Succession Planning — the Best Way to Ensure Your Company’s Future

If you’ve seen the award-winning HBO show “Succession,” you know how dramatic and challenging it can be to adequately succession plan for the next generation of business leaders. I’ve personally worked at companies that took succession planning seriously, and those that didn’t, and the difference was stark.

According to this 2023 report, “three years is the critical tipping point when valuable leaders consider whether they should look for their next opportunity internally or externally.”

I’ve felt this in my own professional experience. If there’s no plan for me to move up internally at a company after working for three years, I’m left feeling undervalued and looking for other opportunities.

Developing a succession plan can set your company up for smooth transitions when leaders resign or accept a promotion. A well-thought-out plan can significantly impact employee morale and position your team to skillfully handle future business challenges. Read further to learn the ins and outs of succession planning so you’re prepared for any transition.

Table of Contents

• What is succession planning?
• What is the importance of succession planning?
• Succession Planning Best Practices
• Business Succession Planning Example
• Succession Planning Steps
• CEO Succession Planning
• Employee Succession Planning

What is succession planning?

Succession planning is a strategic process for identifying high-potential employees and taking steps to prepare them for future leadership positions. It helps your business develop and retain the talent pipeline so you can quickly fill vacant leadership roles.

Some succession plans look ahead 12 to 36 months for when a leader retires, steps down, advances, or leaves. Others, including CEO succession plans, look years into the future to secure the next several generations of leaders.

We'll cover the specifics of C-suite transitions later on. However, all succession planning has similar benefits, such as thinking ahead and identifying what you want in a successor.

What is the importance of succession planning?

The Global Leadership Forecast 2023 reports that 59% of CEOs prioritize “attracting and retaining top talent,” and 50% also prioritize “developing the next generation of leaders.”

It’s important to remember that baby boomers are hitting retirement age in 2025 in numbers never before seen. Succession planning has never been a more critical strategy for CEOs and businesses to implement to bridge the gap between new hires and retirees.

The benefits of strong leadership are apparent. It improves employee turnover, ensures the execution of goals, and contributes to the company‘s survival. So, if a crucial leader leaves, a succession plan can help ensure the role is filled, and your company continues to thrive. But that’s not the only upside.

Benefits Of Business Succession Planning

• Finding and developing people for future leadership roles allows you to promote from within. These employees have organizational knowledge and internal relationships that outside hires lack.
• Letting employees know that you're investing in them is a huge morale boost. It can also increase motivation and loyalty to the company.
• Training employees for leadership roles forces you to identify the skills, knowledge, practices, and relationships needed for each role in your succession plan. This can attract new talent, retain current employees, and keep you competitive.
• Hiring for highly specialized roles isn't easy. Succession planning helps you find people with unique competencies when it comes time to replace the current employees.

Currently, leaders looking to develop skills outside of their daily work want more coaching and development assignments in addition to assessment and formal training. Succession planning is the perfect way to formalize training for both present and future leaders.

Succession Planning Best Practices

Succession planning isn't simple. But if you consider these best practices when choosing successors, your company will be well-equipped to manage transitions and unexpected changes.

Formalize a plan.

The earlier you set a succession plan, the better. You don't want to risk a leadership vacuum that leaves teams feeling unsupported. That can quickly lead to an entire team or department leaving, especially if the leader is particularly strong and has a close relationship with their direct reports.

Once you have a succession plan, write it down. Then, make it clear there's a plan in place for when the inevitable transitions happen.

Pro tip: Fill out this free succession planning template to evaluate your organization’s leadership strategy.

Stay dynamic.

Volatility is common at every company. People move cities, find new jobs, and retire. Your succession plan should be able to adapt to change. Instead of creating a plan and only revisiting it when the time comes to fill a role, see the plan as an evolving process that needs to be constantly updated.

Pro tip: Remember that checking in frequently with employees, understanding their passion, helping them reach goals, and more are important for retaining top talent. Ambitious employees won’t stay at a workplace that doesn’t have a plan in place for them.

Evaluate talent.

Part of a fluid succession plan is taking the time to assess employees' interests, skills, performance, and opportunities. This can be done through 360-degree feedback, weekly check-ins with managers, informal training, or tools like the nine-box grid.

The goal is to get an idea of people's strengths and weaknesses, career goals, and growth opportunities so you know who may be the right fit for leadership roles.

Pro tip: Read the free guide “How To Be a Leader” and see which of your employees contains the potential for leadership. Encourage candidates to also read the guide, so they can self reflect on their own goals and aspirations.

Communicate openly.

Communication builds trust, which makes it easier to set expectations and ensure everyone is on the same page. As you build a succession plan, have honest conversations with employees.

Find out where people want to be, and tell them where they're currently at. The whole point is to make your plan a reality, and successors will appreciate your openness when the time comes to offer them a role.

Pro tip: Ask your candidate what sort of timeline they would like to see for their job role. You might be surprised that some candidates want more time to train while others feel confident in moving up quickly.

Make diversity and inclusion a priority.

Companies with women in leadership roles experience almost 50% higher profit and share performance. In fact, 78% of executives expect their hiring managers to do more for DEI in the next year, making DEI a top priority.

Prioritizing DEI matters during succession planning because it addresses internal biases that hiring managers may have. For example, perhaps a certain role has always been filled by one gender, which may influence a manager’s opinions on who should succeed. By evaluating your own biases and committing to DEI, you can find the best candidate.

Pro tip: Remember, diverse teams will collaborate better, improve your company’s culture, and foster a safe work environment for everyone.

Business Succession Planning Example

When asked, a whopping 61% of organizations said they didn't have a direct report who could step into their CMO role tomorrow. That's a bad sign for C-suite succession plans. Without a strategy to replace leaders, a company can quickly go downhill.

So, what does succession planning look like when done right?

When researching this piece, Apple was mentioned time and time again as a succession planning role model. To explain, we have to go back in time. After iconic founder Steve Jobs left the role in 2011 to focus on cancer treatment, Tim Cook — the COO at the time — took the position. Since then, the company has grown to a $3.4 trillion market cap.

So what made Tim Cook’s tenure so successful? Well, Cook and Jobs formed a close relationship, working together for over 12 years. But beyond that, the company has Apple University, an executive education system designed to help leaders think like Jobs. This program helps keep the spirit of innovation at the company alive for those who may lead it down the line.

Let’s fast forward to 2024. The company has many executives at roughly the same age who may have retirement on the horizon. Publications like Bloomberg, are able to speculate who might take the reigns because several leaders have taken more public facing roles for the company.

The takeaways:

• Forge strong relationships between leaders and potential successors so forthcoming executives can learn the ropes.
• Find a way to train or coach executives, investing in future talent.
• Put potential future leaders in public-facing roles so transitions will seem smooth to your customers.

Succession Planning Steps

1. Make a plan for your plan.

This step is all about defining the goals of your succession plan and aligning with everyone involved. For some companies, this will mean meeting with your board to outline strategic priorities. For others, it will require meeting with senior leaders to define what you're looking for in a successor.

You'll be ready to move on to the next step once you:

• Define the roles, skills, core competencies, and experience required for a successor.
• Gather information and feedback on the above from your team or experts within your network.
• Forecast your company's needs. Consider turnover trends, retirement dates, compensation strategies, and management training.
• Update your job descriptions and any leadership models to reflect the information you've gathered. You want to be clear about your expectations before looking for candidates.

Pro tip: Use HubSpot’s Free Succession Plan Template to get started.

2. Identify potential candidates.

Using the succession profiles and job descriptions you‘ve created, you’re ready to seek out candidates. Make sure your approach is easy to repeat and introduces as little bias as possible. It can be helpful to get support from the HR team, who can share the tools needed to engage candidates and help facilitate the process.

To identify candidates, you can:

• Look for leaders who develop others, follow through on projects, take action to support the company vision, and have strong leadership skills.
• Get insight into each candidate's goals, disposition, and potential by holding interviews, creating surveys, and setting up focus groups.
• Ask people for ideas on how to improve succession and leadership to get buy-in and discover who's engaged with the process.

Pro tip: Ask potential candidates to attend a specific leadership training or to complete a course. This can both better prepare them for succession and weed out those who aren’t going to take the responsibility seriously.

3. Inform candidates.

There‘s a great debate on whether or not companies should let employees know they’re succession candidates. However, informing people of their potential will not only motivate them but also prevent them from wondering about their future with the company. A great candidate may jump ship if they're in the dark and think they can find a better opportunity elsewhere.

Instead, communicate your intentions about the positions, people, and planning. Just keep your expectations incredibly clear regarding the roles and people involved.

Pro tip: If you’re not sure of a specific timeline for a candidate's succession, make sure they know that there isn’t a set date and that you will check in frequently to assess their progress. Notify them immediately when you do have a timeline. Candidates who are given vague expectations and timelines can become frustrated and even disillusioned with the potential succession plan.

4. Set up professional development efforts.

Your company likely has programs in place for onboarding and training employees. However, development is about creating opportunities for people to gain experience beyond their current role and skill set. This is especially important for team members who can get caught in a specialist silo.

Once you identify candidates who you want to develop, you‘ll want to figure out the specific skills and knowledge they’ll need to move to the next level. This often involves a succession plan template, continuous feedback, mentoring or coaching, formal training, and open conversations between the employee and their manager.

Pro tip: Mentoring a candidate isn’t as simple as checking in on a weekly basis. Discover the different types of mentorship and how to better coach your candidate in this blog.

5. Do a trial run.

As potential successors accelerate their growth, they'll become true contenders for leadership roles. This is the ideal time to start trial runs to test their knowledge and expose them to various aspects of a position. Exposing candidates to real-world situations can highlight what effective leadership looks like and give them insight into overall company goals.

