It has been 50 years since Kotler, who is considered the "father" of marketing, laid the foundations of this field. Over the years a lot has changed. New technologies and new communication channels emerge constantly, and even AI algorithms have become more efficient in each new year. In the marketing environment and beyond, there are discussions about if and or when marketers will be replaced by machines.

There is, however, one constant in all of this - the marketing process.

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In this episode, you will learn what the marketing process is and how to design it specific for your business.

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The marketing process consists in systematically (sys-tem-ma-tic-ly) identifying the opportunities offered by the market, setting specific goals leading to the development of the company and defining a detailed plan that allows you to achieve these goals.

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The marketing process is aimed at preparing and carrying out marketing activities in such a way that they fulfill the mission that the company has set for itself once the business starts. It includes a set of various activities that ensures the implementation of the company's specific intentions for the market. It’s also something that shows the company's vision.

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You will find a ton of different articles on the Internet that describe this process in a very similar way. Personally, for many years I have been a fan of this scheme prepared by Paweł Krzemiński and Jacek Lipski, based on the book by Alvin J. Silek "What is Marketing"

( The 5C’s analysis)

Without wasting any more time, let’s move on to the first step -  The 5C’s marketing analysis.

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If you want to meet the needs of customers and make a little money as well (because that's what it's all about!), first you need to understand the external and internal situation of the market - the customer, the business environment, and the possibilities of your business. You even need to be able to anticipate trends in an ever-changing market.

The 5C’s Marketing Analysis will help you with that. Each of the 5 Cs is a key area that you need to include in your strategy. The 5C’s are company, customers, collaborators, competitors, and context.

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(1st C- company)

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The first "C" of marketing analysis is the company. Before you start analyzing any external factors, take a look at how well prepared your company is to meet the expectations of your audience.

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A great tool you should use at this point for internal analysis of the company and its environment is the SWOT analysis.

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The name of the method is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, & threats.

The analysis of the strengths of the organization should cover at least the following areas of activity:

• knowledge and human resources,
• logistics, production, technology, research, and development,
• sales and customer service 
• finance and development ability,
• management and the tools as part of the implementation of business processes.

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The weaknesses of the organization are internal-negative factors. They are also associated with all other areas of operation that limit the efficiency of its operation and react to changing customer requirements and the activities of the competition.

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Opportunities (positive external) - these are all existing or anticipated processes, phenomena (fəˈnɒmɪna) and trends occurring in the environment of the organization, which, when properly used, can become an impulse for its development and help to reduce the impact of possible emerging threats,

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Threats (external negative) - these are all processes, phenomena, and trends occurring in the environment of the organization, which constitute or may constitute a barrier to the development of the organization, hinder its functioning, increase operating costs, or may lead to the collapse of the enterprise.

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As a result of the analysis, four independent lists of factors are obtained, for example, the strengths of the organization (which should be strengthened), weaknesses (which should be eliminated), opportunities (which should be used), and threats (which should be avoided).

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But listing it and creating a nice table does not mean the end of the work. The next step is to divide the strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats into priorities, describing them as high, low, and medium, and in turn discarding those elements that have the "low" status.

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Then we cross strengths with weaknesses and opportunities with threats and consider:

- How do strengths translate into opportunities to pursue opportunities?

- How do strengths translate into threats?

- Which strengths and weaknesses can be related to each other?

- Which opportunities and threats can be related to each other?

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Only after such a deep analysis can you confidently say that the SWOT is ready and you are ready to move on to the next step.

(2nd C - competitors)

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No company works in a void. Regardless of whether you run a one-person store or a larger company, you and your products are always judged against the competition.

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If you want any chance to stand out, you need to have an idea of ​​who your competitors are, what their position is in the market, what are their advantages over you, plus how they attract customers.

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Again, a SWOT analysis will help. Due to the fact that you and your competitors operate in the same market, the opportunities and threats will be the same for you. By selecting the top 3 competitors, you can prepare a comparative analysis and see which strengths gain importance when you compare yourself with the competition, and which weaknesses become Achilles' (uh-ki-leez) heel.

