Four P's..You wish! Try Eleven!

When I took my first Marketing course three years ago, I learned that the marketing mix consisted of the 4 p's, which were product, pricing, promotion and place. I think that at this point, every person who is studying marketing is soooo sick of hearing about them. As if 4 p's weren't enough, they went and added more. Was there a competition to come up with words starting with P in marketing that I wasn't aware of?? And who decided that they all had to start with P. Anyways, the P words that made the list are as follows:

People, Process, Physical evidence (Hey, does this one count, it sounds like an F), Personalization, Participation, Peer-to-peer, Predictive Modeling.
In order to help any student or any person interested, these are the definitions of the extended marketing mix:

People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service.
It's like if you went into a food place, and everything was great! The food delicious, the service outstanding, everything perfect. Then you see the waiter pick their nose. I mean, that's gross to see when eating. That could make a person not want to come back. Because of incidents like this, people must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person for the job. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).
Process: This is the process (es) involved in providing a service and the behavior of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.
Most things in life require you to follow a process. This was an easy add on to the p's because it can be applied in almost any situation.

Physical Evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations.
It is hard to make something that is invisible, visible to people. This is the challenge when dealing with services marketing.

Personalization:This sounds like it has to do with people in general. It doesn't. It has to do with personalizing for people. It is customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Early examples include Dell on-line and Amazon.com. Now, companies like Nike allow you to go online and design your own shoe. Emerging technologies will continue to push this idea forward.

Participation: This is to allow customers to participate in what the brand should stand for; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run. Some go so far as to put contests on YouTube for people to make advertisements for companies and brands. We'll keep our eye on this one and see how far it goes.

Peer to Peer: This refers to customer networks and communities. The problem with marketing is that it is “interruptive” in nature, trying to impose a brand on the customer. Marketing is your grandmother trying to force you to eat something when you aren't hungry. This is most apparent in TV advertising. These “passive customer bases”, like the television and radio, will ultimately be replaced by the “active customer communities”, which are more personal. P2P is now being referred as Social Computing and will likely to be the most effective in the future of marketing.

Predictive Modeling: This is what it sounds like. It is models that help predict the way marketing efforts will go. You know the models! If you don't, check out the Business Models for Dummies section of this blog.
And there you have it. I'm sure before you finish reading this, they have already come up for more P's for us to memorize.

By Anastasia