I am currently reading Creating Customer Evangelists and it brings up some good points about the 4 “P’s” (Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion) not always having to be the focus of a companies’ marketing strategy. Does a good product sell itself? Should it? Let’s say you are a bank, what are you selling? You are selling service, support, and satisfaction, so basically, nothing truly tangible. So does a bank need to advertise? Probably not as much as other businesses. Why? Well banks are a good example of word of mouth advertising. People who use a bank and are pleased with it will basically advertise to their friends, coworkers, and family members about your bank, even if you do not have the best rates. So you basically get FREE customers by keeping your exsisting customer base happy. Easy enough right?
Service is the name of the game nowadays. However, there are still a lot of people who shop based solely on price (homogenous shoppers), so how do you reel them in? It’s a hard problem to solve because lowering your prices too low causes your product to look cheap.