There are a variety of ways to get candidates involved; just choose the method that makes the most sense for the role:

• Job shadow a senior leader to learn about their day-to-day tasks.
• Take on responsibilities when their manager is away.
• Invite them to sit in on higher-level meetings.
• Bring them into discussions on strategy, execution, or company forecasting.
• Involve them in the hiring process for junior candidates.
• Give them more responsibility on projects or involve them in cross-functional work.

Pro tip: A key part of succession planning is making sure your candidate is adequately trained and prepared. Add key requirements and goalposts to your succession plan template so you can keep track of candidate readiness.

6. Adjust your hiring strategy.

Eventually, the time will come when you extend an offer to a potential candidate. And you'll need someone else to fill their role. Luckily, the successor can use their new leadership skills to help interview or train the person filling their position. This can be an employee a few levels down or a new hire.

That‘s why it’s important to adjust your hiring strategy to account for the successor‘s roles. Without them, your plan won’t go as smoothly, and their team will likely be scrambling to fill the gap.

Pro tip: Onboarding candidates to their new role isn’t accomplished day one. Check out this blog on how to effectively onboard employees from their first day to their first year.

7. Implement the plan.

Succession planning is a complex process with multiple short- and long-term layers. But eventually, it will be time to make the transition. Make an announcement and celebrate the succession. This will show employees that your company prides itself on strong leadership and has a plan for everyone's career development.

Sometimes, a more gradual transition is needed. Family businesses often struggle with smooth succession planning because of familial relationships, emotions, and intertwined histories. In this case, a clear succession plan based on business needs is exceptionally crucial to ensure the company's continued success.

Pro tip: Establish clear expectations by writing specific goals that will detail whether succession planning has been a success. Let your successor know the exact metrics you’d like them to reach during their first year and what their success will look like.

CEO Succession Planning

DDI reports that “Today, only 40% of leaders report that their company has high-quality leaders. This represents a significant drop from two years ago.”

That's a low score for such a high-stakes business priority — especially considering the majority of CEO successors are internal hires.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) states that “of all the decisions that a company’s board of directors makes, choosing the next CEO is arguably the most crucial." Replacing a CEO needs to involve a long-term, well-devised plan that's linked to both short and long-term company priorities.

CEO succession planning can follow similar steps to employee succession planning, but there are specific considerations for this top-level role. HBR outlines the following tips for developing a CEO successor:

• A candidate's competencies, personal attributes, and experiences need to be connected to business priorities. A charismatic senior leader may seem like the top pick, but a company may need a successor with expert-level technical skills in addition to social skills.
• Think several generations ahead instead of focusing on the immediate successor. Succession is a long game, so you want to position it as a continuous process to develop top talent.
• Identify seven potential CEOs in your company across all generations. This can take the stress off of each CEO transition and help keep your talent pipeline top-notch.
• Train CEO candidates through a combination of on-the-job experience, executive coaching, education, mentoring, and cross-functional training.

Developing talent to take on the CEO role will require time and effort from high-level stakeholders. But it's absolutely worthwhile to prevent the vacuum this leadership role can leave if succession is poorly managed.

If a board is involved in the process, HBR recommends using board meetings to combine strategy sessions with talent development. That way, stakeholders can make sure strategy changes reflect the skills needed for potential successors.

Employee Succession Planning

Succession planning extends to employees in all roles across a company. Viewing it this way, rather than saving succession plans for senior leaders, helps you identify high-potential employees at all levels. You can then take steps to develop them into leaders who are able to take on additional responsibilities when a role opens up.

When looking for successors, keep an eye out for employees who are interested in learning new skills, are comfortable with change, can adapt to uncertainty and new leadership, and can manage various work environments. All potential successors should be motivated and engaged in the process because they have a chance to grow their knowledge and take on more challenging, rewarding roles.

When you see a path for an employee‘s growth, they’ll see it too. So the next time a key leader steps down or a new director position is created, you'll know just the right people to recruit for the role.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/succession-planning

If you’ve seen the award-winning HBO show “Succession,” you know how dramatic and challenging it can be to adequately succession plan for the next generation of business leaders. I’ve personally worked at companies that took succession planning seriously, and those that didn’t, and the difference was stark.

According to this 2023 report, “three years is the critical tipping point when valuable leaders consider whether they should look for their next opportunity internally or externally.”

I’ve felt this in my own professional experience. If there’s no plan for me to move up internally at a company after working for three years, I’m left feeling undervalued and looking for other opportunities.

Developing a succession plan can set your company up for smooth transitions when leaders resign or accept a promotion. A well-thought-out plan can significantly impact employee morale and position your team to skillfully handle future business challenges. Read further to learn the ins and outs of succession planning so you’re prepared for any transition.

Table of Contents

• What is succession planning?
• What is the importance of succession planning?
• Succession Planning Best Practices
• Business Succession Planning Example
• Succession Planning Steps
• CEO Succession Planning
• Employee Succession Planning

What is succession planning?

Succession planning is a strategic process for identifying high-potential employees and taking steps to prepare them for future leadership positions. It helps your business develop and retain the talent pipeline so you can quickly fill vacant leadership roles.

Some succession plans look ahead 12 to 36 months for when a leader retires, steps down, advances, or leaves. Others, including CEO succession plans, look years into the future to secure the next several generations of leaders.

We'll cover the specifics of C-suite transitions later on. However, all succession planning has similar benefits, such as thinking ahead and identifying what you want in a successor.

What is the importance of succession planning?

The Global Leadership Forecast 2023 reports that 59% of CEOs prioritize “attracting and retaining top talent,” and 50% also prioritize “developing the next generation of leaders.”

It’s important to remember that baby boomers are hitting retirement age in 2025 in numbers never before seen. Succession planning has never been a more critical strategy for CEOs and businesses to implement to bridge the gap between new hires and retirees.

The benefits of strong leadership are apparent. It improves employee turnover, ensures the execution of goals, and contributes to the company‘s survival. So, if a crucial leader leaves, a succession plan can help ensure the role is filled, and your company continues to thrive. But that’s not the only upside.

Benefits Of Business Succession Planning

• Finding and developing people for future leadership roles allows you to promote from within. These employees have organizational knowledge and internal relationships that outside hires lack.
• Letting employees know that you're investing in them is a huge morale boost. It can also increase motivation and loyalty to the company.
• Training employees for leadership roles forces you to identify the skills, knowledge, practices, and relationships needed for each role in your succession plan. This can attract new talent, retain current employees, and keep you competitive.
• Hiring for highly specialized roles isn't easy. Succession planning helps you find people with unique competencies when it comes time to replace the current employees.

Currently, leaders looking to develop skills outside of their daily work want more coaching and development assignments in addition to assessment and formal training. Succession planning is the perfect way to formalize training for both present and future leaders.

Succession Planning Best Practices

Succession planning isn't simple. But if you consider these best practices when choosing successors, your company will be well-equipped to manage transitions and unexpected changes.

Formalize a plan.

The earlier you set a succession plan, the better. You don't want to risk a leadership vacuum that leaves teams feeling unsupported. That can quickly lead to an entire team or department leaving, especially if the leader is particularly strong and has a close relationship with their direct reports.

Once you have a succession plan, write it down. Then, make it clear there's a plan in place for when the inevitable transitions happen.

Pro tip: Fill out this free succession planning template to evaluate your organization’s leadership strategy.

Stay dynamic.

Volatility is common at every company. People move cities, find new jobs, and retire. Your succession plan should be able to adapt to change. Instead of creating a plan and only revisiting it when the time comes to fill a role, see the plan as an evolving process that needs to be constantly updated.

Pro tip: Remember that checking in frequently with employees, understanding their passion, helping them reach goals, and more are important for retaining top talent. Ambitious employees won’t stay at a workplace that doesn’t have a plan in place for them.

Evaluate talent.

Part of a fluid succession plan is taking the time to assess employees' interests, skills, performance, and opportunities. This can be done through 360-degree feedback, weekly check-ins with managers, informal training, or tools like the nine-box grid.

The goal is to get an idea of people's strengths and weaknesses, career goals, and growth opportunities so you know who may be the right fit for leadership roles.

Pro tip: Read the free guide “How To Be a Leader” and see which of your employees contains the potential for leadership. Encourage candidates to also read the guide, so they can self reflect on their own goals and aspirations.

Communicate openly.

Communication builds trust, which makes it easier to set expectations and ensure everyone is on the same page. As you build a succession plan, have honest conversations with employees.

Find out where people want to be, and tell them where they're currently at. The whole point is to make your plan a reality, and successors will appreciate your openness when the time comes to offer them a role.

Pro tip: Ask your candidate what sort of timeline they would like to see for their job role. You might be surprised that some candidates want more time to train while others feel confident in moving up quickly.

Make diversity and inclusion a priority.

Companies with women in leadership roles experience almost 50% higher profit and share performance. In fact, 78% of executives expect their hiring managers to do more for DEI in the next year, making DEI a top priority.

Prioritizing DEI matters during succession planning because it addresses internal biases that hiring managers may have. For example, perhaps a certain role has always been filled by one gender, which may influence a manager’s opinions on who should succeed. By evaluating your own biases and committing to DEI, you can find the best candidate.

Pro tip: Remember, diverse teams will collaborate better, improve your company’s culture, and foster a safe work environment for everyone.

Business Succession Planning Example

When asked, a whopping 61% of organizations said they didn't have a direct report who could step into their CMO role tomorrow. That's a bad sign for C-suite succession plans. Without a strategy to replace leaders, a company can quickly go downhill.

So, what does succession planning look like when done right?

