MARKETING PRINCIPLES AND STRATEGIES

Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating
relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of
the primary components of business management and commerce.

7 Key Marketing Principles

Here are 7 Key Principles to Answer Questions like “How Do I Get More Customers?” and “What Can I
Do to Grow My Business?”

Implement these 7 Key Principles into a working system in your business to generate more leads,
referrals, and sales.

1) Strategy before tactics – Create a marketing strategy first, and THEN build your marketing activities
around this core strategy. Your marketing strategy must begin with a narrow definition of your perfect
client and then communicating your key points of difference from your competitors. Stop trying to be all
things to everyone. Concentrate your efforts on a small, niche market and with a focus on becoming the
dominant player. (read Strategy Before Tactics. Always!)

2) Narrow market focus – Stop trying to be all things to everyone. Focus your marketing strategy and
tactics on a small, niche market and become the dominant player.

3) Differentiate – Find and communicate a hook that allows your prospects to easily see how your firm is
different from everyone else in the industry. (read The Form Factor)

4) Marketing materials should educate – No one likes to be sold to. Create information products,
websites and other forms of communications that allow your prospects to fully appreciate your
expertise.

5) Orchestrate the lead generation trio – A comprehensive business marketing strategy will have a fully
functioning lead generation system in place. A large portion of your leads can originate as referrals, but
by adding advertising and public relations to your system, you amplify your efforts in each. When a
prospect comes into contact with your advertising message, reads about your new product in a trade
journal, and then gets invited to your educational workshop by their accountant, they’ve practically sold
themselves.
6) Create a total online presence – Since the majority of purchase decisions made today involve some
amount of research online, it’s simply not enough to have just a website. Today’s business must be
easily found online, easily engaged, and easy to communicate with. This requires a major focus on
search engine optimization and social media participation. (see How to Create a Total Online Presence)

7) Live by a business marketing calendar – The best way to move your marketing strategy forward is to
create a calendar and schedule marketing activities every single day, week, and month.

Understanding the 4 Ps
Neil Borden popularized the idea of the marketing mix—and the concepts that would later be known
primarily as the four Ps—in the 1950s. Borden was an advertising professor at Harvard University, and
his 1964 article "The Concept of the Marketing Mix" demonstrated the ways that companies could and
do use advertising tactics to engage consumers.

Borden's ideas were influential for many in the business world. The ideas were developed and refined
over a number of years. In particular, they were encapsulated by E. Jerome McCarthy, who narrowed
them down to the idea of the "4 Ps," a term that is still used today. E. Jerome McCarthy was a marketing
professor at Michigan State who popularized the term "the 4 Ps" in the 1960 book he co-wrote, Basic
Marketing: A Managerial Approach.

Before the internet and greater integration between businesses and consumers, the marketing mix
helped companies account for the physical barriers that prevented widespread product adoption.
Extensions of the Ps include people, process, and physical evidence as important components of
marketing a product. All of these concepts are still put to use in marketing today.

How the Four Ps Work

The 1st P: Product

Product refers to a good or service that a company offers to customers. Ideally, a product should fulfill a
certain consumer demand or be so compelling that consumers believe they need to have it. To be
successful, marketers need to understand the life cycle of a product, and business executives need to
have a plan for dealing with products at every stage of their life cycles. The type of product also partially
dictates how much businesses can charge for it, where they should place it, and how they should
promote it in the marketplace.
The 2nd P: Price

Price is the cost consumers pay for a product. Marketers must link the price to the product's real and
perceived value, but they also must consider supply costs, seasonal discounts, and competitors' prices.
In some cases, business executives may raise the price to make a product seem more like a luxury or
lower the price so more consumers can try the product.

Marketers also need to determine when and if discounting is appropriate. A discount can sometimes
draw in more customers, but it can also give the impression of the product being less exclusive or less of
a luxury than when it is at a higher price.

The 4 Ps are used by businesses to identify key factors such as what consumers want from them, how
their product or service meets or fails to meet those needs, how their product or service is perceived in
the world, how they stand out from their competitors, and how they interact with their customers.

The 3rd P: Place

Place decisions outline where a company sells a product and how it delivers the product to the market.
The goal of business executives is to get their products in front of the consumers most likely to buy
them.

In some cases, this may refer to placing a product in certain stores, but it also refers to the product's
placement on a store's display. In some cases, placement may refer to the act of placing a product on TV
shows, films or web pages to garner attention for the product, but this placement overlaps with the
promotion.

