Measuring Marketing Impact Across The 4 Ps

Since marketing can be so dynamic in practice, there have been many mental frameworks placed on the industry to help define best practices. In his seminal work, “Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach,” published in 1960, Jerome McCarthy outlined the four P’s of marketing–Product, Price, Place, Promotion– which continues to be a widely accepted conceptual framework used by marketers today. 

How can agencies measure impact and effectiveness across the 4 Ps of marketing, and is it even possible to do without being overwhelmed by data?

THE GUEST

In this episode of NinjaCat’s podcast, What Gets Measured, we interview VP of Strategy and Digital Marketing at Anstice Communications, Marc Binkley. With a focus on digital marketing and diverse experience from the boardroom to the whiteboard, from products to services, Marc is a Section 4 certified Brand Strategist, he’s packing both an actual MBA and a Mini MBA from Mark Ritson, and on this episode he dishes on measuring marketing impact across the 4 P’s–Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

THE INTERVIEW

“Marketing today has devolved into more of the small ‘m’ kind of marketing,” says Marc, “we’re labeled and cornered into handling just communications.”

The 4 Ps is a framework that holistically approaches the marketing function and ensures strategies and tactics are aiming to achieve meaningful progress and targets. Modern marketers ignore the 4 Ps at their peril.

Product-obsessed marketers will gladly skip over the Promotions aspect of marketing, ignoring the other Ps, particularly Price. Price elasticity - the ability to charge more - is a function of advertising that has been largely forgotten and replaced by direct response metrics.

Place, in the digital marketing realm, has been overtaken by search engines, which behave more like signage than direct response advertising.

Marketers today are stuck chasing platform metrics that prevent them from strategizing meaningful moves. “The unfortunate thing is popular platforms like Google and Facebook don’t know your business plan, they know their business plan,” says Marc. “For marketers that want to avoid being overwhelmed by data, the 4 Ps is a framework for breaking up data into tangible metrics you can measure and improve on, like market penetration, price elasticity, share of search, and inventory turnover.”

“The 4 Ps aren’t just a nice idea, they are an executional framework. Orientation, segmentation, targets, plans, positioning, then price, product, place, and promotion; it has to go in this order. Most marketers are only ever handling that very last P of promotion, and that shouldn’t be the case.”

Listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

THE LINKS

Here is a round-up of links, authors, and sources mentioned during the episode:

Where to invest in the 4Ps of marketing by Marc Binkley
Attempts to update the four Ps are embarrassing by Mark Ritson
A-Cast - Marc’s podcast with Anstice Communications
Building Distinct Assets by Jenni Romaniuk
Distinctive asset work on Ireland’s National Lottery by Paul Dervan
Manoj Jasra, CMO of Northland Properties

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