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For decades, marketing has been guided by the “4Ps:” place, price, product and promotion. In light of massive changes in marketing technology, strategy, however, it’s time to update the 4Ps to reflect today’s marketing realities. 

In particular, personalization, which has become a crucial marketing tactic, is more of a challenge due to legislative efforts such as the GDPR and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act).

Today’s marketers should consider the new 4Ps:

• Privacy. This became a major issue for consumers in the wake of massive data breaches in recent years, such as Cambridge Analytica, Equifax and many others. Regulatory efforts like GDPR and CCPA pose challenges to marketers. Cookies, once the king of data collection tactics, are going the way of the dodo bird. Marketers must find better, more effective ways of accumulating customer data while staying within the bounds of regulatory constraints.
• Personalization. Consumers are flooded with marketing messages, and those messages that aren’t pertinent to the individual consumer are immediately discarded. Marketers turn to personalized messages to capture consumer attention. When done right, personalization can improve customer experience, engagement and loyalty, while decreasing acquisition costs and improving revenue.
• Permission. The best data is data that comes directly from the consumer. Third-party data sources are often unreliable and using that data can erode consumer trust. By obtaining advance permission from consumers to collect their data, marketers can stay within regulatory boundaries while obtaining reliable data to craft personalized messages. Keep in mind that consumers are aware their data is valuable to marketers and will expect some type of quid pro quo for giving up their information.
• Performance. All the marketing efforts in the world are meaningless if they don’t produce results. Yet, marketers often find it difficult to measure results of their campaigns. KPIs matter. But which KPIs matter most? Here are some suggestions:
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV). This metric can provide insight into future profits, thus indicating which customers offer the most engagement and spending potentials.
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS). This metric is an indication of an organization’s performance with customer experience. It can help in measuring customer loyalty. Eliminating pain points in the customer journey can help to improve NPS.
  • Customer repeat rate. This metric provides insight into customer loyalty and experience.