When researching this piece, Apple was mentioned time and time again as a succession planning role model. To explain, we have to go back in time. After iconic founder Steve Jobs left the role in 2011 to focus on cancer treatment, Tim Cook — the COO at the time — took the position. Since then, the company has grown to a $3.4 trillion market cap.

So what made Tim Cook’s tenure so successful? Well, Cook and Jobs formed a close relationship, working together for over 12 years. But beyond that, the company has Apple University, an executive education system designed to help leaders think like Jobs. This program helps keep the spirit of innovation at the company alive for those who may lead it down the line.

Let’s fast forward to 2024. The company has many executives at roughly the same age who may have retirement on the horizon. Publications like Bloomberg, are able to speculate who might take the reigns because several leaders have taken more public facing roles for the company.

The takeaways:

• Forge strong relationships between leaders and potential successors so forthcoming executives can learn the ropes.
• Find a way to train or coach executives, investing in future talent.
• Put potential future leaders in public-facing roles so transitions will seem smooth to your customers.

Succession Planning Steps

1. Make a plan for your plan.

This step is all about defining the goals of your succession plan and aligning with everyone involved. For some companies, this will mean meeting with your board to outline strategic priorities. For others, it will require meeting with senior leaders to define what you're looking for in a successor.

You'll be ready to move on to the next step once you:

• Define the roles, skills, core competencies, and experience required for a successor.
• Gather information and feedback on the above from your team or experts within your network.
• Forecast your company's needs. Consider turnover trends, retirement dates, compensation strategies, and management training.
• Update your job descriptions and any leadership models to reflect the information you've gathered. You want to be clear about your expectations before looking for candidates.

Pro tip: Use HubSpot’s Free Succession Plan Template to get started.

2. Identify potential candidates.

Using the succession profiles and job descriptions you‘ve created, you’re ready to seek out candidates. Make sure your approach is easy to repeat and introduces as little bias as possible. It can be helpful to get support from the HR team, who can share the tools needed to engage candidates and help facilitate the process.

To identify candidates, you can:

• Look for leaders who develop others, follow through on projects, take action to support the company vision, and have strong leadership skills.
• Get insight into each candidate's goals, disposition, and potential by holding interviews, creating surveys, and setting up focus groups.
• Ask people for ideas on how to improve succession and leadership to get buy-in and discover who's engaged with the process.

Pro tip: Ask potential candidates to attend a specific leadership training or to complete a course. This can both better prepare them for succession and weed out those who aren’t going to take the responsibility seriously.

3. Inform candidates.

There‘s a great debate on whether or not companies should let employees know they’re succession candidates. However, informing people of their potential will not only motivate them but also prevent them from wondering about their future with the company. A great candidate may jump ship if they're in the dark and think they can find a better opportunity elsewhere.

Instead, communicate your intentions about the positions, people, and planning. Just keep your expectations incredibly clear regarding the roles and people involved.

Pro tip: If you’re not sure of a specific timeline for a candidate's succession, make sure they know that there isn’t a set date and that you will check in frequently to assess their progress. Notify them immediately when you do have a timeline. Candidates who are given vague expectations and timelines can become frustrated and even disillusioned with the potential succession plan.

4. Set up professional development efforts.

Your company likely has programs in place for onboarding and training employees. However, development is about creating opportunities for people to gain experience beyond their current role and skill set. This is especially important for team members who can get caught in a specialist silo.

Once you identify candidates who you want to develop, you‘ll want to figure out the specific skills and knowledge they’ll need to move to the next level. This often involves a succession plan template, continuous feedback, mentoring or coaching, formal training, and open conversations between the employee and their manager.

Pro tip: Mentoring a candidate isn’t as simple as checking in on a weekly basis. Discover the different types of mentorship and how to better coach your candidate in this blog.

5. Do a trial run.

As potential successors accelerate their growth, they'll become true contenders for leadership roles. This is the ideal time to start trial runs to test their knowledge and expose them to various aspects of a position. Exposing candidates to real-world situations can highlight what effective leadership looks like and give them insight into overall company goals.

There are a variety of ways to get candidates involved; just choose the method that makes the most sense for the role:

• Job shadow a senior leader to learn about their day-to-day tasks.
• Take on responsibilities when their manager is away.
• Invite them to sit in on higher-level meetings.
• Bring them into discussions on strategy, execution, or company forecasting.
• Involve them in the hiring process for junior candidates.
• Give them more responsibility on projects or involve them in cross-functional work.

Pro tip: A key part of succession planning is making sure your candidate is adequately trained and prepared. Add key requirements and goalposts to your succession plan template so you can keep track of candidate readiness.

6. Adjust your hiring strategy.

Eventually, the time will come when you extend an offer to a potential candidate. And you'll need someone else to fill their role. Luckily, the successor can use their new leadership skills to help interview or train the person filling their position. This can be an employee a few levels down or a new hire.

That‘s why it’s important to adjust your hiring strategy to account for the successor‘s roles. Without them, your plan won’t go as smoothly, and their team will likely be scrambling to fill the gap.

Pro tip: Onboarding candidates to their new role isn’t accomplished day one. Check out this blog on how to effectively onboard employees from their first day to their first year.

7. Implement the plan.

Succession planning is a complex process with multiple short- and long-term layers. But eventually, it will be time to make the transition. Make an announcement and celebrate the succession. This will show employees that your company prides itself on strong leadership and has a plan for everyone's career development.

Sometimes, a more gradual transition is needed. Family businesses often struggle with smooth succession planning because of familial relationships, emotions, and intertwined histories. In this case, a clear succession plan based on business needs is exceptionally crucial to ensure the company's continued success.

Pro tip: Establish clear expectations by writing specific goals that will detail whether succession planning has been a success. Let your successor know the exact metrics you’d like them to reach during their first year and what their success will look like.

CEO Succession Planning

DDI reports that “Today, only 40% of leaders report that their company has high-quality leaders. This represents a significant drop from two years ago.”

That's a low score for such a high-stakes business priority — especially considering the majority of CEO successors are internal hires.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) states that “of all the decisions that a company’s board of directors makes, choosing the next CEO is arguably the most crucial." Replacing a CEO needs to involve a long-term, well-devised plan that's linked to both short and long-term company priorities.

CEO succession planning can follow similar steps to employee succession planning, but there are specific considerations for this top-level role. HBR outlines the following tips for developing a CEO successor:

• A candidate's competencies, personal attributes, and experiences need to be connected to business priorities. A charismatic senior leader may seem like the top pick, but a company may need a successor with expert-level technical skills in addition to social skills.
• Think several generations ahead instead of focusing on the immediate successor. Succession is a long game, so you want to position it as a continuous process to develop top talent.
• Identify seven potential CEOs in your company across all generations. This can take the stress off of each CEO transition and help keep your talent pipeline top-notch.
• Train CEO candidates through a combination of on-the-job experience, executive coaching, education, mentoring, and cross-functional training.

Developing talent to take on the CEO role will require time and effort from high-level stakeholders. But it's absolutely worthwhile to prevent the vacuum this leadership role can leave if succession is poorly managed.

If a board is involved in the process, HBR recommends using board meetings to combine strategy sessions with talent development. That way, stakeholders can make sure strategy changes reflect the skills needed for potential successors.

Employee Succession Planning

Succession planning extends to employees in all roles across a company. Viewing it this way, rather than saving succession plans for senior leaders, helps you identify high-potential employees at all levels. You can then take steps to develop them into leaders who are able to take on additional responsibilities when a role opens up.

When looking for successors, keep an eye out for employees who are interested in learning new skills, are comfortable with change, can adapt to uncertainty and new leadership, and can manage various work environments. All potential successors should be motivated and engaged in the process because they have a chance to grow their knowledge and take on more challenging, rewarding roles.

When you see a path for an employee‘s growth, they’ll see it too. So the next time a key leader steps down or a new director position is created, you'll know just the right people to recruit for the role.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection

What's Below the Line Marketing Anyway? I Dove Deep Into BTL Marketing to Find Out

I cringe whenever I look at how many unopened emails live in my work inbox. I’m lucky if I open maybe ten percent of them — including anything promotional.

But, of those ten percent, what convinced me to open and respond to them? Those companies did below the line (BTL) marketing right.

Email marketing, direct mail, events — below the line marketing includes these and similar targeted tactics to convince and convert buyers. What goes into running a successful BTL campaign? And where do you begin?

To help you start, I dug into BTL marketing: the history, its relationship with other marketing tactics, and best practices from experts. Here’s what I found.

Table of Contents

• What is below the line marketing?
• Above the Line vs. Below the Line Marketing
• How to Make Below the Line Marketing Work for You
• Below the Line Marketing Examples
• Below the Line Marketing Best Practices

What is below the line marketing?

Great question! Answering “What is BTL marketing?” is surprisingly tough.

First, let’s look at history. Below the line marketing got its start in the 1950s.

Manufacturing giant Procter & Gamble wanted to separate advertising activities based on who got paid for them. “Traditional” advertising costs (aka, TV, radio, OOH) payable to ad agencies made it above the line on the company’s draft budget. Everything else fell below the line.

In modern marketing parlance, I’d say below the line marketing is a spiritual cousin to demand generation. However, BTL marketing in practice feels more like a subset of demand gen — enabling demand gen’s strategy through tactical details and execution. BTL campaigns often run on shorter operational timelines.

The results BTL generates focus more heavily on responses and conversions instead of demand gen’s longer-term customer acquisition and nurture goals.

For our purposes, BTL marketing tactics will include:

• Direct mail
• Email marketing
• Trade shows and events
• Location-specific promotions
• Targeted online outreach

While traditional BTL marketing relies on a physical component, the internet’s reach is inescapable. So long as it’s highly targeted, personalized, and time-bound, you could make a case to include physical and digital marketing tactics.