The 4th P: Promotion

Promotion includes advertising, public relations, and promotional strategy. This ties into the other three
Ps of the marketing mix as promoting a product shows consumers why they need it and should pay a
certain price for it. In addition, marketers tend to tie promotion and placement elements together so
they can reach their core audiences.

For example, In the digital age, the "place" and "promotion" factors are as much online as offline.
Specifically, where a product appears on a company's web page or social media, as well as which types
of search functions trigger corresponding, targeted ads for the product.
What is Customer Relationship ?

In CRM the alphabet ‘R’ means relationship. But there is always an ambiguity to understand the actual
meaning of this relationship. This relationship between supplier and customer is not a personal
relationship or a one-time transaction relationship; for example buying a refrigerator from a consumer’s
outlet would not be called as a relationship.

Relationship between any two parties is actually the interaction or transaction done between the two
over-times or consists of a continuous series of synergistic episode of interaction many a times. This
relationship only exists when the two parties diverge from a state of autonomy to mutual or
interdependent. Occasionally having a cup of tea from a café does not mean that there is a relationship.
If the customer returns to the café and orders the same tea again because he likes the environment and
taste or the method of making tea, more looks like a relationship.

Relationship with customers can change from time to time because it is evolved under distinguished
situations. Following are the stages from where the relationship with customers can evolve-

Exploration- Exploration is the process when customer investigates or tests the supplier’s capabilities
and performance or cross verifies the product’s or brand’s usefulness. If the test results fail to satisfy
customer’s demands, the relationship can drastically come to an end.

Awareness- Awareness is the process when the customer understands the motivational values of
supplier or the products he sells.

Expansion- Expansion is the process when the supplier wins customer’s faith and customer falls under
huge interdependence of the supplier. This is time when there are more chances of business with that
particular customer and expand business.

Commitment- Commitment is a powerful stage when suppliers learn to adapting business rules and goal
to excel.

Dissolution- Dissolution is a stage when customer requirement suddenly changes and he looks for better
perspectives. This sudden change is the end of relationship.

Relationship can come to an end due to many reasons like - customer is not satisfied with the services of
supplier or customer diverges to other better brands and products. Suppliers can also prefer to break
relationships due to customer failing to be a part to increase sales volume or when the suppliers are
entangled with fraud cases.
Broadly there can be two distinguished attributes of a developed relationship between supplier and
customer:

Trust: Trust means confidence and security in any relationship and can be treated as the biggest
investment in building long term relationships. Trust is developed between the two parties when they
experience flawless and satisfied motives between each other. As a result of knowing more about each
other, all the doubts and risks are minimized and leads to inevitably smooth business. Lack of trust on
the other hand weakens the relationship foundation and chances of uncertainty and conflicts increases.

Commitment: Commitment is yet another milestone that should be achieved to set a long term mutual
relationship. Commitment can only be attained when there is mutual trust and the two parties share
each other’s values. In a committed relationship both suppliers and customers strive to uphold the
relationship and never want to exit which in turn results in building the relationship stronger and
sharper. There is, in fact, huge cost which is incurred in switching from committed relationships of one
supplier and build new relationships with other suppliers from scratch.

Relationship is always mutual or reciprocal so it is important for both supplier and customers to stick to
common guideline to attain better relationship among each other. There is lot of involvement of cost,
efforts and time in striving developed relationships between the two parties but the outcome is always
inevitable.

Different Types of Customers

Customers play the most significant part in business. In fact the customer is the actual boss in a deal and
is responsible for the actually profit for the organization. Customer is the one who uses the products and
services and judges the quality of those products and services. Hence it’s important for an organization
to retain customers or make new customers and flourish business. To manage customers, organizations
should follow some sort of approaches like segmentation or division of customers into groups because
each customer has to be considered valuable and profitable.

Customers can be of following types:

Loyal Customers- These types of customers are less in numbers but promote more sales and profit as
compared to other customers as these are the ones which are completely satisfied. These customers
revisit the organization over times hence it is crucial to interact and keep in touch with them on a
regular basis and invest much time and effort with them. Loyal customers want individual attention and
that demands polite and respectful responses from supplier.
Discount Customers- Discount customers are also frequent visitors but they are only a part of business
when offered with discounts on regular products and brands or they buy only low cost products. More is
the discount the more they tend towards buying. These customers are mostly related to small industries
or the industries that focus on low or marginal investments on products. Focus on these types of
customers is also important as they also promote distinguished part of profit into business.