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Only by learning as much as possible about your competitors can you find a way to fill a market gap and uniquely position your product so that no one else can match you.

(3rd C - customers)

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Customers are the soul of your business. You should know them better than yourself - where they live, how old they are, their income, level of education, and what their needs and desires are.

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If you can understand your customers, what they need and to what extent your product meets their expectations, your brand will become much more effective.

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When analyzing the 2nd C, try to consider the following:

• who is your ideal customer
• which group is currently buying your products
• what is the reaction of your customers to your website and your products
• what attracts customers to your product (price, quality, uniqueness, benefits, etc.)

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A great tool that you should use when analyzing your customers is a persona or Customer Value Canva, a link to which can be found in the video description.

(4th C- collaborator)

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There are several people you work with as part of your business routine.

They are: 

• Suppliers
• Distributors
• Providers of services and tools necessary to run a business
• Partners and investors
  
  

If you want to be in control of your marketing activities, you need to plan your entire supply chain considering each of your collaborators.

(5th C - context)

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Context is the 5th C, and analyzing context means checking any external factors or changes that may affect the way your business operates or the likely behavior of the market.

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It can be something as specific as the current laws and regulations in your industry, or something less specific such as social and industry trends, emerging technologies that may have an impact or even global events that are completely beyond your control.

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For context analysis, you can use the PEST analysis or its extended version, PESTEL analysis.

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PEST analysis consists of political, economic, social, and technological factors.

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PESTEL is an expanded analysis, however, and includes:

• political factors: tax policy, trade regulation, unemployment policy, etc.
• economic factors: inflation rate, interest rate, retirement rate, etc.
• socio-cultural factors: values, beliefs, religion, education, etc.
• technological factors: social media, internet, research, and development, etc.
• environmental factors: waste disposal, energy consumption, pollution etc.
• Legal status: labor law, advertising regulations, product safety, etc.

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Once you’ve dealt with the 5, C analysis, it means you’re ready for the holy trinity of marketing - STP.

What is STP?

The abbreviation STP is made up of the first letters of words: segmenting, targeting, and positioning.

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This process allows you - step by step: 

• First, to identify your diverse customer groups (I’ll call this segmentation).
• Second, focus on serving selected segments (this is targeting).
• And third, make your offer stand out from the competition (this is positioning).

(segmentation)

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The first element is segmentation, to dive in a little more it is dividing the market into smaller segments of potential customers. They may share similar needs, demographics, or behavioral characteristics. For example, we can identify consumers of similar age, living in a specific city, or making frequent and expensive purchases.

When segmenting, it is worth remembering a few rules that will make the identified segments useful in the next activities of the organization:

• First of all, the segments must be measurable. Measurable is important because we need to be able to estimate the size of the group we want to reach with a specific message and the product.
• Customer segments should also be diverse - each of them should be different from the others.
• The third important feature is the availability of segments. 

(targeting)

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The second step in an STP marketing strategy is targeting. It is an assessment of the attractiveness of the segments that we identified in the previous stage and the selection of one or more of them as the target market of the organization.

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This is an extremely important stage of the entire process, one that will determine how many resources the company will need to devote in order to reach potential customers.

(positioning)

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After selecting the target market, the final stage of the STP strategy is positioning, often associated with SEO, but in this strategy, positioning is creating the image of the product in the minds of customers.

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The purpose of this process is to build in the minds of selected consumers that the product differs positively from the competition and provoke the need for purchase in these potential customers.

Let’s leave theory behind us, now I would like to show you the STP process in the example of Shack Up Inn. Shack Up Inn is rated # 1 B&B on Tripadvisor with a Certificate of Excellence, and returning guests have expressed their satisfaction in reviews - "Amazing, authentic experience!" "Unforgettable!" 

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What is behind their success? A very thoughtful STP process.

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Shack Up Inn’s owners segmented their market according to what groups of customers visit them - and among them are - locals, foreign tourists, students, and tourists from the USA, mainly families with children. And at first glance, these segments seem to be perfect.

