 P’s does what they need.

And then they ask “Why would people create alternatives to the 4 P’s?”

So I point them to the chapter that addresses ‘differentiation’ and we have a discussion about how some people like to rename a known, proven solution in order to differentiate.

We usually have a good laugh…

The point here is that you, as a marketer, need to address all of the P’s – not limit yourself to promotion.  What are the products – and how are they positioned to deliver a unique, valuable solution to your audience’s needs?  Do you have the right pricing strategy to achieve your goals with your audience?  And what about distribution – does your audience have easy access to your product?

All too often, marketing will ignore the first 3 P’s because they feel their role is just to promote.  To generate leads.  That approach weakens promotions because if you have the wrong product, pricing and/or place…the best promotions will still fail to generate successful results.