Do you know your 4Cs from your 4Cs? Read more about these two marketing models, plus find practical examples to apply to your marketing strategy
What is the 4Cs marketing model?
Two groups of marketers have created the 4Cs marketing model. This often leads to confusion about what’s being discussed and where!
Let’s clarify the two models:
The 4Cs to replace the 4Ps of the marketing mix: Consumer wants and needs; Cost to satisfy; Convenience to buy and Communication (Lauterborn, 1990).
The 4Cs for marketing communications: Clarity; Credibility; Consistency and Competitiveness (Jobber and Fahy, 2009).
Lauterborn’s 4Cs: Consumer wants and needs; Cost to satisfy; Convenience to buy and Communication
What is it?
In 1990 Bob Lauterborn wrote an article in Advertising Age saying how the 4Ps (he didn’t address the 7Ps) were dead and today’s marketer needed to address the real…
Examples of applying the Pareto principle to marketing
The 80:20 rule, equally well known as the Pareto principle, is widely used and abused in business, but how does it apply to marketing and digital marketing? In this post I review some marketing applications.
Wikipedia tells us that the Pareto principle is named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Apparently Pareto developed what would later be known as his principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas! Although there is some doubt whether he mentioned the 80:20 principle as such, it is known formally known as a specific power-law distribution and named as a Pareto distribution based on an analysis in the 1940s of production quality / flaws by…
Tool for structuring thinking about one of the crucial 4Ps of marketing: The Promotion Pyramid
The Promotion Pyramid is a strategic marketing model digital marketers use to plan marketing activity in relation to the breadth of audience targeted and the resource required (financial and staff time).
McCarthy's 4Ps of the Marketing Mix famously highlights 4 of the most crucial elements of marketing strategy: Price, Product, Place and Promotion. There is much discussion of the relevance of the 4Ps today which we cover here, but suffice to say we think these are still key strategy considerations for businesses of all scales - that's where the Promotion Pyramid comes in.
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When thinking about promotion online, digital marketers all too often try to rush into starting campaigns without properly analyzing the merits of different tactics and channels. The resulting approach wastes resources in the long run because the lack of a proper…
Learn how the PESTLE analysis model can help you assess your business’ place in a variety of environments
PESTLE is one of a well-known series of acronyms used in business and marketing planning which summarizes how to review the broader forces, sometimes known as the 'macro-environment', that can shape a business.
What does PESTLE stand for?
PESTLE stands for:
Political
Economic
Sociological
Technological
Legal
Environmental
These are the contexts that a business should assess itself against to review competitors, markets, and the situation in which an organization finds itself.
Environment Factors affecting a business - Source: Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick - Digital Marketing, Strategy, Implementation, and Practice
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A process for creating a multichannel marketing plan combining the SOSTAC® and RACE frameworks
Amidst the highs and lows of 2020 in multichannel marketing, one thing that remains constant for managers is strategic planning and frameworks for growth. At this time of year, many are reviewing their options for growing their business using improvements to their multichannel marketing.
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Our Multichannel Marketing Growth Wheel infographic gives a visual view of key planning activities that are needed as part of the process of producing an integrated digital marketing or multichannel marketing plan.
We originally created the Marketing Growth Wheel infographic back in 2012. In his post introducing the infographic, Dan…
From annual to 90-day planning that rocks
Has this happened to you?
You spend a ton of effort creating your marketing plan, you feel great about it. You’re going to move forwards with clarity on those important initiatives.
Tasks are planned week by week and resources allocated...
The ink has barely dried before the first curve ball arrives. You’re back to the plan, juggling and adjusting, trying to hold it together.
That’s frustrating enough, but it’s not long before the next curve ball. Redraw plans again. Soon you wonder why you spent the time trying to plan in first place.
The sand shifts so fast planning seems pointless.
You are not alone. I’ve seen it happen too many times.
The net result is:
People outside the team are frustrated because those bold initiatives with planned dates rarely happen as planned
People inside the team are frustrated. Continual chop and change kills productivity and is frankly demoralizing
You end…
Conversational marketing can introduce personalization across the buyer journey, leading to better results
Only 22% of customers are happy with the level of personalization in digital retail. However, conversational marketing could offer true 1:1 personalization at every stage of the customer journey and scale.
Picture this.
You walk into your favorite brick-and-mortar store to find zero sales assistants.
Instead, there’s a small box on the wall. Next to it, a pen and paper.
The sign above reads “Please leave any questions here. We endeavor to get back to you within 24 hours”.
Sounds ridiculous, right?
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But it’s the approach most brands have taken through digital channels for years.
Email has been the go-to support channel. Questions require a full day’s turnaround for, what is often, a vaguely useful response.
It’s…
The 5Is model from Forrester can help to structure your digital marketing
Forrester is a well-established market research company focusing on business applications of digital technology and media and over the years, the team from Forrester have developed a number of models that we can apply to digital marketing. Occasionally they extract insights from their research and share in the form of a blog article. In 2007 they created a measure of engagement which was termed the 5Is although their focus was on 4 specific elements beginning with the letter ‘i’.
What are the 5Is?
The 5Is stand for the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence an individual has with a brand over time.
The concept was based on research conducted by Forrester where they concluded that the traditional marketing funnel was dead and they proposed ‘engagement’ as a new metric. Engagement as a term had been discussed by many scholars as far…
An example of reviewing your marketing capabilities using the McKinsey 7S framework
The McKinsey 7S model is a useful framework for reviewing an organization’s marketing capabilities from different viewpoints. Developed by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman during their tenure at McKinsey & Company in the 1970s, this model works well in different types of business of all sectors and sizes, although it works best in medium and large businesses.
The 7S model can be used to:
Review the effectiveness of an organization in its marketing operations.
Determine how to best realign an organization to support a new strategic direction.
Assess the changes needed to support digital transformation of an organization.
What are the elements of the McKinsey 7S model?
In summary, the McKinsey 7Ss stand for:
Strategy: The definition of key approaches for an organization to achieve its goals.
Structure: The…
Brand marketing needs to be engrained into the genetics of the brand
The Walt Disney Company has a long and interesting history that spans almost 100 years. It was founded by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney on October 16, 1923. Originally, the company was called ‘Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio’. At first, they established themselves in the animation industry before extending their interests to producing live-action films.
The business has also operated using the names ‘The Walt Disney Studio’ and ‘Walt Disney Productions’. It didn’t take on its current name until 1986. After the success of the films, Walt Disney started building parks, the first of which was Disney World in Florida. He was a very clever man and even bought the land under multiple company names so that locals would not hike the land prices.
That ingenuity spread into their marketing strategy and I'm going to show you how they…
