How to write a marketing plan to grow your business using all 7Ps

The three takeaways:

What the other 6Ps of marketing are and how to use them

The importance of integrating all 7Ps and how to do it

Where do the 7Ps fit into the overall marketing planning process, and how that can help you grow your business profitably.

You might be reading this blog because you want to grow your business but aren’t sure how to or that you have the responsibility of marketing for a business, and you do not see the results you want. Well, look no further; in this blog, we are going to go through the 7P’s and outline how you use them to make 2022 your year and your marketing worries to be a thing of the past.

You might think that marketing is email marketing, social media, advertising, and telesales. And you have probably tried these activities and found no return on investment and that they just didn’t work for your industry.

Let’s get one thing clear; marketing is so much more than promotion.

This blog will show you how to use all the 7P’s to grow your business.

So, you know what promotion is but do you know the other 6P’s and how to use them?

Product/Service:?This is where you need to think about the product’s benefits. You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about how they can use your product in the future and how your product benefits them. Think of your customers whether you have a product or service to sell. Could you grow your business by offering the product differently?

Place:?Route to market. How are you selling your product? Are you online? Do you have a shop? Do you use distributors? With this one, you need to think if there are any other channels to use to get your product to market.

Price:?Most importantly, do you know the cost of sales for your business? If the answer is no, you need to go and find out. What pricing strategy do you use? You could use cost-plus pricing. You could look at what your competitors are charging and see what your customers are prepared to pay. Another strategy is loss leader; you are selling at a loss. You are probably thinking, ‘why would do I do that!?”. Well, this will help people trust you; they’ve bought your product because it is so cheap, and this allows you to start a relationship. Trust, buy, refer.

You could also do flash sales or limited offers, but be cautious when doing these, make sure you have a reason like it’s the boss’s birthday. You don’t want to devalue the brand.

People:?This includes everyone who encounters your customers. EVERYBODY. This means that everyone in your business should be trained in customer service. Think about how well are your staff trained? Is there anything you can do to improve your customer service?

Physical evidence:?This is the reflection you give off about your business to the outside world. Is all your paperwork branded and aligned? Is it all consistent and integrated? This is so important in all your marketing.

Process:?How easy is it to buy from you? Go through your customer journey and see how easy it is to buy a product/service from you. Does your customer have to go through 10 pages to get to the checkout? How good are your proposals? We highly recommend you audit your customer journey and see how you can make that process smoother.

Now that you know all the 7P’s and how to use them let’s look at how to integrate them into your business.

Great marketing always has its customers at heart.

Price:?Can you put your prices up? You may be undercharging, and many people will associate a cheap price with poor quality. High price = high quality.

One tip we recommended is to experiment with putting your prices up and testing it. You may find you have more sales because you’ve put your costs up.

Place:?Is your product convenient to buy? Can your customers buy it online? Can your open hours be extended? Could you have a shop?

People:?You have a high-quality product/service. Does the customer service match it? If your customers pay a premium price, they will expect excellent customer service. This includes before and after the sale.

Process:?How smooth is the process? Make sure it is effortless from start to finish?

Physical evidence:?This reflects everything above.

Promotion:?Are you promoting your premium product in premium places? Your premium product does not want to be promoted in a corner shop.

Align all the P’s in this way, all delivering the same message, and match what you are saying in the marketing message.

Where do the 7P’s fit into the marketing planning?

Here at Fill the Gap Marketing, we use PR Smith’s SOSTAC, a marketing planning framework. The 7P’s fit into the Tactics section. Think of tactics asking you ‘which way is best?’.

You need to know where you are first before you ask this question – this is why you need a marketing plan. You need to understand your current position. You can find this out by creating a survey and asking your customers to fill it out; you can even look at your competitors and look at the marketplace. You will find that there is lots of research in this part. Once you have done all your research, you need to analyse it.

This will help identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

It will be constructive for you to do an internal audit of all the 7P’s so you can see where you are right now, and then you ask, ‘where do I want to be?’. This is when you will set yourself *SMART objectives.

*Specific. Measurable. Achievable Realistic. Timely.

For your strategy, you need to think of all the different segments of customers. Ask yourself, ‘who is mostly like to buy from you?’ and then you can work out your positioning – what problem do you solve for them?

Tactics are where you make use of all the marketing mix and find out exactly how you will achieve your objectives and goals. You need to make sure you are measuring your marketing to see if it is working or not. By measuring, we mean setting a clear objective and then seeing if you achieved it. If the aim is reached, you know that your marketing efforts are working.

The content of this blog only scratches the surface of what is in the Fill the Gap Marketing Academy.

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