First, marketing had the 4 Ps:
- Product, aka what you’re selling
- Price, aka what it costs
- Placement, aka how do you get your product to your customers
- Promotion, aka how are you selling your product
Then, marketing moved to the 4 Cs:
- Consumer, aka who is your audience and what do they want
- Cost, aka what it costs (that one didn’t change)
- Convenience, aka where do your segments buy your stuff (because they may not all buy in the same place/way)
- Communication, aka two-way interaction with your audiences
But, Harvard Business Review argues, really forward-thinking marketers are now into SAVE-ing:
- S-olutions, which forces you away from thinking about your products and into thinking about the problems your audiences have and how you can help them address those problems, which is a step beyond “what do they want?”
- A-ccess, is still about the where, but incorporates the Google idea of the Zero Moment of Truth, the concept of the “purchase journey,” and your organization’s skill in and availability for customer service and interaction
- V-alue, which is intimately familiar to associations, as we talk constantly about the “value of membership” – turns out, people are far less price-sensitive than we tend to think they are as long as the value is apparent
- E-ducation, aka content marketing, or non-sales communication
What are you doing to SAVE for your members?