Improve Your Business Content Game with These 5 Basic Marketing Principles
If you've spent any amount of time in business, you've definitely come across the 7 Ps of marketing. Product, Price, Promotion, Place, People, Packaging, and Process. Together, these concepts make up the “Marketing Mix ”; a foundational concept that runs behind every marketing campaign, from content, affiliate, and social media to email marketing.
Although you might not know it yet, you’re unconsciously applying these basic marketing concepts in your everyday business content creation process. Now, it’s time to apply them more consciously and focus on what really matters to your "market".
Note: In this article, we will only focus on using the first 5 Ps only, (product, price, promotion, place, and people).
1. Product: Analyze the Product and Break Down its Benefits (Not Just Features)
A product is the tangible item or intangible service the company offers to its customers. It has a design, hosts specific features, and offers specific benefits to its users.
But above all, any product worth the spend solves a specific problem experienced by its users, and that's what you want to focus on. Think about it for a second. Why do digital nomads buy portable power banks? Because their devices’ batteries can die while they're working in the middle of nowhere. And that would disrupt their workflow.
A portable power bank can mitigate the risks and provide temporary power, enough to get the digital nomad to the next destination. That’s the solution. Now, stay with me because here’s where things get interesting.
Many content writers in B2B and B2C turn 100% of their attention on the product features. For some lazy writers, writing about the features cuts the workload by half. But people just don’t buy features anymore. They buy the benefits.
To find these benefits regardless of the product, ask the simple question why? Why would a homeowner need to purchase an air heater in the middle of summer? Well, maybe it’s because during the winter season, air heater prices are going to shoot up. A specific air heater could have low energy consumption. Of course, this will help its buyers save up on the energy bills and no customer will ever say no to that. When creating business content, ask the writer to base their message on the benefits of the product and not its features.
2. Price: Justify the Product’s Price by Describing its Value
Price is one of the many factors outside your reach because it can only be determined by the product seller or manufacturer. Business content writers, should be vested in communicating the value of the product to potential buyers as with existing customers
Here’s another easy example. Cars cost more than bicycles, yet both can take you from point A to point B? It’s simple. Cars can do this less effortlessly and more comfortably. They can take you further than you would ever get on a bicycle in a ridiculously shorter amount of time.
And that’s the value; that with a car, you can travel a longer distance faster and with less effort. Business content writers can tie the product's value to its benefits. If the benefits aren’t obvious, listen to what other customers are saying about the product. Does it help them with their challenges? Is it worth buying from their feedback?
In essence, try to justify the product’s price by spreading your message with laser focus on the value it provides to consumers.
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3. Promotion: Diversify Your Business Content to Fit Different Distribution Channels
Product promotion is an umbrella term for the distribution channels that get the product to the end consumer. Each type of product has its ideal distribution channel. A physical product distribution channel e.g. a retail outlet serves physical products. Intangible products such as info products and services can be distributed digitally.
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There exists too much information on the internet, and it’s easy to get buried under the pile of content that gets generated every single day on similar products. Getting on top of the masses can be tough, not to mention time-consuming.
The best way to get your message to the right audience on the right channel is by taking the time to understand your product and your customer and creating valuable content that connects the two depending on the distribution channel.
Think about publishing educational how-to content that teaches readers how to solve a specific problem on the company's website. Or, hunt down real customer experiences where the product became the day’s hero and share that on your social feed.
4. Place: Target Your Audience Where They Spend Their Time
Place refers to the location where your customers can get access to your products or services. Again, this can be from a physical store, an online store, or your website. And unless you’re a pirate-themed store, your customers shouldn’t have to go out on a treasure hunt in search of your product. Instead, it should be easily accessible, and surrounded by enough information on where to find it.
Figure out where your target audience spends most of its time. For instance, if they spend much of their time on social media and your product is available on your website's virtual store, you need to figure out how to get them off social media and into the website.
Examples of content that can do the job include one-time offers embedded in a social media post, with a link back to your website. Visual content performs spectacularly on social media. As such, you can leverage the power of reels (for Instagram), shorts (for YouTube), or images to share short, super valuable educational content with a link back to your website.
5. People: Convey the Product Message in a Relatable Manner
People in the marketing mix refers to anyone involved in production, distribution, and consumption of your product or service. In this context, we are going to equate people to your consumers. Any business content writer worth their salt must have a clear understanding of their customers; or more importantly, their needs.
What keeps them up at night? Is it unfiltered air full of irritating allergens? Or perhaps a noisy computer fan that violently detaches them from creativity every time they try to get some work done? Next, you need to think about how the product can help.
What matters even more is how you present the product as THE solution. Here are two statements that two writers would write down to present the value that a hypothetical air filter (we’ll call it the Maximus Air Filter) would bring to their customer’s lives:
Technically, this is called copywriting. The point is, the second statement, even if casual sounding sells the benefit, which will get you closer the sale.
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it. 5 basic marketing concepts that can help you improve your business content process. Remember, to really get your audience’s attention, you must think outside the box and seek to demonstrate value in a way that other creators don’t.
If your company sells products or services through writing, convey its benefits in a way relatable to your customers.
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