General Frameworks for Marketing
A few years back I interviewed with a tech company. The interviewer asked me the following question: A company is about to open a fashion store on the high street; how would you go about marketing this? In trying to answer the question, I realized I didn't have a usable framework, a general framework for all Marketing problems. Somehow I've never found the "4P's" (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) framework all that helpful; it's a mnemonic device rather than a forcing function to clarify thinking.
What does a good framework look like? Hamilton Helmer's "7 Powers" framework for Strategy comes to mind. To paraphrase Helmer, a good framework must be Simple without being Simplistic. In other words, it must be practical without sacrificing too much rigour. With this background, let's look at a few general frameworks for marketing.
General Framework 1: The 6-point check-list
What's your product (or service)? What's your core offering, quality level, price relative to competition?
Who are your customers? What are the different types (segments) of customers?
What does your P&L look like? And what does that mean for your quality level, pricing, distribution, advertising?
Where would you like to be in terms of market position and profitability?
What are your distribution channels?
How do you ensure customers know about the value you are offering? (positioning, messaging, media planning)
Work iteratively through steps (1) to (6).
General Framework 2: General Diagram of Marketing
This is represented by the following diagram. I'll explain this in a future essay.
General framework 3: It's all about value
The idea here is that companies exist to create value. The questions then translate to:
Is the company creating value? For which segments of customers?
Is it creating enough value to sustain the business?
How can the company keep creating value as customer expectations and technologies change?
I suspect each of these frameworks is helpful in different situations. I'll write more about each of these in later essays.