The 4 “P’s” of marketing

by Chris Nicely

Everyone should have a working understanding of the 4 "P’s" of marketing – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Sometimes people even sneak in a fifth "P" – People – also very important.

There is no argument that the "P’s" are fundamental to your success.

Having the right product, that will attract and possibly a different product the prospect will buy. Here let's understand product can be actual goods, services or both.

Have the product priced right allowing you to make a profit and continue in business, which includes providing the proper level of customer service following the sale.

Being in the right place at the right time – having a location accessible and attractive to invite the prospect.

The proper level of promotion that helps the prospects find you, without wasting precious monies.

Combining the above with the right people - representing the product and a market ready and able to buy from your manufactured housing or factory built home focused enterprise – you should expect success.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to make the "P’s" work for you.

Consider my alternate 4 "P’s". Practical Planning Produces Profit.

Simply put, develop plans that make sense for you and your team. Your team may be focused on the retail manufactured home customer, or on the business to business side of the industry, but either way, the fundamentals are critical to your success.

Understand the fundamentals of marketing, but create plans that work in your environment.

Practical planning and measuring results of the plan will determine whether that plan is worth renewing.

If it does not produce results – move on to the next idea. The key is to plan. No plan is a plan for failure. The adage "Build it and they will come," only works in the movies. Drive traffic to your business, store or community by developing easy to follow plans with all the steps required (in the order to be completed), to achieve the desired results.

Keep it simple.

I believe that if you can’t put your objectives on a single sheet of paper, you have too many. A practical marketing/sales plan should always begin with the defined objective. Example – Increase foot traffic to the location to 25 prospects on "X" weekend, producing 7 applications. Simple. This is a clear cut example of a simple objective that can be quantified and measured.

Without the objective, how do you know when you get there and whether you want to do it again?

Next, make a list of actions that must be completed and the date by which the action must be completed to maximize the potential for results. These should be steps that allow monitoring along the way to insure the team is staying on track.

Then make the assignments. Success is a team event and promotions, marketing, advertising, staging, curb appeal, web site development works better if the team is involved in its development.

Make assignments to members of the team. Choose according to the task and the individuals capability to execute (not always experience dictates who gets the assignment, there may be someone you want to grow – this is a great way to assess capabilities).

As the team leader you monitor results and fulfillment of responsibilities – are we going in the right direction.

Then measure. Everyone must count the response.

If the objective is to generate qualified phone calls – count them;

if it is to generate Internet leads – have them captured (Google Analytics or another reporting function); an onsite event – be sure to capture the traffic count, applications, etc.

To encourage the capture of information helping you evaluate the campaign, create a game of it for the team – a reward system seems to work best for getting buy in (usually it doesn’t take a huge amount to get people to have fun playing the game).

However, keep it simple, practical, easy to implement and execute. As you get more accustomed to the planning process, your efforts can become more robust and the reward will be more sales, more commissions, and more profit.

Understand the 4/5 "P’s" of fundamental marketing, but remember the important 4 "P’s" of success – Practical Planning Produces Profit.

By the way – I would be planning NOW to implement a campaign that will attract the retail home buyer getting back into the market on December 26 with the anticipation of their income tax refund.

There is pent up demand and over 50% of the new homes sold today are less than $200,000 (includes land and improvements).

What will you be doing to get your share EARLY of the millions of dollars that will be in the market? PLAN NOW for a final week in December kick off. # #

Chris Nicely has a broad spectrum of sales and marketing experience within the manufactured housing, building products and information industries. Recently as the vice president of marketing for Clayton Homes, Chris re-cast the public presence of Clayton with a new image, re-energized the web presence and presented the manufactured housing product to the general population with dramatic results. Member of the MHI image committee working with JD Power, and managing the discovery of what drives the MH buyer, Chris brings realistic, practical applications to drive results. He coaches others with tactics that produce RESULTS. A background in economics and business management, as well as leadership positions at national companies like Rubbermaid, Bell & Howell and Berkshire Hathaway gives Chris a base of experience in sales, marketing and management. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 9052 Legends Lake Lane Knoxville, TN 37922 865.385.9675