4 Ps of Web Marketing For Small Business & Startups-Proficiency

Posted by Hersh Bhardwaj in Strategic web Marketing | 3 comments

If you have heard about the 4 Ps of marketing, you must have wondered whether there can be  a similar theorizing for the web-based marketing. In order to run a small business that relies upon the internet in any way, you need to know your web marketing fairly well. Great thing is that its easier than you have been told.

The 4 Ps of web marketing will provide you enough knowledge to be able to perceive and approach your web-based business in a better, more holistic, way. This gives a concise way of understanding a subject, which is normally outlined by a random array of tips and techniques.

Lets start with the first P- Proficiency. Within the context of our study here, Proficiency has these two faces:-

• Proficiency = Expertise that you need to apply to build your business;
• Proficiency = Skillfulness that you need to demonstrate in order to build credibility and trust online

Now, it must be understood how the above two definitions define the same concept in two different ways. Lets take an example. Suppose you sell wines online. You would need a good knowledge of wines to be able to identify, negotiate, and, purchase your stock of wines. That requires ‘expertise that you need to apply to build your business’.

While a prospective customer visits your site looking for a good red wine to gift to his fiancé, he relies upon your (site-owner’s) recommendation (expertise). Basically, every wine that you are selling on the site is actually chosen by you, hence you are in effect saying to people to trust your choice by buying those wines.

But, would a visitor trust your choice/recommendation if he/she thinks you are not an expert? Of course not! May be you have stocked best wines in whole of Europe, but if you/your site is not deemed as a trusted/expert source, you won’t even sell a wee cork.

So, how do you build credibility and trust online?

The 4Ps of web marketing whitepaper is a good starting point, doesn’t matter at what stage your business is at. It will help you grasp the four key principles.

Thanks,

Hersh Bhardwaj