Above the Line vs. Below the Line Marketing

Speaking of the internet, digital marketing has blurred the lines between above the line (ATL) and BTL marketing. Yet, whether it happens in cyberspace or physical space, we need distinction between both operations. For our discussion, let’s say:

• ATL marketing involves broad campaigns aimed at wide audiences.
• BTL marketing involves targeted campaigns aimed at specific segments of your target audience.

The elements of targeting and personalization make the difference. Instead of billboards nationwide, it’s mailers sent to a dozen neighborhoods. BTL brings a clear focus to connecting with an audience subgroup and convincing them to buy.

This targeting shrinks a campaign’s size and scale, so BTL actions typically cost less than their ATL counterparts.

What do ATL and BTL marketing look like in practice?

To answer this question, I went to Sara Croft. Croft is the CEO of Five Four Partners, a growth agency that helps companies launch and scale. Many of her early-stage startup clients use below the line marketing tactics.

She positions the ATL/BTL divide with her clients like this: “Let’s take a LinkedIn ad campaign example,” Croft said. “A generic, broad message about your product that’s targeted to a very wide audience and sends people to your home page could get a lot of eyeballs and maybe some clicks, but likely won’t result in a conversion. For an early-stage company, this wastes time. While brand building is important, startups need customers — now.

“For targeted BTL marketing, an early-stage startup could consider running LinkedIn ads for a webinar,” she continued. “It’s a lower barrier to entry for the audience to sign up to attend a webinar versus signing up for a demo of a potentially six-figure product purchase. The webinar educates the audience further and helps qualify and disqualify prospects. The results are tangible, measurable, and actionable.”

A strong marketing strategy requires both ATL and BTL actions, but it’s vital to know when to apply each:

• ATL marketing is great for companies wanting to increase brand awareness and reach. If your metrics are more top-of-funnel-focused, you’ll do well with ATL tactics.
• BTL marketing is for specific audiences and supports bottom-of-funnel-related metrics. If your goal is to convince and convert, BTL is the way to go.

Or, as Croft puts it, “ATL marketing makes the prospect aware of a pain and its solution, but BTL marketing helps them know what to do about it.”

How to Make Below the Line Marketing Work for You

Whether you’re running marketing for an early-stage startup or a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, BTL marketing can offer many opportunities to convert your target audience. But it can be daunting to start.

When I build BTL marketing plans, I find it helps to adopt journalism’s Five Ws (Plus H):

• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• When?
• Why?
• How?

With these questions in mind, let’s see how you can build and execute your plan. For our purposes, I’ll also share details from BTL donor relations campaigns I’ve run to tie these concepts to concrete outcomes.

1. Define your target segments.

Who are you talking to? Because of BTL’s tighter targeting, you need to get detailed with your target segments. The more information you have on your potential buyers, the better.

In past campaigns, I’ve built donor outreach lists based on demographic and psychographic data gathered through various sources:

• Age
• Location
• Disposable income
• Engagement with other content
• Previous interest (e.g., volunteered at an organizational event, visited a physical location)
• Previous giving data (if available)

These data points helped me build the vision for my ideal buyer.

2. Customize and personalize messaging.

Once you know who you’re talking to, you must understand why you’re reaching out and what you want them to know. I’ve seen marketing teams run with generic copy from other campaigns and call it a day. That’s a surefire way to waste your and your buyers’ time and resources.

Through market research and past interactions, you can build a nuanced understanding of your messaging. What clicks with prospects? What makes people’s eyes light up in interest? What scares them away?

At this stage, practice articulating your messaging with draft copy. I find it helpful to lay out an internal brief containing:

• Core messaging
• 3-5 key points I want buyers to remember
• Purpose statement (Why am I reaching out to you?)
• 30-second elevator pitch copy (What am I trying to say?)
• Draft copy for short-form and long-form content

Great writing comes from great thinking. Use this internal brief model to organize your thoughts and state your case.

3. Pick the right channels.

You’ve chosen your segments and crafted a compelling message. Now, where will you find your buyers? When will you reach out? And how will you do it?

BTL marketing campaigns survive on nitty-gritty details. From your research and experience, you should know where your buyers spend their time.

Coupled with clear messaging, you can choose the right delivery channels:

• Direct mail
• Email marketing
• In-person experiences

My donor base loved receiving letters in the mail. They tended to be older and were more apt to respond and convert by mailing back a check instead of completing a digital donation form.

So, my organization would send a letter every two months to over 1,200 donors or prospects. The copy would be ghostwritten as a board member, program manager, or even program beneficiary. We’d tell donors about their gift’s impact and invite them to renew or upgrade.

While we offered multiple engagement channels (e.g., “Find us on Facebook” or an online donation link), that letter converted and upgraded more donors than any other tactic.

Pro tip: I wouldn’t use generative AI to write full drafts. But, AI tools can help you include personalized information from your CRM to humanize copy.

For instance, calling out a donor’s last volunteer interaction at the annual holiday festival helps you connect more meaningfully. AI can scale those small insertions across hundreds or thousands of letters.

I knew my donor base inside and out, which helped me run successful BTL campaigns. With all these pieces in place, you can start running your campaign.

4. Measure and analyze results.

As you execute your plan, check your progress often. Pay close attention to how your BTL campaign fits within your overall marketing strategy’s goals. Know which metrics matter to your organization, and use those metrics to track your campaign’s outcomes.

For instance, my donor management role’s goals included:

1. Establishing new giving relationships with prospects.
2. Reactivating lapsed givers.
3. Upgrading gift amounts for current donors.

Every letter in my direct mail campaign focused on meeting one of these goals. I’d then check the response and conversion rate on those letters to learn what worked, what didn’t, and how I could improve for the next batch.

Remember to gather quantitative and qualitative data, too. Post-action surveys can deliver extra intel on your audience and core messaging. Prospects might not respond to your initial BTL action.

But, offer them a chance to win a $500 gift card if they complete a survey telling you what you did wrong? That’ll start conversations.

5. Tinker and retry.

You won’t always get it right the first time. In fact, it’ll probably take around eight touchpoints to move a prospect. Use your data to tinker with previous stages and try again.

Like any good scientific experiment, don’t alter too many dependent variables at once. You want to track what you’ve changed so you can replicate winning outcomes. Try altering one segmentation criterion (e.g., shift the age group) or channel choice, and rerun your experiment.

Croft relayed that this is one of BTL’s greatest benefits. “BTL marketing helps you identify what to scale,” she said. “When you start with more targeted marketing, you can better understand the campaign's ROI.”

Below the Line Marketing Examples

You can spot BTL marketing throughout your daily life. Let’s focus on two examples from my life — and how these companies converted me.

Example 1: Email Marketing to My Canine Friend

Email is a popular channel that is overwhelming users. These days, your buyers probably never open your email: 79% of consumers delete branded emails at least half of the time.

And even when they open it, consumers spend an average of nine seconds before deciding to buy or trash it.

Your email should inform, engage, and convert in nine seconds. That’s a tall order for any marketing team.

BarkBox did that to me. I have a dog, and she’s classified as a “Super Chewer.” She loves gnawing on tasty treats and tough toys. BarkBox knows this and sends me highly targeted, personalized emails.

They put my dog’s name in the title and waste no time in presenting the offer. The email contains their Super Chewer lineup for the holiday box, so I know exactly what I’m getting. And BarkBox offers a clear CTA to convert me in seconds. Guess who will chew on their Rudolph-themed toy this holiday season?

Pro tip: If you’re struggling to use email successfully, our comprehensive email marketing guide can help you begin.

Example 2: Direct Mail Gift Boxes to Upgrade My Subscription

Receiving a physical item still means something to people. Research from gifting platform Sendoso found that 83% of recipients feel closer to a company after receiving a physical gift.

But that gift has to mean something: Business.com research found that 54% of professionals have received a gift so bad that they immediately threw it away.

You need to know exactly what your buyer wants and reinforce that sentiment with your gift selection.

For instance, I’ve been using and evangelizing an AI presentation generation tool called Gamma for over a year. As a reward for my support and advocacy, they asked me my shirt size and sent me a swag box.

Inside, I received a properly-sized branded hoodie, a water bottle, and a personalized note. Gamma sent me useful, meaningful items. While this box celebrated our relationship, it also nudged me toward upgrading my subscription.

I did exactly that. And I’ve been more apt to share the tool with my marketing friends.

There’s a higher upfront cost to this tactic — and a higher cost for failure if you don’t know your audience. But in the right hands and with the right people, direct mail can deliver big conversion numbers.

Below the Line Marketing Best Practices

We’ve covered a lot about BTL marketing so far, but before you begin your next campaign, let’s review a few final (yet vital) best practices.

Do your research.

Successful BTL marketing means knowing your target audience intimately. There’s no shortcut to this process. Your goal should be to reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right message.

Audience research helps you achieve that objective. Deep research lets you segment an audience across several axes:

• Demographics like age, gender, and income.
• Purchase intent like people searching for “best college laptop to buy.”
• Lifestyle, including attitudes, opinions, and interests.

A vast amount of quantitative and qualitative data is at your disposal to help you segment appropriately. Explore target audience research tools and techniques to get the good stuff.

Secure relevant permissions.

BTL marketing is exciting, but pause to consider any legal and ethical implications. Did your direct mail recipient consent to a gift box? Are you following CAN-SPAM regulations with your targeted email outreach?

Because BTL tactics typically need personal data, review your data security and privacy requirements before launching campaigns. Tell people how you plan to use their data and what value exchange they can expect. It pays to be upfront about your intentions and let people opt out easily.

