Marketing’s Fifth Discipline - Profitability
By: Kane Harrison, Founder and Chief Executive Officer — Published: February 15, 2019
And then there were Five. There used to be Four P’s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. Those days have long gone.
It’s not that the Four P’s are in themselves wrong, or even that they have been superseded by a “new and improved” formula. It is simply that the Four marketing disciplines fail to put enough attention to the most important P in business - Profitability. This is not a new conversation. In fact, the first articles published about this added P where back in the very early 2000s, almost 20 years ago. Let me paint the landscape: there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Snapchat, no Instagram, Google who? And oh, by the way, the people you so desperately want in your sales funnel, were not even born.
So why can't marketers get it right? After all the average CMO salary is $170,000 (USD) with it topping out around $250,000 (USD).
This Fifth P lies at the heart of the pressure now being felt by marketing departments to deliver returns on marketing investment. As markets mature and experience commoditization like elective medical services, the reality is that marketers need to adopt an analytical mindset (especially true in Ophthalmology). Marketers need to embrace sophisticated thinking, tools, and techniques to justify marketing spending — and their own positions.
This also falls squarely on the shoulders of business owners and executives as well. 86% of executives say that true ROI analytics are marketing’s greatest need. Yet, most companies are still using metrics such as awareness instead of ROI measurements. Most business owners and executives feel that they get accountability for their investments in finance, production, information technology, even purchasing, but aren’t aware of what their marketing spending is achieving.
Those businesses that don’t change face certain death. But for those that do and those that have, their future is brighter than ever before. (Cue the murmur of the antiquated minds reflecting on the last 20 years of the Fifth P discussion but lack of action, while they renew subscriptions to cable TV and settle in for the wheel of fortune. The major difference and importance to focus today stem from the quickening effect of technology and constant consumer focus shift).
Why is the future bright for change makers and thought leaders? Because you can now control your marketing outlay and project your RIO in ways that have never been done before. Yes, that’s right. The simple fact is that measurable outcomes are now expected for both internal and external marketing programs and they should be.
The timing of these growing demands on marketers is no coincidence. In many industries, marketing and advertising simply are not working. Marketing activities constitute a rapidly growing portion of companies’ cost structure, but the returns are increasingly becoming questionable. To effect change you must start to look at marketing as a discipline and be disciplined marketers.
dis·ci·pline
The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.
A branch of knowledge, typically one studied in higher education.
We accept either definition (tongue in cheek) as our complete focus is the final P - Profitability. We practice what we preach. Actually, we practice way more than we preach.
This week our Vision Care Connect brand welcomed Wang Vision Institute (a premier LASIK and laser cataract center in Nashville, Tennessee) into the Vision Care Connect 100 club. What is the 100 club?
In 2018 through the Vision Care Connect patient acquisition service (result focused, accountable marketing), Wang Vision Institute completed 100 elective vision surgeries. This is the final P - Profitability for the client. A truly measurable result that has a direct effect, and impact on the daily operation of the business.
The only way a business can obtain the final P to proudly place on their now gold plated mantle for all to see, is to entrust their marketing budget and expected return with a result focused and accountable team. That’s right, there are two very important parts to the Fifth P - a laser-like focus on the required result and unwavering accountability.
Unlike responsibility (the “before”) and self-empowerment (the “during”), accountability is the “after”. It’s a willingness to answer for the outcomes of choices, actions, and behaviors.
When you’re accountable, you stop assigning blame and making excuses.When you start to think of marketing as a discipline, become disciplined about your approach to marketing, empower your marketing team to focus only on results and encourage them to take accountability, you will unearth the final P, the most important P, the only P that truly matters in any business - Profitability.
