As a legacy and development from the 4Ps of marketing, the 7ps of marketing have opened a new era in the way businesses approach their customers. Read the article by Viindoo to know more.
What is the marketing mix?
The marketing mix (marketing mix) is a combination of marketing tools that businesses use to achieve marketing and promotion goals. The marketing mix was originally classified following the 4Ps including product, price, place, and promotion. These 4 dimensions are used in marketing activities for products.
To strengthen the power of marketing for both tangible goods and intangible services, experts added 3 more elements to the marketing mix, forming the 7Ps Marketing model. The new elements mentioned are process, people, and physical evidence.
What is the marketing mix concept?
What are the 7Ps in marketing?
What are the 7Ps in Marketing? The term refers to a set of methods that businesses use to promote their products/services to potential markets. The elements in the 7Ps model include Product, Price, Place (Distribution Channel), Promotion, People, Process (Delivery Process), and Physical evidence.
Product
Every business needs to pay attention to the product element. This is a core value that positions the business compared to competitors. Today, products are not merely tangible goods but also intangible services.
Marketing experts have classified products into 3 different categories:
- Real products: These are tangible products that customers can have a physical experience with.
- Core Products: These are intangible products that cannot be touched, held, or physically felt. The core product will deliver core values and benefits to users.
- Add-on products: These are unique complementary products that businesses create to attract attention and interest. This affirms their position compared to competitors.
What are the materials for good products and positive customer experience? The answer of Viindoo is the constant improvement in the quality, image, brand, features, and variations (different versions) of products/services.
Price
The 7Ps of marketing claim that pricing policy directly affects profits and the development of businesses. Price is indeed an important factor in the marketing mix.
Pricing becomes a must-have in any business's marketing strategy. Setting and adjusting the selling price can affect the purchase decision and customer satisfaction.
This is clearly seen at special times, for example, the Tet holiday. At this time, businesses often offer preferential prices, gift programs, or promotions as a way to stimulate demand and increase sales.
According to top global managers, businesses should consider the following factors to develop a suitable pricing strategy for their products. Specifically:
- Position brands, products, and services in the market.
- Refer to competitors and make comparisons in terms of price and brand image.
- Consider customers’ opinions if the value is compatible with the money spent.
- Build a discount strategy, sell products that meet the preferences and needs of customers rather than old inventory.
- Provide a variety of payment methods to make purchases easier and faster.
- Offer free or value-added elements like gifts or extra incentives to increase the satisfaction level.
Price in the 7Ps of marketing affects the effectiveness of marketing activities
Place - Place
Among the 7Ps of marketing, place refers to the product distribution channel. This is the place where customers come to buy products or services. Place includes both offline and online locations for potential customers.
Several common distribution channels are retail channels, wholesale channels, TV shows, movies, e-commerce sites, etc. Different business models can consider different distribution channels that match the brand orientation and business strategy. Suitable distribution channels can support promoting consumption and engaging more with customers.
Here are 3 strategies for product/service distribution for businesses to refer to
- Wide distribution: For this form of distribution, businesses need to find as many points of consumption as possible. The goal of this strategy is to increase brand awareness wherever customers go.
- Selective distribution: Distribution channels will be carefully selected and only a few stores in certain locations will have products.
- Exclusive distribution: With this strategy, products will not be distributed widely, but only limited exclusively to a few dealers. Several luxury brands have adopted this strategy such as Chanel and Ferrari.
The 7Ps include distribution channels of products/services.
Promotion
Promotion is considered an essential element of the 7Ps of marketing. Promotion is a way that businesses let customers know about the product and the reason why they need the product and buy at a certain price.
Promotion includes advertising, public relations, brand awareness strategy, personal selling, and promotion strategy. Every message in the promotion, presented in any form, needs consistency and attractiveness to stimulate customers' buying intention.
To effectively process promotion, businesses should refer to several factors below:
- Apply omnichannel marketing: Present at any place where customers frequently present is the way to let more and more target customers know about the brand. These places include both offline and online like an email marketing campaign, social media, etc.
- Provide personalized experience: To make meaningful messages and retain customers, creating more relevant experiences for users is important.