You can even turn permission gathering into a touchpoint. For example, let gift box recipients pick the swag they actually want. You gather their consent while letting them take part. Plus, they’ll be extra excited when their hand-chosen package arrives.

Integrate BTL into your overall marketing strategy.

This tip might seem self-explanatory. But I’ve seen teams try to execute BTL tactics without understanding how other marketing actions and ATL tactics affect their audiences’ brand perception and intent.

For example, you can build an incredible booth experience at your industry’s largest trade show. But if nobody knows you’re there or what to expect (i.e., content you share in an above the line press release and media outreach campaign), you’ll miss out on significant foot traffic and coverage.

Effective BTL actions require you to understand marketing’s influence across your organization. Marketing and communications, sales, customer success — engage anyone involved in achieving marketing’s strategic outcomes.

Also, plan comprehensively to ensure everyone agrees and is tracking the same outcomes. For instance, use HubSpot’s email marketing planning template to help you plan, calendar, and optimize your BTL email marketing campaign. Share this document with all stakeholders to keep everyone on track.

BTL Marketing Matters More in Busy Digital Worlds

My review of BTL marketing left me thinking we need more marketing like it. Generalized brand building has a vital place in our marketing toolkits.

I don’t think we’ll have a world where you’ll never run ads or buy billboard space.

But, amid the noise around scaling marketing and deploying AI and similar technologies, there’s something refreshing about true personalization. About something meant for me.

That’s why I opened those ten percent of emails with:

• Offers tailored to my needs.
• Simple and clear calls-to-action.
• Delivery at the right place and time.

In a busier world, help your customers feel seen and heard. BTL marketing done well can help you deliver on that feeling while also driving stronger marketing outcomes.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/btl-marketing

I cringe whenever I look at how many unopened emails live in my work inbox. I’m lucky if I open maybe ten percent of them — including anything promotional.

But, of those ten percent, what convinced me to open and respond to them? Those companies did below the line (BTL) marketing right.

Email marketing, direct mail, events — below the line marketing includes these and similar targeted tactics to convince and convert buyers. What goes into running a successful BTL campaign? And where do you begin?

To help you start, I dug into BTL marketing: the history, its relationship with other marketing tactics, and best practices from experts. Here’s what I found.

Table of Contents

• What is below the line marketing?
• Above the Line vs. Below the Line Marketing
• How to Make Below the Line Marketing Work for You
• Below the Line Marketing Examples
• Below the Line Marketing Best Practices

What is below the line marketing?

Great question! Answering “What is BTL marketing?” is surprisingly tough.

First, let’s look at history. Below the line marketing got its start in the 1950s.

Manufacturing giant Procter & Gamble wanted to separate advertising activities based on who got paid for them. “Traditional” advertising costs (aka, TV, radio, OOH) payable to ad agencies made it above the line on the company’s draft budget. Everything else fell below the line.

In modern marketing parlance, I’d say below the line marketing is a spiritual cousin to demand generation. However, BTL marketing in practice feels more like a subset of demand gen — enabling demand gen’s strategy through tactical details and execution. BTL campaigns often run on shorter operational timelines.

The results BTL generates focus more heavily on responses and conversions instead of demand gen’s longer-term customer acquisition and nurture goals.

For our purposes, BTL marketing tactics will include:

• Direct mail
• Email marketing
• Trade shows and events
• Location-specific promotions
• Targeted online outreach

While traditional BTL marketing relies on a physical component, the internet’s reach is inescapable. So long as it’s highly targeted, personalized, and time-bound, you could make a case to include physical and digital marketing tactics.

Above the Line vs. Below the Line Marketing

Speaking of the internet, digital marketing has blurred the lines between above the line (ATL) and BTL marketing. Yet, whether it happens in cyberspace or physical space, we need distinction between both operations. For our discussion, let’s say:

• ATL marketing involves broad campaigns aimed at wide audiences.
• BTL marketing involves targeted campaigns aimed at specific segments of your target audience.

The elements of targeting and personalization make the difference. Instead of billboards nationwide, it’s mailers sent to a dozen neighborhoods. BTL brings a clear focus to connecting with an audience subgroup and convincing them to buy.

This targeting shrinks a campaign’s size and scale, so BTL actions typically cost less than their ATL counterparts.

What do ATL and BTL marketing look like in practice?

To answer this question, I went to Sara Croft. Croft is the CEO of Five Four Partners, a growth agency that helps companies launch and scale. Many of her early-stage startup clients use below the line marketing tactics.

She positions the ATL/BTL divide with her clients like this: “Let’s take a LinkedIn ad campaign example,” Croft said. “A generic, broad message about your product that’s targeted to a very wide audience and sends people to your home page could get a lot of eyeballs and maybe some clicks, but likely won’t result in a conversion. For an early-stage company, this wastes time. While brand building is important, startups need customers — now.

“For targeted BTL marketing, an early-stage startup could consider running LinkedIn ads for a webinar,” she continued. “It’s a lower barrier to entry for the audience to sign up to attend a webinar versus signing up for a demo of a potentially six-figure product purchase. The webinar educates the audience further and helps qualify and disqualify prospects. The results are tangible, measurable, and actionable.”

A strong marketing strategy requires both ATL and BTL actions, but it’s vital to know when to apply each:

• ATL marketing is great for companies wanting to increase brand awareness and reach. If your metrics are more top-of-funnel-focused, you’ll do well with ATL tactics.
• BTL marketing is for specific audiences and supports bottom-of-funnel-related metrics. If your goal is to convince and convert, BTL is the way to go.

Or, as Croft puts it, “ATL marketing makes the prospect aware of a pain and its solution, but BTL marketing helps them know what to do about it.”

How to Make Below the Line Marketing Work for You

Whether you’re running marketing for an early-stage startup or a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, BTL marketing can offer many opportunities to convert your target audience. But it can be daunting to start.

When I build BTL marketing plans, I find it helps to adopt journalism’s Five Ws (Plus H):

• Who?
• What?
• Where?
• When?
• Why?
• How?

With these questions in mind, let’s see how you can build and execute your plan. For our purposes, I’ll also share details from BTL donor relations campaigns I’ve run to tie these concepts to concrete outcomes.

1. Define your target segments.

Who are you talking to? Because of BTL’s tighter targeting, you need to get detailed with your target segments. The more information you have on your potential buyers, the better.

In past campaigns, I’ve built donor outreach lists based on demographic and psychographic data gathered through various sources:

• Age
• Location
• Disposable income
• Engagement with other content
• Previous interest (e.g., volunteered at an organizational event, visited a physical location)
• Previous giving data (if available)

These data points helped me build the vision for my ideal buyer.

2. Customize and personalize messaging.

Once you know who you’re talking to, you must understand why you’re reaching out and what you want them to know. I’ve seen marketing teams run with generic copy from other campaigns and call it a day. That’s a surefire way to waste your and your buyers’ time and resources.

Through market research and past interactions, you can build a nuanced understanding of your messaging. What clicks with prospects? What makes people’s eyes light up in interest? What scares them away?

At this stage, practice articulating your messaging with draft copy. I find it helpful to lay out an internal brief containing:

• Core messaging
• 3-5 key points I want buyers to remember
• Purpose statement (Why am I reaching out to you?)
• 30-second elevator pitch copy (What am I trying to say?)
• Draft copy for short-form and long-form content

Great writing comes from great thinking. Use this internal brief model to organize your thoughts and state your case.

3. Pick the right channels.

You’ve chosen your segments and crafted a compelling message. Now, where will you find your buyers? When will you reach out? And how will you do it?

BTL marketing campaigns survive on nitty-gritty details. From your research and experience, you should know where your buyers spend their time.

Coupled with clear messaging, you can choose the right delivery channels:

• Direct mail
• Email marketing
• In-person experiences

My donor base loved receiving letters in the mail. They tended to be older and were more apt to respond and convert by mailing back a check instead of completing a digital donation form.

So, my organization would send a letter every two months to over 1,200 donors or prospects. The copy would be ghostwritten as a board member, program manager, or even program beneficiary. We’d tell donors about their gift’s impact and invite them to renew or upgrade.

While we offered multiple engagement channels (e.g., “Find us on Facebook” or an online donation link), that letter converted and upgraded more donors than any other tactic.

Pro tip: I wouldn’t use generative AI to write full drafts. But, AI tools can help you include personalized information from your CRM to humanize copy.

For instance, calling out a donor’s last volunteer interaction at the annual holiday festival helps you connect more meaningfully. AI can scale those small insertions across hundreds or thousands of letters.

I knew my donor base inside and out, which helped me run successful BTL campaigns. With all these pieces in place, you can start running your campaign.

4. Measure and analyze results.

As you execute your plan, check your progress often. Pay close attention to how your BTL campaign fits within your overall marketing strategy’s goals. Know which metrics matter to your organization, and use those metrics to track your campaign’s outcomes.

For instance, my donor management role’s goals included:

1. Establishing new giving relationships with prospects.
2. Reactivating lapsed givers.
3. Upgrading gift amounts for current donors.

Every letter in my direct mail campaign focused on meeting one of these goals. I’d then check the response and conversion rate on those letters to learn what worked, what didn’t, and how I could improve for the next batch.

Remember to gather quantitative and qualitative data, too. Post-action surveys can deliver extra intel on your audience and core messaging. Prospects might not respond to your initial BTL action.

But, offer them a chance to win a $500 gift card if they complete a survey telling you what you did wrong? That’ll start conversations.

5. Tinker and retry.

You won’t always get it right the first time. In fact, it’ll probably take around eight touchpoints to move a prospect. Use your data to tinker with previous stages and try again.

Like any good scientific experiment, don’t alter too many dependent variables at once. You want to track what you’ve changed so you can replicate winning outcomes. Try altering one segmentation criterion (e.g., shift the age group) or channel choice, and rerun your experiment.

