The 14 Ps of Mixed Media Marketing - Part 14

Performance
The most important indicator in marketing is, of course, performance. After planning and implementing your marketing strategy; you should determine how well it performed. Monitoring your marketing performance will help you tune your marketing into the future. It is crucial to more effective and efficient marketing.

The key area that you should monitor in a mixed media marketing campaign is the placements. If the message has been distributed properly and has reached your target audience, then the placement has performed well. Poorly performing placements will not reach your audience. This comes with precision. The more precise your placements are, the more efficient your marketing will be. If your marketing is being wasted on those who are not at all interested in your offer then it will not perform.

Invest marketing into a product that serves the market’s needs. Any advertiser can bring prospects to learn about your product and make enquires, but you will have a difficult time selling if the product does not live up to its expectations. Performance must also be measured by actual sales in volume (units) and value ($) or ROI (profit).

Promotion can be measured in coverage, visits, impressions, clicks, enquires and actions. If you reach the anticipated numbers in any of these areas, then your promotion has been successful in that respect, regardless of sales. If the sales are low, then you need to tune your marketing. It could be the messages, placements, people, price, brand personality or environmental factors that are preventing people from buying. Continue doing market research so you can identify what needs to be improved.

The 14 Ps of Mixed Media Marketing - Part 13

Processes
To get anything to work in the way you want it, you must follow a process. Although all of these Ps of marketing require their own process, the process behind organizing the promotion, setting the price and deciding the best placements can take a lot of research. Getting these things right is important. You may not get them perfect from the onset, which is why pliability is needed. They may need change depending on the rest of your marketing mix.

Finding the right messages and deciding the presentation of your promotion is a consuming process. What are the most effective messages? What is the best way to communicate it? This requires research and trialing with the market.

What price should you charge? What does the research say? What value does the market see in your offer? Study the consumer behavior around the pricing perceptions of your product and what consumers expect to be buying; are you a quality, fast or low-cost solution or a combination. How are you going to price for your product’s benefits? This is a process.

As your research your audience, you will find the best places to market your offer. Finding placements is a process. What might sound suitable, may not give you the results you expected. There could be issues with your message or the placement. Online placements are faster to test because the results are almost immediate and adjustments can be made quickly and at no cost.

This is where marketing pliability comes in. Processes in mixed media marketing are used to fine-tune your marketing. Establish a method to improve your marketing, one thing at a time so you can see the difference each change makes.

The 14 Ps of Mixed Media Marketing - Part 12

Permission
This is very important P in online marketing. “Permission marketing” is a term used to describe the process where customers signup to receive e-newsletters. It is usually a reference to email marketing. However, permission is needed in all forms of effective marketing. You need some form of permission to get your message in front of the customer and another permission to get into the mind of the customer. With full permission, customers actually want to receive your message and are therefore, more willing to respond.

So how do you get this permission? Permission is a result of targeted advertising. Email marketing is the best example because the customer has decided that they want to know more about your product. Displaying your ad or having your message in places where your target market is (both online and offline) is a form of permission.

Think trade shows. People come to your industry tradeshow because they want to get information about that industry. You are in the place where your market expects you to be. It would be inappropriate to have a typical financial services ad on a children’s TV channel. It is equally unexpected to promote toys using financial keywords in Google AdWords. According to the customer, you are not permitted there. Only messages that are relevant to the audience are allowed in that space. This is where mass marketing falls short; it cannot be targeted enough. People switch off ads unless it is relevant and interesting to them.

Your message has to be acceptable to your audience. Analyze their personas, their values and beliefs. This will determine it’s appeal and if people will respond. The way you gain permission will need to be pliable; one appeal will not work for everybody. You may need several approaches, each targeted to different personas and people. Get permission through your promotion so your message will be accepted by your market.