- Integrate Marketing and Sales: The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is to make a sale. Therefore, brands need to seamlessly integrate these two to minimize the loss of potential customers in both processes.
- Nurture potential customers: The potential customers will not always be the same. Therefore, businesses need to pay efforts and resources to nurture these potential customers.
- Develop brand: To have prestigious, businesses need to offer quality products, satisfy customer needs, provide beautiful product designs, penetrate more in the market, etc.
- Use PR: This is a valuable tool that helps businesses build, maintain, and improve brand image in customers’ minds.
- Implement automation: In digital marketing, brands must automate repetitive tasks and well-manage multi-channel campaigns to fast grow.
Implement promotion campaigns to let customers know about the brand
People
When it comes to 7Ps in service marketing or product marketing, the people factor is important. People should be the focus and goal of all marketing forms. "People" here refers to customers and personnel in your business.
The 7Ps model includes people who interact directly and indirectly with customers. A positive attitude and high professional ability will directly determine customer satisfaction. Therefore, employees must be well-trained through standard processes to provide a good experience for customers.
People are the premise and important goal of the 7Ps
Process
Businesses need to perform the following basic sales processes:
- Perform quick delivery to the place for every purchase.
- Provide protection for customers’ buying when problems arise during distribution.
- Take care of customers promptly through channels of business
- Offer reasonable solutions to retain unsatisfied customers
- Include a return and refund policy so that customers can feel more secure when buying
- Collect and evaluate customer feedback to improve products/services day by day
Sales process based on the 7Ps marketing mix
Physical Evidence
Physical evidence is the quality of the physical experience that a business provides to customers. These are the experiences of customers with elements such as products, stores, receipts, packaging, bags, or any items that can be seen and touched.
For retailers, physical evidence can be the official website that stores product photos, documents, and the agreement to sell.
The important role of the 7Ps in marketing
The 7Ps of marketing is a comprehensive marketing strategy for businesses. The model is present throughout processes from forming ideas to launching products.
The marketing mix helps businesses diversify customers, position brands, and create a distinct competitive advantage over competitors. Besides, the 7Ps model supports businesses to better adapt to the constant changes of the market, thereby creating stable and sustainable development.
The market research activities and R&D activities for new products in the 7Ps strategy help businesses understand the actual needs of the market. Therefore, businesses can organize activities to meet the needs of consumers.
In addition, through the 7Ps strategies, domestic consumers can easily access foreign products/services and vice versa. As a result, the products/services of Vietnamese businesses can have the opportunity to access the international market.
The 7Ps Marketing mix brings great benefits to businesses
How to apply the 7Ps model in marketing strategy
How to effectively apply the 7Ps of marketing in an actual business situation? Refer to this example of how Viindoo applies the 7Ps below.
Introduction stage
- Product: Analyse the financial capacity of target customers.
- Price: Target the customers who want to buy SaaS at the price of 4,000,000 VND/ 1 month
- Place: Market the product through the website
- Promotion: Select the most suitable promotion forms to reach customers
- People: Provide in-depth software training for consulting and customer care executives.
- Process: Grant access to SaaS services for small businesses
- Physical evidence: Conduct surveys about customers’ experience of using products/services and encourage customers to leave product reviews on the website.
Growth stage
- Product: Provide user-friendly products
- Price: Implement a free trial program for about a month
- Place: Consider providing support for Android/iOS
- Promotion: Deliver products to customers with highlighted advantages that customers are most interested in
- People: Recruit quickly and efficiently to ensure effective customer support in parallel with revenue growth
- Process: Provide portals for all retailers of business customers to use
- Physical evidence: Ensure that the Website has the SSL certificate
Maturity stage
- Product: Allow using products/services in multiple operating systems
- Price: Consider discounts to loyal users and business customers
- Place: Find out if customers want to buy the product in other distribution channels
- Promotion: Learn from competitors' promotion campaigns
- People: Recruit talent for businesses through Social Media
- Process: Support customers quickly 24/7
- Physical evidence: Present invoices smartly, and transparently that prominent brand
Decline stage
- Product: Satisfy the market demand very well and achieve higher quality than the leading competitors in the market.
