The 5th “P” of Marketing

The 5th “P” of Marketing

If you have ever read any books on marketing you are no doubt familiar with the 4 –“P’s” of Marketing – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. When combined correctly, these 4 elements can have a tremendous impact on your bottom line, but NONE of them are anywhere near as effective as the never mentioned 5th “P”. Every company struggles with it, and most would confess it is what holds them back from achieving success in their marketing. What is this elusive 5th “P”?

Productivity

It’s all well and good to have a sound plan or system on paper, but it is another to put those plans into action and then to maintain those activities on a consistent basis.

Because so many business owners remain the key rainmaker for their organization and still carry out a ton of the work, non-time-sensitive activities, like marketing tend to fall to the wayside.

Let me ask you this. If you were meeting with a new prospective customer to work on a sizable proposal, would you miss the meeting because the printer needs fixing or you have a ton of emails in your inbox? Of course not!

It’s time to consider marketing your biggest client. It does, after all, bring in more money than any other one activity, yet we constantly put it aside for less important issues. Want to make a big difference in your business? Then start keeping your appointments with your marketing. Here’s how you can harness the 5th “P”

1. Make Appointments With Your Marketing – In your calendar, set aside consistent meetings with Mr. Marketing. Try 1 hour a day at least 3 days a week for a start. Now don’t break these appointments.

2. Minimize Distractions – Turn Notifications off on your Email, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, close the door to your office and remain productive for one hour. After all if you were in a meeting with a client, you wouldn’t be answering emails, phone calls or questions from staff or family members!

3. Make a Priority List – I like to create a list in Excel and then next to each item I rank it first by priority (1 is high and 3 is low), and then by the amount of time it takes (.1hrs, 3 hours or 40 hours). Now multiply these two columns and sort your task from those with the lowest to the highest. For big tasks, you might want to break them down to smaller tasks so they get started and don’t remain too far down your list, especially if they are a high priority.

4. Create a Weekly Task List – of everything you want to accomplish that week so that when you sit down you know what it is you’re working on.

5. Too much on your plate? Then ask yourself, can you outsource this to someone else, and is it really that important right now. Remove those items that others can do or that can be delayed with little detriment, to a later date.

6. Be Held Accountable – who do you have to hold you accountable on your marketing? Face it – we all work best to hard deadlines. Choose an accountability partner, or of course you can always enroll in one of our courses!