Today’s missive begins with a very-real-life example of something anyone with a business (or, for that matter, a job) really ought to understand.

It’s about me and my wife. Ask either of us what we do for a living, and we’d both say we work in marketing. (Dinner table conversations in our house are a hoot, let me tell you.)

Yet that answer doesn’t tell the full story.

In reality, I’m a writer. It’s just that where once the words I typed were there to fill column inches, now they’re used to sell things.

Francesca, on the other hand, really is a marketer. Let me explain the difference.

My better half is the head of marketing for one of the UK’s biggest personal healthcare brands. So her job isn’t just social media posts and SEO. (That’s comms.) And it’s not merely snappy straplines and eye-catching logos. (Those things are branding.) Francesca’s job is all of this, and much, much more besides.

One day she might be meeting with the lead buyer for Asda or Boots about stocking a new range. The next, she could be discussing pricing strategies with her director of sales. The following week, she might be in the factory testing out a fresh formulation, or meeting with a packaging technician about bottles and lids.

Here’s the point:

What too many people think of as “marketing” is really just the tip of the iceberg. And the ones who find true and lasting success are those willing to take a deep breath, pinch their nose, and dunk their head below the water’s surface to look at the rest.

Want to join them? First, you need a little context.

Building a thriving business requires you to do 4 things well

In 1954, influential business thinker Peter Drucker published a definition of marketing that’s never been bettered:

“Marketing is […] the whole business seen from the customer’s point of view.”

The professor and author E. Jerome McCarthy expanded on this idea when, in 1960, he proposed the concept of the “marketing mix”. This is the set of controllable elements or variables that influence the customer’s point of view about a business (or product, or service), and ultimately their decision to buy.

McCarthy said the marketing mix revolved around “4 Ps”:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

I’ve written the above in that order for a reason. Here’s why.

Unless you set up all four things in the right way, you’re missing out

As a business, your product – and to be clear, your product can also be a service – is the be-all and end-all. Get it right from the off, and half the battle is already won. Get it wrong, and the best marketers in the world won’t save you.

Before you do anything else, you should try to create a product or service that perfectly meets the needs of the type of customers whose hearts and minds and payslips you’re trying to capture. The manufacturer of, for example, Fairy Liquid might try to develop a detergent with thicker, richer suds so their customers can spend less time scrubbing grease off their dishes. A financial adviser, on the other hand, might go over their process with a fine-tooth comb to ensure it delights clients at every turn.

Price matters for several reasons, and that’s why it comes next in order of importance. How much you charge for what you offer is a marketing decision, in the sense that it’s more about affecting the customer’s point of view for the long term than merely swelling the balance sheet.

The art is finding the sweet spot. Fairy Liquid isn’t the cheapest dish soap on shelves, because if it were, customers might think it inferior – but that doesn’t mean people would still pay for it if it cost the same as a Stradivarius. If a financial adviser were to charge way above average for her services, even her wealthiest clients would grumble eventually – but she must keep prices high enough to be profitable and deter wrong-fit prospects.

In marketing, “place” refers to methods of distribution, or how you get what you sell out to your customers. With products, the “place” is usually a shop or supermarket, and choosing these correctly is again a marketing decision. What would it say about Fairy Liquid if you couldn’t get it from your nearest Morrisons? How would you feel about it if the only place it was stocked was your local butcher’s, stacked neatly beside the liver?

Decisions around distribution matter just as much when you sell services. Will your financial planning practice have an office? Would clients need to travel to you? Can you give them advice remotely via Zoom, Teams, or some other online medium?

And now we come to promotion. This “P” is important, and wide-ranging. It’s anything a business does to communicate information about a product or service, typically through one or more of advertising, sponsorship, PR, or sales promotions.

In practice, that means: 

• Fairy Liquid might try to secure some newspaper coverage of their new miracle formula; the financial adviser could be featured for her latest award win (PR). 
• Fairy could run a TV spot of a smiling househusband arms-deep in bubbles; the adviser might try to capture email addresses with a free download on Facebook (advertising). 
• Fairy might partner with a cookery exhibition; the financial adviser could get her company logo emblazoned across the kit of her daughter’s football team (sponsorship).
• Fairy could use a point-of-sale display to highlight a hefty discount; the adviser might offer a free initial consultation or “refer a friend” scheme (sales promotion).

Time for the caveat:

Promotional tactics like the ones listed previously are doomed to fail if you haven’t first got the other three Ps nailed down.

And this raises one last, crucial question.

In your business, how many of the four things are you neglecting?

It’s pointless growing your social media following if what you sell is fundamentally flawed, with complaints and refunds eating away at your profits.

There’s no use ranking on the first page of Google if the people who find you can’t afford what you sell, or think it’s inferior because you’ve priced it too cheaply.

When instead you invest time and effort in getting every element of the mix spot on, you put yourself that much further ahead of those competitors who think marketing is just promotion.

Oh, and the Fairy Liquid thing? Not just a random reference. Fairy is owned and operated by Procter & Gamble (P&G), the US multinational that’s also behind brands like Tampax, Flash, Oral-B, Gillette, and Herbal Essences. Like any consumer giant, P&G is not without its flaws. But when it comes to marketing, few are as devastatingly effective.

P&G’s brands make category-leading products that are readily available to consumers and always priced just right. And while their ad campaigns won’t win any awards for innovation, they consistently make the cash register ring.

Just because you aren’t in the shampoo or fabric softener game doesn’t mean you can’t learn a trick or three from the powerhouses that are. The boffins behind Procter & Gamble know the key to business success is using all the tools at one’s disposal – not just words and pictures – to influence the customer’s point of view. So, what will you do differently now you know the same?

For everything marketing, we can help

Need some email newsletters? No problem. A shiny new website? Our bread and butter. But here at Yardstick, we know that while spending a few quid here and there on promotional activity is essential, what really moves the needle is taking a more strategic approach.

A short, no-obligation meeting with our Phil or Abi will identify areas for improvement. If you like our prices (surprisingly competitive) and give us the nod, we’ll help you streamline your service, price it appropriately, and make it easier for clients to access – then shout about it from the highest of rooftops. 

Call 0115 8965 300 or email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk when you’re ready to leave “marketing” behind.