Croft relayed that this is one of BTL’s greatest benefits. “BTL marketing helps you identify what to scale,” she said. “When you start with more targeted marketing, you can better understand the campaign's ROI.”

Below the Line Marketing Examples

You can spot BTL marketing throughout your daily life. Let’s focus on two examples from my life — and how these companies converted me.

Example 1: Email Marketing to My Canine Friend

Email is a popular channel that is overwhelming users. These days, your buyers probably never open your email: 79% of consumers delete branded emails at least half of the time.

And even when they open it, consumers spend an average of nine seconds before deciding to buy or trash it.

Your email should inform, engage, and convert in nine seconds. That’s a tall order for any marketing team.

BarkBox did that to me. I have a dog, and she’s classified as a “Super Chewer.” She loves gnawing on tasty treats and tough toys. BarkBox knows this and sends me highly targeted, personalized emails.

They put my dog’s name in the title and waste no time in presenting the offer. The email contains their Super Chewer lineup for the holiday box, so I know exactly what I’m getting. And BarkBox offers a clear CTA to convert me in seconds. Guess who will chew on their Rudolph-themed toy this holiday season?

Pro tip: If you’re struggling to use email successfully, our comprehensive email marketing guide can help you begin.

Example 2: Direct Mail Gift Boxes to Upgrade My Subscription

Receiving a physical item still means something to people. Research from gifting platform Sendoso found that 83% of recipients feel closer to a company after receiving a physical gift.

But that gift has to mean something: Business.com research found that 54% of professionals have received a gift so bad that they immediately threw it away.

You need to know exactly what your buyer wants and reinforce that sentiment with your gift selection.

For instance, I’ve been using and evangelizing an AI presentation generation tool called Gamma for over a year. As a reward for my support and advocacy, they asked me my shirt size and sent me a swag box.

Inside, I received a properly-sized branded hoodie, a water bottle, and a personalized note. Gamma sent me useful, meaningful items. While this box celebrated our relationship, it also nudged me toward upgrading my subscription.

I did exactly that. And I’ve been more apt to share the tool with my marketing friends.

There’s a higher upfront cost to this tactic — and a higher cost for failure if you don’t know your audience. But in the right hands and with the right people, direct mail can deliver big conversion numbers.

Below the Line Marketing Best Practices

We’ve covered a lot about BTL marketing so far, but before you begin your next campaign, let’s review a few final (yet vital) best practices.

Do your research.

Successful BTL marketing means knowing your target audience intimately. There’s no shortcut to this process. Your goal should be to reach the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right message.

Audience research helps you achieve that objective. Deep research lets you segment an audience across several axes:

• Demographics like age, gender, and income.
• Purchase intent like people searching for “best college laptop to buy.”
• Lifestyle, including attitudes, opinions, and interests.

A vast amount of quantitative and qualitative data is at your disposal to help you segment appropriately. Explore target audience research tools and techniques to get the good stuff.

Secure relevant permissions.

BTL marketing is exciting, but pause to consider any legal and ethical implications. Did your direct mail recipient consent to a gift box? Are you following CAN-SPAM regulations with your targeted email outreach?

Because BTL tactics typically need personal data, review your data security and privacy requirements before launching campaigns. Tell people how you plan to use their data and what value exchange they can expect. It pays to be upfront about your intentions and let people opt out easily.

You can even turn permission gathering into a touchpoint. For example, let gift box recipients pick the swag they actually want. You gather their consent while letting them take part. Plus, they’ll be extra excited when their hand-chosen package arrives.

Integrate BTL into your overall marketing strategy.

This tip might seem self-explanatory. But I’ve seen teams try to execute BTL tactics without understanding how other marketing actions and ATL tactics affect their audiences’ brand perception and intent.

For example, you can build an incredible booth experience at your industry’s largest trade show. But if nobody knows you’re there or what to expect (i.e., content you share in an above the line press release and media outreach campaign), you’ll miss out on significant foot traffic and coverage.

Effective BTL actions require you to understand marketing’s influence across your organization. Marketing and communications, sales, customer success — engage anyone involved in achieving marketing’s strategic outcomes.

Also, plan comprehensively to ensure everyone agrees and is tracking the same outcomes. For instance, use HubSpot’s email marketing planning template to help you plan, calendar, and optimize your BTL email marketing campaign. Share this document with all stakeholders to keep everyone on track.

BTL Marketing Matters More in Busy Digital Worlds

My review of BTL marketing left me thinking we need more marketing like it. Generalized brand building has a vital place in our marketing toolkits.

I don’t think we’ll have a world where you’ll never run ads or buy billboard space.

But, amid the noise around scaling marketing and deploying AI and similar technologies, there’s something refreshing about true personalization. About something meant for me.

That’s why I opened those ten percent of emails with:

• Offers tailored to my needs.
• Simple and clear calls-to-action.
• Delivery at the right place and time.

In a busier world, help your customers feel seen and heard. BTL marketing done well can help you deliver on that feeling while also driving stronger marketing outcomes.

via Perfecte news Non connection

What Are the 4 Ps of Marketing? The Marketing Mix Explained [Example]

If, like me, you’ve worked in marketing for a long time, then the four Ps of marketing might seem like a throwback. They are a bit, but I’ve worked in marketing for over a decade now, and some things never change.

The four Ps of marketing are still foundational today. Those who studied marketing in college will likely know the ins and outs of the four Ps and the marketing mix, but if you’re not familiar, let me introduce you to the marketing mix.

The four Ps include product, price, place, and promotion.

In this article, I outline their role in marketing, including their history and evolution, examples, and how to use the four Ps to create effective marketing.

Table of Contents

• What are the 4 Ps of marketing?
• The History of the 4 Ps of Marketing
• The 4 Ps of Marketing vs. the 4 Cs of Marketing
• How to Use the 4 Ps of Marketing Mix in Your Strategy
• The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)
• The 4 Ps of Marketing Examples: Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics

The four Ps help marketers consider everything about a product or service when deciding how to market it for their business. Framing your marketing around the four Ps will help you learn what the competition is doing and what customers want from you.

The History of the 4 Ps of Marketing

Source

It might feel new and trendy, but marketing has been around for a long time. When looking into the history of the 4 Ps, I found some articles dating marketing back to over 1,000 years ago, as part of the bartering system, where people bartered and traded items.

The four Ps of Marketing is a relatively new concept. E. Jerome McCarthy introduced it in his book Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach. McCarthy’s introduction of the 4 Ps in the 1960s was timely. Marketing was changing, and McCarthy used the 4 Ps of marketing and considered the impact of e-commerce on marketing strategies, highlighting lessons from successes and failures. He explored new perspectives from customer relationship management (CRM), focusing on customer equity, acquisition, and retention costs.

The world was changing, and marketing needed to adapt.

I think it’s fair to say that since the 60s, particularly from the 90s onwards, the digital world has not stopped changing, and marketing has not stopped adapting.

To keep up, some have adapted the four Ps and turned them into the seven Ps.

4 Ps of Marketing Plus 3: The 7 Ps of Marketing

The seven Ps of marketing are a continuation of the four Ps. Included in the seven Ps are:

• Product.
• Price.
• Place.
• Promotion.

As well as:

• People.
• Process.
• Physical evidence.

Continuing the four Ps includes other elements that improve the marketing foundations.

• People are those who take the product to market. This includes sales teams and customer service representatives. In modern marketing, it could also include influencers and brand advocates (customers who sell your product for you).
• Process is the “P” that asks you to look at your operations. How quickly can you ship products, do you have enough stock, etc?
• Physical evidence is especially important in a digital world. People buy from brands online, sometimes stumbling across their marketing before they know the brand exists. With this customer journey, brands need to provide physical evidence that they can be trusted. Think reviews, about pages, company addresses, and more.

Source

The 4 Ps of Marketing vs. the 4 Cs of Marketing

Understanding the four Ps of marketing helps to understand the other parts of the marketing mix, namely the four Cs of marketing.

The 4 Cs of marketing include:

• Customer
• Cost
• Convenience
• Communication

I think of the four Cs as an inversion of the four Ps. Instead of being product-focused, they are customer-focused.

• The customer is the person you’re selling to, and everything involved with the buying journey through their lens: the customer journey, why they need the product or service, and the emotions they feel en route to buy.
• Cost (to the customer) is a more emotive way of viewing marketing. Cost considers the overall value perception and effort from the customer’s perspective, not just monetary price. Ask yourself how customers are going to feel about the price. How can marketing encourage them to part with their hard-earned cash?
• Convenience refers to how easy it is for the customer to buy and get the product. Is the website easy to use, the product in stock, and the shopping and delivery fast?
• Communication is a two-way interaction; this isn’t just about shouting your product or services to the masses; instead, aim to communicate with your audience, respond to feedback and understand what your customers are telling you.

The four Cs and the four Ps support each other. When thinking about marketing strategy, it helps to consider both. Thinking about:

• Customer and product.
• Price and cost.
• Place and convenience.
• Promotion and communication.

Helps to think about marketing from all perspectives. For me, this only elevates my marketing.

How to Use the 4 Ps of Marketing Mix in Your Strategy

You can use the four Ps to answer questions about the product, price, place, and promotion of your product or service.

For example, you can ask yourself:

• Product — How does your product meet your customer's needs? What problem(s) does it solve? What unique value or features does it offer?
• Price — What is the value of your product? What are my competitors charging?
• Place — Where are customers looking for your product?
• Promotion — How can you differentiate your product from competitors? Where can you reach your audience?

Always consider the needs and preferences of your target audience. Ultimately, your product, its price, its place of distribution, and its promotional strategies should appeal to your customers the most.

