B2B has changed – the 4P’s don’t apply
Most marketers today know or knew of the 4Ps. They are the traditional marketing mix–product, place, price, and promotion. But these narrow views are increasingly battling with the essential need to deliver solutions.
In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Richard Ettenson, Eduardo Conrado, and Jonathan Knowles outline how B2B marketers need to adopt a new framework focused on solutions, access, value, and education–SAVE.
Having heard Eduardo, the SVP of Marketing and IT for Motorola Solutions, present how they transformed their marketing and in turn their company by utilizing the SAVE method, I wanted to share some of the key points from their article.
In a five-year study involving more than 500 managers and customers in multiple countries and across a wide range of B2B industries, they found that the 4P’s model undercuts B2B marketers in three important ways:
- It leads their marketing and sales teams to stress product technology and quality even though these are no longer differentiators but are simply the cost of entry.
- It underemphasizes the need to build a robust case for the superior value of their solutions.
- It distracts them from leveraging their advantage as a trusted source of diagnostics, advice, and problem solving.
Eduardo explained how Motorola Solutions used SAVE to guide the restructuring of its marketing organization and its go-to-market strategies in the government and enterprise sectors. Along the way the firm identified three requirements for successfully making the shift from 4 P’s thinking to SAVE.
- Management must encourage a solutions mind-set throughout the organization.
- Management needs to ensure that the design of the marketing organization reflects and reinforces the customer-centric focus.
- Management must create collaboration between the marketing and sales organizations and with the development and delivery teams.
Notice how all three of his points begin with Management. This type of fundamental shift must be embraced at the highest levels. Eduardo contributes a lot of success to the fact his CEO fully endorsed and supported this new way of thinking.
It also won’t happen overnight, but as marketers its our job, now more than ever, to help drive the company in new directions and to shape our message both internally and externally.
