Big Picture Marketing & The Death of the 4 P's

Considering my years spent working across Marketing, almost everything has evolved or changed and few things have become clearer than this: the traditional 4 P's of marketing - product, price, place, and promotion - are no longer the go-to strategy for businesses. It isn't even helpful as a framework anymore.

Traditional marketing methods just don't cut it in today's fast-paced, data-driven world.

So, what's the alternative?

Why, taking the original framework and iterating on it, of course.

Some call it Modern Growth Marketing and I'd like to say we're ushering in the era of "BIG PICTURE" Marketing. And it's not that the 4 P's are entirely useless, but the elements that make up those pillars have all shifted and reorganized, reclassified and rationalized themselves into a new order. And of course because of modern technology and the online world - it has definitely expanded.

Below I topline the five strategic pillars of what I would call basic Modern Growth Marketing and how they revolutionize your approach to lower-level marketing tactics and operations. I will also spend a moment on each sharing my thoughts on how roles for these pillars could be constructed.

To note, these points are not meant to be exhaustive, but primitive and lean as a Marketing approach that stands perpendicular to the approaches of the past to silo Marketing into fluffy work.

These 5x modern, foundational pillars are each in themselves an exercise in lean and minimalist design thinking. How to create loops, how to work effectively across priorities. How to accomplish a lot with a little. How to align things to save effort and improve speed-to-market. How to allow for true eventual scale, in essence.

Icing on the cake? Adopting this framework for marketing, you also won't need to restructure much else in the business in order to achieve re-alignment and reprioritization within Marketing. Major win.

Each of these pillars could be a sub-set or a sub-team within Marketing, and each of these will vary in relevance to your business. However, the sequencing of when each is emphasized as a % of Marketing will come down to your experience and situational awareness.

If you feel like your Marketing team is broken, take a step back and start over from first principles and according to the 5 most important themes in modern marketing today.

Pillar 1: Solutions ??

Your problem should be the starting point of your marketing efforts. Identify the challenges your customers face and design solutions that address those pain points effectively. Taking a category-led approach ensures that your product or service meets the ever-evolving demands of your target market and focuses you on leveraging growth levers for the entire category pie, not just your brand.

A solution function inside a business should be where Product Owners and Product Managers sit. They are 'mini CEOs' or the new type of BU-Manager, one that understands at least Revenue (by being closely connected to the CRM and Sales Ops) and Product (by working with Designers and Engineers).

Pillar 2: Data & Insights ??

I've spent a lot of time working in this space, ever since arguably kicking off my career at Nielsen (or AC Nielsen at the time). The power of data has become more apparent since then, but the next generation of Marketers don't always come across equipped with the know-how of making sense of data and turning this into insights - let alone how to turn these insights into actions that bring results.

Harness the power of qualitative voice-of-customer data and quantitative performance data to gain a deep understanding of your audience. Analyze product usage data to identify trends and preferences, and use this information to make informed decisions that drive growth.

Always have an Analyst in your team and always push them to bring you trends, reports and context to help the Team make better and more data-driven decisions.

Pillar 3: Unit Economics ??

Consider price channel architecture, purchase friction, and customer experience when developing your marketing strategy. Forecasting TAM * pricing in different scenarios for your own clarity and for understanding the economic factors that influence your industry can help you create a pricing structure that maximizes profitability and minimizes the downside of unknown risks.

Promotional mechanics, unique funnels, and KPIs and benchmarks are crucial in modern growth marketing. Keep an eye on the macro picture and adjust your promotional strategies accordingly.

Quite often, COGS are owned and managed outside of Marketing, who are meant to lead topline revenue pipeline blindly without understand the input costs or costs to deliver the business faces. Empower them with these fundamental data points and see how smart people exceed your bottom line expectations.

Remember, having your ear to the ground while staying agile and responsive to changes in the market can make or break your marketing success.

Pillar 4: Audience ??

Understand the marketplace history and cultural dynamics that shape your target audience. Solve for global complexities like data privacy, taxation, government-driven incentives and cross-border logistics.

Consider multi-sided marketplaces and leverage pre-existing channels or platforms and participate in audiences that align with your brand. Remember, knowing your audience inside-out is the key to successful marketing - making 'hard' sales optional if you get it right. The channels they love define them, to an extent (depending on the generation). It creates - and communicates for those who pay attention - common cultural expectations. Read between these lines.

But targeting is only one half of the Audience priority. Welcoming them, engaging them and evolving them over time into happier users and more enamored advocates will create a tsunami of word of mouth the kind of no money can buy. Virality is brought on by nothing less than exceeding on expectations. There's no shortcut to creating brilliance - it either exists or it is yet to.

Pillar 5: Brand ??

In a 2023 world, everything commercial culminates as brand equity, positive or negative. The goal of any high quality business should be to have positive net brand equity at any given point in time - and this is not just reflected by the NPS.

The Brand pillar sets and creates the picture of success - for your audience as well as your Team - by crafting a compelling story that resonates with them and echoes them.

Many businesses set 'core values' or principles, but struggle to make them visible and tangible out in the open. Embrace controlled brand activism to turn your business into a soul-driven vehicle of change and promote your core values out in the open to forge strong connections with your audience.

Want to move your business from a place where you're having to chase to demand to instead needing to throttle supply? A powerful brand is often the differentiator.

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Honorable mentions depending on your organizational setup goes to the Creative Studio (that could sit in place of an external agency in the Audience or Brand functions) and Revenue Ops / Sales functions that would then also just simply bolt on to this model.

What do you think of this framework? By focusing on building out functionality and execution according to this foundation, you can develop a robust, adaptable strategy that drives sustainable growth and keeps your brand at the forefront of your industry without disrupting the rest of your organization.

Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or need guidance.

Lastly, I will soon be expanding on each point in-depth in an upcoming training series for Marketers & Sales people. If this interests you, please reply 'interested' in the comments below ?? and be sure to subscribe to this newsletter.