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• locals will be encouraged to visit because they have the Shack Up Inn at their fingertips,
• students will have a high LTV because they usually spend a large part of their budget on fun and entertainment,
• parents with kids who come to Texas from other places in the states, 
• foreign tourists come to music festivals, there are tons of in the USA, and an atmospheric place full of the blues like the Shack Up Inn will be a great experience for music lovers.

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After analyzing there are things that stand out - Three of the four “segments” they were targeting weren't really their intended target group at all. 

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Guess which ones? 

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It turns out that the students ended up just ruining everything after staying, as one of the owners mentioned and determined that people under 25 aren’t allowed to stay. 

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The next group was the locals. As it turned out, in their local Texas town, they caused a lot of problems for the owners. To discourage them from staying at the Shack Up Inn, the owners raised the prices significantly higher than neighboring establishments. 

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So they deliberately cut off the two most profitable segments.

The third group was parents with children, tourists from other parts of the USA, why? 

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Imagine a raw interior with an atmosphere that has with rusty tools, and rough wooden elements - the quintessence (kwuhn·teh·sns) of Texas, which we know from movies with great blues music, and now tell me if this is a place suitable for children?

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An ideal place for foreign tourists and music lovers, but kids? not really.

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All marketing activities handled by Shack Up Inn were and are focused on reaching the target group. Shack Up Inn does not spend much on advertising - as one of the owners says - they advertise where it is profitable, on target markets. You won't find Shack Up Inn on Social Media - unbelievable, huh? If it appears there, it is only on the walls of satisfied customers who are willing to share their experiences and recommendations.

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So how do they position themselves in the minds of their clients? As “The Ritz we ain't. We are the oldest B&B - that’d be Bed & Beer - in existence ”.

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That's right, Shack Up Inn created their own class, bed & beer, and they position themselves in it. So they took advantage of the right of category - if you cannot be the first in a given category, choose one in which you will be first.

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(The 4Ps of Marketing)

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If we have correctly conducted the 5Cs analysis and the STP process is the next step, designing a marketing mix will be a piece of cake.

Although Philip Kotler is considered to be a kind of "father of marketing", Edmund Jerome McCarthy is responsible for creating the most popular concept of the 4Ps today.

The 4Ps of marketing, or “Marketing Mix” consists of four concepts - product (product), price (price), place (distribution) and promotion (promotion).

As you may have noticed, the 4P Concept includes marketing instruments from the point of view of the company, not the customer. That is why, in 1990, Robert Lauterborn developed the 4C marketing formula, including the same elements as the classic 4P, but seen through the eyes of the consumer.

And personally, as a longtime marketer, I am a huge fan of this client-centric approach.

Marketing 4Cs consists of four elements. The first is the customer, i.e. the customer himself. His needs, motivations, and goals are placed at the center of attention.

The second element of the model is cost. It is the price for the product but seen from the customer's perspective - as the expenditure that must be incurred, not the sum of money that the company will receive in return for the purchase.

The third element is convenience. It is about looking at the aspect of product distribution through the eyes of the customer, offering them a product or service in the most convenient place and time and providing them with trouble-free access to information about the product.

And last but not least - Communication, the equivalent of the classic "promotion".

In the 4Cs Marketing, the brand puts emphasis not so much on informing the client, but on building a deeper relationship with them, through communication activities.

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The next steps, as you can see in the diagram, result from the analysis carried out earlier - considering how we will acquire our customers and build relationships with them, and how we will maintain these relationships so that they stay with us as long as possible, generate profit, and build a brand.

But how will we be sure that the marketing process is going well? This includes checking the effects, i.e. testing the effectiveness of the activities carried out. Based on reports and analyzes, we are able to determine to what extent the steps taken by us have brought us closer to the planned implementation. We can also estimate which tools turned out to be the most effective. The conclusions will help us modify the currently implemented plan, as well as help in creating new strategies.

That's it for this episode. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you will use this scheme or have already used it in your business.

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