How can traditional marketing help you online

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Coming from a marketing background I was reflecting on what I still remembered from my old university days and how it could help me and customers with their business.

I remembered the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Promotion and Placement (or distrubution). 

Product: this represents the physical aspect of a product. What is the quality? How does it feel? What is the actual service like? On the web you will want to present your product or service in such a way that the customer will know what to expect. You will need to be able to communicate things like: how will it work? what is the warranty? what is the quality? how will it serve my needs?

Price: This is the actual price of the product. However, this can be an important marketing tool. If you price your product or service lower than average your product may be perceived as low quality but if you price it higher it may be beyond a customer means. For your website it is important that the design of your website matches your pricing policy. If you target audience is the high income group you will want to have a very classy website that looks expensive. If your product or service is targeting the budget part of the market, a simpler more down to earth website would be more appropriate.

Promotion: this includes all the advertising, PR, social networking, newsletter, blog or any other kind of promotion that you do for your product or service. Your website will be an important part of your promotion strategy. It will be essential that your website is created with your target audience in mind. So before starting with your website have a good idea who your target customers are, find out their characteristics. This will ensure that your website will be able to connect with your audience and therefore generate a response.

Placement: You may have the greatest product or service but if noone can find it then you will not make any money from it. I can still remember the lectures on shelve space in the supermarket. The only way you can sell your food consumer product to a mass market is by getting a spot on the shelves in the local supermarket as that’s where everyone goes to to buy stuff. It’s the same when it comes to your product on the web. Consider Google as the ‘shop’. The task will be to get your product or service’s website on the top 2 pages of the search listings for your target keywords. This will maximize your potential of sales. Of course there are more distribution channels on the web. Consider ads, the social networks like Facebook and twitter and forums that operate in your niche.

These four Ps are still helpful today as the basis for your business and online strategy. They will force you to really think about your product or service and focus on your target audience.  Go through these four Ps before creating your website.