Thinking about your marketing in terms of the four Ps will help you strategize how to reach your customers. The 4 Ps of Marketing is also known as your marketing mix — more on that below.

To develop a marketing mix, you‘ll need to think about how you can uniquely position your brand amongst the competition. The most important part of thinking about the marketing mix — or the four Ps of marketing — is to understand the customer, the competition, and your company. You’ll evaluate your product and how to promote it.

But getting started isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve created the ultimate collection of marketing mix templates you can use to visualize your marketing mix and share it with your employees or investors. Use the templates to organize your initiatives and activities in the right section.

Featured Resource: Marketing Mix Templates

Click here to download the templates for free.

Use the template to follow along with the 4 Ps of marketing below.

The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)

1. The First P of Marketing: Product

When you think about your product, consider exactly what you‘re selling. Is it a specific product? Or is it a service? Your product can be a physical product, an online app, or a service such as house cleaning. Really, anything that you’re selling is the product.

Then, think of your brand messaging, the services you offer, and even packaging. When you define your product, think about what problem your product solves for your customers. Consider how your product is different from competing products. What features are unique to your product?

It's important to know your product intimately so you can market it.

Product Example

I’ll use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub as an example.

What is it? “Marketing automation software to help you attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale — all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.”

Who is it for? Modern marketers who juggle too much data and who are stuck with impossible-to-use software solutions that make their job harder, not easier.

Which features does it have? Marketing Hub offers blogging, SEO, social media management, email marketing, and ad tracking tools in a single, intuitive platform.

What problem does it solve? Marketing Hub simplifies the marketing automation process for busy marketers by bringing all data and tools under one roof.

Pro tip: Once you’ve established your product and its messaging, you can monitor marketing success in HubSpot’s Marketing Hub. You can see your customers’ complete journey and how each interaction helped take your audiences from prospect to buyer. You can analyze messaging and engagement rates to identify whether your expectations match your customer's needs.

For example, if you’ve correctly outlined the features most important to your users, then these will be the features most engaged. Through your analysis, you might find that other features garner more interest from specific audiences. Once you’ve got data, you can pivot strategy or double down on what’s working.

2. The Second P of Marketing: Price

When it comes to price, you have to consider how much you're going to charge customers for your products or services. Of course, you need to make a profit.

When coming up with your pricing strategy, you also need to think about what competitors are charging for the same product or service and how much customers are willing to pay. You can also think about what discounts or offers you can use in your marketing.

When you decide on a price, you want to think about perception. Do you want to be known as a cost-effective option in your industry? Or perhaps you're a luxury brand, and the price is slightly higher than the competition on the market. Keep in mind that pricing SaaS products is a little different than pricing physical products.

Either way, the language you use to market your product will be greatly impacted by the price of your product.

P.S. You can download a sales pricing calculator here for free.

Price Example

Marketing Hub is priced to grow with you as you grow.

HubSpot offers the following subscription tiers:

• Free: $0/month
• Starter: $20/month per seat
• Professional: $890/month (3 seats included)
• Enterprise: $3,600/month (5 seats included)

Pro tip: Your product’s price needs to be desirable to customers and effective for business. With HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, you can measure campaign success and identify the KPIs that best support your business and represent the goals you want to achieve. For example, you can measure the success of a campaign, the count of leads and purchases, and conversion rate measurements.

3. The Third P of Marketing: Place

When it comes to place, this might mean the physical location of your company, but it could also be defined as anywhere you sell your product, which might be online.

The place is where you market and distribute your product.

Remember that not every place makes sense for every product. For example, if your target market is seniors, then it won‘t make sense to market on TikTok. It’s important to choose the right places to market your product and meet your customers where they're at.

Think about possible distribution channels and outlets you could use to sell your product. Be sure to take into account whether your business is B2B or B2C.

At this point, you'll need to think about how to market your product on all the various channels that make sense for your company.

Place Example

As a provider of SaaS products, HubSpot offers Marketing Hub directly on its website.

Marketers can sign up for Marketing Hub by creating an account directly on the platform. HubSpot also created a convenient sign-up page for free subscriptions, or customers can request a demo from their friendly sales team.

4. The Fourth P of Marketing: Promotion

Promotion is the bread and butter of marketing. This is when you'll think about how to publicize and advertise your product.

Additionally, you'll discuss brand messaging, brand awareness, and lead generation strategies.

When it comes to promotion, keeping communication in mind is of the utmost importance. What messages will resonate with your target market? How can you best promote your product to them?

Think about where, when, and how you'll promote your brand.

Promotion Example

When promoting Marketing Hub, Hubspot needs to be wherever its target audience (marketers) is. Most importantly, we want to help them grow in their careers — as well as grow their businesses.

HubSpot does a lot of inbound marketing, and its promotion focuses primarily on organic acquisition. Marketers will find Marketing Hub over the following channels:

• The HubSpot Marketing Blog

• HubSpot Academy

• Facebook

• X

• Instagram

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

Pro tip: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub helps you analyze the performance of every marketing asset or tactic. You can measure how different placements have worked. For example, if you notice that a particular asset is generating leads, then you can share this asset across all of marketing. Or, you might find your Instagram efforts are superior to TikTok. With findings such as this, you can make data-driven decisions on what steps to take next for effective marketing.

The 4 Ps of Marketing Examples: Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics

Let's break down the 4 Ps of marketing by looking at examples from Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics.

Apple

Source

• Product: iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watch, AirPods, Software, and Services (i.e., Apple Music, Apple TV, iTunes, etc.).
• Price: Apple products are often priced at the higher end of the market. The brand commands premium pricing due to its reputation for innovation, quality, and design.
• Place: Consumers can purchase products online and in retail stores. Apple products are sold worldwide and have a significant global market presence.
• Promotion: Apple places a strong emphasis on cultivating a dedicated and loyal consumer base. Their marketing campaigns reinforce the idea of being part of an “Apple ecosystem.” Once users buy one product — like an iPhone – they're more likely to choose other Apple products like MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and more. This ecosystem fosters deep brand loyalty. This sense of loyalty is evident in their product launches, which are a must-see event in the tech industry.

e.l.f. Cosmetics

Source

• Product: e.l.f. offers a comprehensive range of makeup and skincare products, brushes, and beauty tools.
• Price: One of e.l.f.'s main value propositions is its affordability. Many of their products have a low price point, making the brand accessible to a wide range of consumers. Its lower price point sets it apart from other brands in the beauty space.
• Place: e.l.f. products are widely available in drugstores and big-box retailers like Target and Walmart. It also has a strong online presence, selling products directly through its website and other online retailers.
• Promotion: As a challenger brand in the beauty space, e.l.f. seeks to establish itself as a recognizable and reliable option at the drugstore and beyond. The brand is proactive across social media, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, to engage with younger demographics. In addition, their campaigns often involve user-generated content to foster a sense of community with their audience.

Back to You

Even though marketing has changed a lot since the four Ps were developed, the foundational elements of the industry haven't. You can apply the concepts of the marketing mix to create winning marketing strategies that help you profitably launch and promote your company’s products.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely find that the four Ps of marketing are part of your strategy, even before you knew what they are. It’s intuitive and foundational to weave elements of the four Ps into marketing.

However, an awareness of the four Ps and the marketing mix can only help your strategy. Keep them in mind every time you plan marketing.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/4-ps-of-marketing

If, like me, you’ve worked in marketing for a long time, then the four Ps of marketing might seem like a throwback. They are a bit, but I’ve worked in marketing for over a decade now, and some things never change.

The four Ps of marketing are still foundational today. Those who studied marketing in college will likely know the ins and outs of the four Ps and the marketing mix, but if you’re not familiar, let me introduce you to the marketing mix.

The four Ps include product, price, place, and promotion.

In this article, I outline their role in marketing, including their history and evolution, examples, and how to use the four Ps to create effective marketing.

Table of Contents

• What are the 4 Ps of marketing?
• The History of the 4 Ps of Marketing
• The 4 Ps of Marketing vs. the 4 Cs of Marketing
• How to Use the 4 Ps of Marketing Mix in Your Strategy
• The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)
• The 4 Ps of Marketing Examples: Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics

The four Ps help marketers consider everything about a product or service when deciding how to market it for their business. Framing your marketing around the four Ps will help you learn what the competition is doing and what customers want from you.

The History of the 4 Ps of Marketing

Source

It might feel new and trendy, but marketing has been around for a long time. When looking into the history of the 4 Ps, I found some articles dating marketing back to over 1,000 years ago, as part of the bartering system, where people bartered and traded items.

The four Ps of Marketing is a relatively new concept. E. Jerome McCarthy introduced it in his book Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach. McCarthy’s introduction of the 4 Ps in the 1960s was timely. Marketing was changing, and McCarthy used the 4 Ps of marketing and considered the impact of e-commerce on marketing strategies, highlighting lessons from successes and failures. He explored new perspectives from customer relationship management (CRM), focusing on customer equity, acquisition, and retention costs.

The world was changing, and marketing needed to adapt.

I think it’s fair to say that since the 60s, particularly from the 90s onwards, the digital world has not stopped changing, and marketing has not stopped adapting.

To keep up, some have adapted the four Ps and turned them into the seven Ps.

4 Ps of Marketing Plus 3: The 7 Ps of Marketing

The seven Ps of marketing are a continuation of the four Ps. Included in the seven Ps are:

• Product.
• Price.
• Place.
• Promotion.

As well as:

• People.
• Process.
• Physical evidence.

Continuing the four Ps includes other elements that improve the marketing foundations.

