THE SIMPLE MATH OF MARKETING
Marketing, huh? Every new day brings a great new way to nail your objectives for less. The only people who sell harder than the marketing people, are the people who sell tools to help marketers market.
Outsourced lead generation, anyone? Data-based algorithms? Any two-letter acronym that ends in an X? It’s all good stuff. And many of those tools can optimise tactics. But the long and short of marketing is getting people to buy stuff. And we reckon you can sum that up in a sum.
It’s simple math. If you want someone to think, feel or do something, they need to want it. They need it to be easy and they need to be able to afford it. We reckon just about any marketing strategy can be tested with this equation. Here’s how.
Building Demand: Do people want it?
Driving demand is about great advertising and great products. If you want me to buy something, I need to imagine how it will fit into my life. If you don’t have demand, you don’t have action.
Making it easy: Can people get it?
Making stuff easy is about UX and CX and channel and delivery. It’s often the most cost-effective way to increase sales. People don’t buy stuff if it’s all too hard. If you don’t make it easy, you don’t have action.
Setting the price: Can people afford it?
Price is the amount of money that someone’s willing to pay. It’s closely associated with value and loosely connected to cost. If you want people to pay more, they need to want it more. If you don’t get the price right, you don’t have action.
Doing the math. With a side of P.
This simple equation won’t optimise your database or sort out your social strategy. But it will help with choosing the best places to invest. It’s a simple test of the Marketing Mix.
You know the four Ps, right? Philip Kotler first introduced them as his “Marketing Mix” in the first serious text on marketing theory. His four Ps were Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Here’s how they fit.
Product/Promotion: I need you to want it - Demand
Place: You need to be able to get it - Ease
Price: You need to see the value - Price
Since the 60s, people have added all kinds of new Ps (the most popular being People) but drill it down to the basics and the four that got us started matter most.
The answer is usually easy.
The best thing about this simple equation is the obvious value in making stuff easy. Many people over-spend in driving demand or undercut their own margins with deals. But often the better answer is to make it easy to buy.
And how much easier does marketing get than one simple sum? That’s what I reckon, what do you think?