Most of us have heard of the Five P’s of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion, Place and People) and how getting those right is essential for success. Certainly, all of these have a role and are important, but for small to mid-sized companies, experience shows that PAC is the biggest driver of success. These are:

• Product
• Audience
• Communications

Executing well on PAC provides your business with focus and a market-informed approach. The PAC mindset creates a differentiated product and an activating message that reaches those most likely to buy. Consistent revenue and profit growth naturally follow.

Let’s talk about each of these in more detail. And of course, product comes first.

Product

Your product must deliver and hopefully exceed the needs of the market, your targeted consumer. Consider also these important requirements to generate confidence in the product:

• Conduct consumer research with your target audience. Don’t rely on internal opinions or friends.
• Develop packaging that communicates key benefits well and is impactful at retail.
• Establish pricing based on the value you offer relative to your competitors.
• Remember that consumers will pay for product features and benefits they need. But putting in stuff they don’t need or want will drive up your costs, for which they are unwilling to pay.

Audience

Know who you are targeting, why, how many consumers/customers they represent, what will motivate purchase and where to reach them. Some points to consider:

• Prioritize and size your target audience options.
  * Know them well enough to solve their pains.
• Understand which targets have the highest purchase intent.
• Know who influences their purchase decision and reach them also.
• The bottom line—create a “persona” of your key targets. This is the culmination of a deep understanding of your audience and the translation into an actionable summary for communication and media placement.

Communications

Once you have validated that the product meets consumer needs, and you know the audience, it’s time to communicate it to build awareness and trial. Here’s a few important considerations:

• Create audience-relevant positioning that is differentiated vs. the competition.
• Engage an agency or strong creative person/team that can turn your positioning into compelling content—website, blogs, ads, advertorials, etc.
• Deliver your message and content efficiently.

Contrasting the focus on PAC to the Five P’s, you will see that there is overlap only in the key elements that truly drive sales growth. Getting People and Promotion (the two missing P’s) right is certainly important. But having good people without them optimizing PAC will not produce results. And, promotion is very tricky to do profitably and many times not even necessary.

Consistent Results

Making the broader organization a part of the PAC process helps get everyone focused on the external market and results; not simply internal activities and checking the box but understanding and measuring how their activities drive results in the market.

Applying PAC in past roles, we were able to bring engineers, accountants and other functions into this mindset. The result was a more powerful team with everyone thinking and acting on what will work in the market. 

Lastly, many years of sales and marketing executive experience demonstrate that PAC consistently produces results.

At a baby products company, research provided insights that showed product and messaging changes were needed to capture greater market share. We pulled the team together and focused on what we learned to develop an improved product and new advertising that quickly turned negative sales trends into double-digit positive revenue growth.

Remember…

            Great Product

            Reach the Audience most likely to buy

            Communicate persuasively and efficiently

The Five P’s of Marketing are good. But focusing on PAC consistently produces winning results!