- Price: Adjust product prices to match the market demand and maximize the target profit margin.
- Place: Optimize the user experience on the website with access allowance for multiple devices.
- Promotion: Measure the effectiveness of each marketing method and conduct promotion activities to better the strategy.
- People: Form the necessary qualities of employees to match the company's position.
- Process: Support multilingual features for international customers.
- Physical evidence: Build a reputable business in customers’ minds.
How to apply the 7Ps model in marketing strategy
Case studies of effective applying the 7Ps of Marketing
7Ps Marketing Strategy of Phuc Long
Product
Phuc Long's product is in strong development stage. The brand’s strategy of creating differentiated products from competitors helps Phuc Long gain significant customer trust.
Currently, Phuc Long offers two main products to the market.
- Finished tea and coffee products for export
- Directly served products include drinks at Phuc Long stores such as:
Drinks: Milk tea, coffee, herbal tea, etc.
Food: Bread, nuts and dried fruits like papaya and roasted cashews, etc.
Cakes: Coffee oreo cake, Croissant, Raisin Danish,...
Price
When implementing the 7Ps of marketing, Phuc Long builds a pricing strategy that prioritizes the adjustments to the most suitable selling price for each product. There are also special promotion programs for seasonal demand and special events to attract consumers.
Distribution (Place)
Phuc Long sells products in big cities in Vietnam through main distribution channels including store branches, online sales channels, and e-commerce channels.
Promotion
Phuc Long promotes products mainly through social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram to stimulate customers to buy. In particular, Phuc Long constantly sets up discount strategies for some of its products, along with gifts when customers buy combos.
The brand also attracts attention from customers by hiring YouTubers and reviewers to review their new products through channels such as Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, etc.
People
At Phuc Long, the people element in the 7Ps model is shown as follows:
- Train employees in complying with the standard process. Employees should have a good attitude, always be cheerful and enthusiastic to customers, and perform work quickly to minimize waiting time.
- Ensure solidarity among staff, togetherly promote the development of the F&B industry.
- Build a Customer care Department to respond to feedback and complaints from customers, via hotline or direct mail. From there, Phuc Long can solve all customers’ problems, quickly appease customers, and maintain the prestige of the brand.
Process
Currently, Phuc Long has built 2 manufacturing plants in Binh Duong and Lam Dong. Besides, Phuc Long has covered almost all the big cities in Vietnam, presenting in more than 60 stores in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Bien Hoa, Can Tho, Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Hanoi.
Physical Evidence
At Phuc Long, every process is transparent from ingredients to served drinks, cakes, etc. The sales process is also standardized in order to best serve customers.
7Ps Marketing Strategy of Phuc Long
7Ps Marketing Strategy of McDonald’s
Product
McDonald's serves fast food such as burgers, sandwiches, fries, fried chicken, snacks and side dishes, desserts and drinks, Double Cheeseburger, McCafé Frappé Mocha, etc.
Price
The pricing strategy of McDonald's is offering competitive prices based on their value to customers. Meanwhile, franchisees can set prices that are suitable to the local market.
Distribution (Place)
McDonald's implements different distribution strategies in different countries. In some countries, McDonald's offers also home delivery. Some McDonald's stores are open 24 hours a day to serve customers.
Promotion
McDonald's conducts promotions on television, in newspapers and magazines, via the Internet, etc. to get closer to customers. McDonald's customers who buy six cups of tea/coffee and collect six stickers will receive an extra free cup of tea/coffee. Besides, the store regularly offers free gifts and coupons for certain products.
Process
The product preparation process at McDonald's is focused. Customers can see the food preparation process at McDonald's.
People
McDonald's always strives to solve problems related to both their customers and their employees to meet the needs of all.
Physical Evidence
The layout and interior of a McDonald's store match the brand identity. Besides, food hygiene and safety are top priorities at McDonald's.
7Ps Marketing Strategy of McDonald’s
Through this article, it can be seen that the application of the 7Ps of marketing helps make a comprehensive business promotion plan. When well implementing the model, businesses will soon improve performance and increase efficiency. Hopefully, the article by Viindoo can support businesses to know more about the model.
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