While creating a business plan for your startup, you will come across the 5Ps – product, price, place, and promotion ‑ of marketing mix. This has been around for a while. However, in this digital era, it’s time for startups to think differently about their marketing mix if not to change it completely.
From my experience in the startup ecosystem, I have understood that startup marketing is an extension of classical marketing, but a subject on its own and largely unorganised. Although knowing the fundamentals of marketing is a must, it doesn’t hurt to add-on and improve the existing knowledge base to keep marketing relevant to our times. It is this fitment gap that prompted me to take a further look at what we should be doing as entrepreneurs and startup marketers. Whether you are fed up of the old ways or you want to embrace the new norm, you must start worrying more about the 5Vs of startup marketing mix. ValidityMost of us who have heard of lean startup are aware of how important the market validation is for a startup’s success. In my opinion, at a startup level, whether the customer wants the product or not is a fundamental question than what the customer wants from the product. At this stage, we should be concerned about finding out if the customer wants what we are offering than creating a detailed plan of product features, look and feel, or even its name for that matter. That’s where the fitment of 4Ps is questionable in this era, especially with respect to startup marketing. Following are few important questions that will help you chart an action plan to understand the validity of your offering, and you can instantly see the subtle differences with the 4Ps model.
VisibilityWhen I refer to visibility it entails visibility from a digital marketing perspective as well as visibility from a business model and strategy perspective. It has elements of retrospective performance assessment and also how well you are placed currently to anticipate future outcomes.
Over time, your retention curve should flatten out. If not, then you must investigate whether it is more expensive for you to acquire a user than quarterly revenue per user? If yes, then you should probably consider all options including pivoting or even a closing down if you are out of ideas on how to keep the startup alive (financially). ViralityThe 4P model relies on creating a promotional plan for advertisements and discounts but I find it unidirectional in this digital era, especially for startups. While ads and discounts are necessary, I don’t think they are sufficient. As entrepreneurs in the digital era, we should think more about creating evangelists.
VitalityWhether you are looking out for investment or grow organically, you must ensure that your startup has the vitality it requires to be successful. For me vitality of a startup comes from the following factors:
Case StudyI found an old but interesting article about Snapchat’s initial success. It would do a world of good if you can refer to that story and see how the 5Vs fit in there. ConclusionAs you may have noticed, unlike the 4P model, the 5V model is more dynamic and can be developed further based on the new information. I feel that it suits an agile startup of today better but it may not be able to take away the emphasis on marketing fundamentals. So, do your research but make sure you weigh in which approach works best for you. For example, for startups in an established category, the 4P model may work better as you should have sufficient market insights to create a stable plan. Source:https://yourstory.com/2016/12/the-5vs-of-startup-marketing-mix/
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Marcus Guiliano
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March 2020
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