Impulsive Customers- These customers are difficult to convince as they want to do the business in urge
or caprice. They don’t have any specific item into their product list but urge to buy what they find good
and productive at that point of time. Handling these customers is a challenge as they are not particularly
looking for a product and want the supplier to display all the useful products they have in their tally in
front of them so that they can buy what they like from that display. If impulsive customers are treated
accordingly then there is high probability that these customers could be a responsible for high
percentage of selling.

Need Based Customers- These customers are product specific and only tend to buy items only to which
they are habitual or have a specific need for them. These are frequent customers but do not become a
part of buying most of the times so it is difficult to satisfy them. These customers should be handled
positively by showing them ways and reasons to switch to other similar products and brands and
initiating them to buy these. These customers could possibly be lost if not tackled efficiently with
positive interaction.

Wandering Customers- These are the least profitable customers as sometimes they themselves are not
sure what to buy. These customers are normally new in industry and most of the times visit suppliers
only for confirming their needs on products. They investigate features of most prominent products in
the market but do not buy any of those or show least interest in buying. To grab such customers they
should be properly informed about the various positive features of the products so that they develop a
sense of interest.

An organization should always focus on loyal customers and should expand or multiply the product
range to leverage impulsive customers. For other types of customers strategies should be renovated and
enhanced for turning out these customers to satisfy their needs and modify these types of customers to
let them fall under loyal and impulsive category.

The 16 Customer service skills of great customer service agents

Scale operations

Team efficiency

Customer Service Skills You Need

Customer service involves much more than answering questions over the phone. Responding to tickets
through email, live chat, and social media are equally important communication channels for customers.
While there's plenty of overlap in the customer service skills required to do a great job, each customer
service channel benefits from a unique approach to these skills.
For example, there are important customer service skills associated with phone support, such as
empathy, the ability to “read” a customer’s emotional state, clear communication, and friendliness. But
things emotional cues are much harder to read in writing, so additional customer service skills for newer
customer-facing channels need to be developed and improved upon (in order to make those channels
more viable for customers).

Whether you’re interviewing or brushing up your customer service skills for your resume, it’s good to
remember that most customer support managers aren't just interviewing for technical skills. They'll be
looking for team members that can demonstrate real customer service skills.

The following examples are the good customer service skills that all customer service professionals strive
to master:

1. Smile, literally

Smiles translate through the phone but should be used at appropriate times. You don't want your
customer service to come off as inauthentic, but you should still always be cordial during conversations.
Smile as you would in a face-to-face conversation while responding to questions and conveying
necessary information.

2. Mirror a customer's’ language and tone

Part of the job in customer service is mirroring a customer's language and tone. Mirroring another
person’s language and tone can help create a connection. That said, if a customer is angry, you don’t
want to copy their frustration. Instead, you can try increasing your volume just a little and then quickly
work to bring the intensity down a notch. Customers respond well when the help they're receiving is
coming from someone who's clearly level-headed.

3. Listen first, then validate the problem

When customers are upset or frustrated, they might not be able to take in what you say—even if it’s the
right answer. Listen first, let them calm down, and then try to help solve their problems. Empathy is a
crucial ability in customer service, so make sure you know exactly what you're showing empathy
towards.

4. Acknowledge the customer

Customers need to feel heard, so tell them that you understand the reason for their call. They'll
appreciate the touch of empathy and it'll go a long way towards making an angry customer's experience
much better. Customer service that accurately recognizes what ails the customer comes off as more
human and reflects well on the company.

5. Summarize your help

You’ve got to listen to a customer's problems in order to repeat information to them with supportive
language, and do so in a way that summarizes the help that you’re providing them. Being able to
adequately communicate all that you’re doing to help is a top job skill for customer service agents.

6. Communicate hold times

Even if you’ve just handled a call really well, you can lose a customer by leaving them on hold for too
long. This is especially true if you haven’t set their expectations first—it will make them feel like their
questions don't matter, and ultimately reflects poorly on your customer service and your company's
reputation.

7. Use templates, not boilerplates

For efficient customer service, you’ll want to use templates that include some pre-written text. At
Zendesk, we call them macros. Templates are like guidelines—they shouldn't be overly rigid and
unwavering, but can provide a helpful structure for common responses (like a list for step-by-step
responses). Even though the whole team can use it, you’ll want to personalize your own answer before
replying to customers. This leads to a more personal interaction (and a more fulfilling customer service
job).

8. Make a template your own (with a personal spin)

It’s okay to use your own voice and approach when providing customer service, even as you reflect your
company’s persona and philosophies. Think about how you might make your own signature unique or
consider different ways to close the email depending on the tone and resolution of the interaction.