• People are those who take the product to market. This includes sales teams and customer service representatives. In modern marketing, it could also include influencers and brand advocates (customers who sell your product for you).
• Process is the “P” that asks you to look at your operations. How quickly can you ship products, do you have enough stock, etc?
• Physical evidence is especially important in a digital world. People buy from brands online, sometimes stumbling across their marketing before they know the brand exists. With this customer journey, brands need to provide physical evidence that they can be trusted. Think reviews, about pages, company addresses, and more.

Source

The 4 Ps of Marketing vs. the 4 Cs of Marketing

Understanding the four Ps of marketing helps to understand the other parts of the marketing mix, namely the four Cs of marketing.

The 4 Cs of marketing include:

• Customer
• Cost
• Convenience
• Communication

I think of the four Cs as an inversion of the four Ps. Instead of being product-focused, they are customer-focused.

• The customer is the person you’re selling to, and everything involved with the buying journey through their lens: the customer journey, why they need the product or service, and the emotions they feel en route to buy.
• Cost (to the customer) is a more emotive way of viewing marketing. Cost considers the overall value perception and effort from the customer’s perspective, not just monetary price. Ask yourself how customers are going to feel about the price. How can marketing encourage them to part with their hard-earned cash?
• Convenience refers to how easy it is for the customer to buy and get the product. Is the website easy to use, the product in stock, and the shopping and delivery fast?
• Communication is a two-way interaction; this isn’t just about shouting your product or services to the masses; instead, aim to communicate with your audience, respond to feedback and understand what your customers are telling you.

The four Cs and the four Ps support each other. When thinking about marketing strategy, it helps to consider both. Thinking about:

• Customer and product.
• Price and cost.
• Place and convenience.
• Promotion and communication.

Helps to think about marketing from all perspectives. For me, this only elevates my marketing.

How to Use the 4 Ps of Marketing Mix in Your Strategy

You can use the four Ps to answer questions about the product, price, place, and promotion of your product or service.

For example, you can ask yourself:

• Product — How does your product meet your customer's needs? What problem(s) does it solve? What unique value or features does it offer?
• Price — What is the value of your product? What are my competitors charging?
• Place — Where are customers looking for your product?
• Promotion — How can you differentiate your product from competitors? Where can you reach your audience?

Always consider the needs and preferences of your target audience. Ultimately, your product, its price, its place of distribution, and its promotional strategies should appeal to your customers the most.

Thinking about your marketing in terms of the four Ps will help you strategize how to reach your customers. The 4 Ps of Marketing is also known as your marketing mix — more on that below.

To develop a marketing mix, you‘ll need to think about how you can uniquely position your brand amongst the competition. The most important part of thinking about the marketing mix — or the four Ps of marketing — is to understand the customer, the competition, and your company. You’ll evaluate your product and how to promote it.

But getting started isn’t easy. That’s why we’ve created the ultimate collection of marketing mix templates you can use to visualize your marketing mix and share it with your employees or investors. Use the templates to organize your initiatives and activities in the right section.

Featured Resource: Marketing Mix Templates

Click here to download the templates for free.

Use the template to follow along with the 4 Ps of marketing below.

The 4 Ps of Marketing (Example)

1. The First P of Marketing: Product

When you think about your product, consider exactly what you‘re selling. Is it a specific product? Or is it a service? Your product can be a physical product, an online app, or a service such as house cleaning. Really, anything that you’re selling is the product.

Then, think of your brand messaging, the services you offer, and even packaging. When you define your product, think about what problem your product solves for your customers. Consider how your product is different from competing products. What features are unique to your product?

It's important to know your product intimately so you can market it.

Product Example

I’ll use HubSpot’s Marketing Hub as an example.

What is it? “Marketing automation software to help you attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale — all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.”

Who is it for? Modern marketers who juggle too much data and who are stuck with impossible-to-use software solutions that make their job harder, not easier.

Which features does it have? Marketing Hub offers blogging, SEO, social media management, email marketing, and ad tracking tools in a single, intuitive platform.

What problem does it solve? Marketing Hub simplifies the marketing automation process for busy marketers by bringing all data and tools under one roof.

Pro tip: Once you’ve established your product and its messaging, you can monitor marketing success in HubSpot’s Marketing Hub. You can see your customers’ complete journey and how each interaction helped take your audiences from prospect to buyer. You can analyze messaging and engagement rates to identify whether your expectations match your customer's needs.

For example, if you’ve correctly outlined the features most important to your users, then these will be the features most engaged. Through your analysis, you might find that other features garner more interest from specific audiences. Once you’ve got data, you can pivot strategy or double down on what’s working.

2. The Second P of Marketing: Price

When it comes to price, you have to consider how much you're going to charge customers for your products or services. Of course, you need to make a profit.

When coming up with your pricing strategy, you also need to think about what competitors are charging for the same product or service and how much customers are willing to pay. You can also think about what discounts or offers you can use in your marketing.

When you decide on a price, you want to think about perception. Do you want to be known as a cost-effective option in your industry? Or perhaps you're a luxury brand, and the price is slightly higher than the competition on the market. Keep in mind that pricing SaaS products is a little different than pricing physical products.

Either way, the language you use to market your product will be greatly impacted by the price of your product.

P.S. You can download a sales pricing calculator here for free.

Price Example

Marketing Hub is priced to grow with you as you grow.

HubSpot offers the following subscription tiers:

• Free: $0/month
• Starter: $20/month per seat
• Professional: $890/month (3 seats included)
• Enterprise: $3,600/month (5 seats included)

Pro tip: Your product’s price needs to be desirable to customers and effective for business. With HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, you can measure campaign success and identify the KPIs that best support your business and represent the goals you want to achieve. For example, you can measure the success of a campaign, the count of leads and purchases, and conversion rate measurements.

3. The Third P of Marketing: Place

When it comes to place, this might mean the physical location of your company, but it could also be defined as anywhere you sell your product, which might be online.

The place is where you market and distribute your product.

Remember that not every place makes sense for every product. For example, if your target market is seniors, then it won‘t make sense to market on TikTok. It’s important to choose the right places to market your product and meet your customers where they're at.

Think about possible distribution channels and outlets you could use to sell your product. Be sure to take into account whether your business is B2B or B2C.

At this point, you'll need to think about how to market your product on all the various channels that make sense for your company.

Place Example

As a provider of SaaS products, HubSpot offers Marketing Hub directly on its website.

Marketers can sign up for Marketing Hub by creating an account directly on the platform. HubSpot also created a convenient sign-up page for free subscriptions, or customers can request a demo from their friendly sales team.

4. The Fourth P of Marketing: Promotion

Promotion is the bread and butter of marketing. This is when you'll think about how to publicize and advertise your product.

Additionally, you'll discuss brand messaging, brand awareness, and lead generation strategies.

When it comes to promotion, keeping communication in mind is of the utmost importance. What messages will resonate with your target market? How can you best promote your product to them?

Think about where, when, and how you'll promote your brand.

Promotion Example

When promoting Marketing Hub, Hubspot needs to be wherever its target audience (marketers) is. Most importantly, we want to help them grow in their careers — as well as grow their businesses.

HubSpot does a lot of inbound marketing, and its promotion focuses primarily on organic acquisition. Marketers will find Marketing Hub over the following channels:

• The HubSpot Marketing Blog

• HubSpot Academy

• Facebook

• X

• Instagram

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

Pro tip: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub helps you analyze the performance of every marketing asset or tactic. You can measure how different placements have worked. For example, if you notice that a particular asset is generating leads, then you can share this asset across all of marketing. Or, you might find your Instagram efforts are superior to TikTok. With findings such as this, you can make data-driven decisions on what steps to take next for effective marketing.

The 4 Ps of Marketing Examples: Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics

Let's break down the 4 Ps of marketing by looking at examples from Apple and e.l.f. Cosmetics.

Apple

Source

• Product: iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watch, AirPods, Software, and Services (i.e., Apple Music, Apple TV, iTunes, etc.).
• Price: Apple products are often priced at the higher end of the market. The brand commands premium pricing due to its reputation for innovation, quality, and design.
• Place: Consumers can purchase products online and in retail stores. Apple products are sold worldwide and have a significant global market presence.
• Promotion: Apple places a strong emphasis on cultivating a dedicated and loyal consumer base. Their marketing campaigns reinforce the idea of being part of an “Apple ecosystem.” Once users buy one product — like an iPhone – they're more likely to choose other Apple products like MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and more. This ecosystem fosters deep brand loyalty. This sense of loyalty is evident in their product launches, which are a must-see event in the tech industry.

e.l.f. Cosmetics

Source

• Product: e.l.f. offers a comprehensive range of makeup and skincare products, brushes, and beauty tools.
• Price: One of e.l.f.'s main value propositions is its affordability. Many of their products have a low price point, making the brand accessible to a wide range of consumers. Its lower price point sets it apart from other brands in the beauty space.
• Place: e.l.f. products are widely available in drugstores and big-box retailers like Target and Walmart. It also has a strong online presence, selling products directly through its website and other online retailers.
• Promotion: As a challenger brand in the beauty space, e.l.f. seeks to establish itself as a recognizable and reliable option at the drugstore and beyond. The brand is proactive across social media, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, to engage with younger demographics. In addition, their campaigns often involve user-generated content to foster a sense of community with their audience.

Back to You

Even though marketing has changed a lot since the four Ps were developed, the foundational elements of the industry haven't. You can apply the concepts of the marketing mix to create winning marketing strategies that help you profitably launch and promote your company’s products.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll likely find that the four Ps of marketing are part of your strategy, even before you knew what they are. It’s intuitive and foundational to weave elements of the four Ps into marketing.

However, an awareness of the four Ps and the marketing mix can only help your strategy. Keep them in mind every time you plan marketing.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection