Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #063, easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

Let’s get to it. If I was to talk to you about Product, Price, Place and Promotion, would you have a clue what I was talking about?

Promotion alone won’t cut it.

In 2010, I studied for a diploma in marketing.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I drove to Stoke-on-Trent in my 1986 Nissan Micra for evening classes with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

I’m feeling nostalgic just thinking about it. Look at her:

To be honest, a lot of the diploma felt irrelevant.

It was about supply chains and international markets, in a time where marketing was in purgatory - digital was emerging but not a viable or understood channel.

It was helpful to a point.

It taught me a few things - most surprisingly that there’s a university in Stoke-on-Trent.

The one thing I remember above everything else is the Four “P”s of Marketing.

When we’re troubleshooting clients’ problems, we tend to start with them.

One is “Promotion”, which is synonymous with marketing in most people’s minds.

That does marketing a disservice.

Let me get the pens out again…

It’s a familiar story:

When fundraising, sales or revenue aren’t going to plan the first place everyone looks is marketing.

But what they’re really looking at is just “promotion”.

And that’s only 25% of the picture.

To diagnose the real problem we need to look at all four:

• Product: Is what you’re ‘selling’ any good? Can it be improved?

• Price: Is the price point representing value? Is it affordable and reasonable?

• Place: Is the place people buy it easily navigable? Is your marketing where people are?

• Promotion: Is your marketing message effective?

In my experience, the main culprit for underperformance is the Product itself.

We often think our product/service/charity has a right to exist.

Or that there’s an audience desperately waiting for it.

That’s just not true.

If you were to improve your product, price and place, what steps would you take?

That’s all for today.

See you soon.

✌️

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