With the solid background 4Ps of marketing, every company now knows how to answer these elements that need to be asked before launching any new product or service.
However, one of the downsides of this approach, which focuses on product, place, promotion and price, is that it is too business-oriented. As a result, the 4Cs were developed, which highlight the problems from more client-facing perspective.
Here, firms are encouraged to think like a consumer, considering four key points of:
- Customer
- Cost
- Communication
- Convenience
In a way, these are direct substitutes for the 4Ps- customer replacing product, cost for price, and communication for promotion and convenience for place. But how swapping a P for a C makes a difference?
Customer: You need to be certain what your customer wants or needs, and how this can be related back to the product. Why will client be interested in what you have to offer? Basically, your position within any market is determined by your consumer’s perception of your service or product.
Cost: This may directly relates to your profits, but do bear in mind: how does this impact on the consumer? Does it provide good value? Will the buyer feel satisfied with what they have received in exchange for what they have paid? If not, this could have a long term negative effect.
Communication: Focus on how you could effectively carry your marketing message across is crucial to maintaining awareness of the product. You need to determine “what’s in it for me” from a customer point of view and answer this as a part of your marketing campaign.
In addition, keeping track with your client’s feeling about your product can be significantly helpful when establishing future products- encouraging communication on social media and online forums where everyone can interact, spread your ideas or content can be extremely beneficial.
Convenience: Is it easy for your consumers to buy the product? Is it readily available in the kind of retail outlets they are likely to visit? What barriers might they face when trying to locate it? You cannot expect your audience to cross the ocean just to buy your product though.
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By all means, the 4Cs are the questions and coming up with the answers isn’t always a straightforward process. For extra guidance, consider attending our marketing training course here.