7 BASIC SERVICE MARKETING CONCEPTS

Though marketing incorporates a broad set of concepts but you might have heard a lot about marketing mix discussed ubiquitously when someone talks about the basic approach to product marketing concepts.

Apart from widely known 4Ps, service marketing concepts encompasses three more elements that are crucial to your service business’ success and bring in more customers. The key elements of a successful service marketing concepts include:

Product

 

Unlike physical products, the products in service marketing are intangible. And since online marketing is a service, it is diverse in nature and your customers cannot own what they pay for. Therefore, you need to design your internet marketing services very carefully.

A service blue-print is developed to know how your product will be. For instance: You are providing SEO services to companies, you need to develop a clear operational plan how you will be providing services to your customers.

Price

 

Price is a key element in both product and service marketing mix because it is the value people are expecting to get in return of cost they have been charged. When you have a service blueprint you are specifying your customers what support you will be providing along with the service delivery framework and the estimated/expected experience they will be getting for the value for their money.

Place

 

In the case of services, place determines where your service product is going to be located. Like the best place to open a pharmacy is near hospitals, so that people can easily reach you to find medicine. But for services like online marketing the placement and location of your business don't really matter, you just need to focus that you are in reach of your clients.

Promotion

 

Once you know what service you are going to provide your customers with, what price you will be charging and what place you will start your business in, the next step is to bring yourself into the limelight and start promotion.

Be it a tangible product or a service product, there are various promotion methods available like newspapers, TV, radio, social media, internet marketing etc. that you can opt for considering your target market and your allocated promotional budget.

People

 

People are one of the marketing concepts for service marketing mix because they define what service is. For instance: If you are running a digital marketing agency, your SEO specialists, content marketers and digital strategists’ ability to meet your marketing goals define you. If you own a restaurant, your chefs and other staff define you because it’s your people who can make or break your business’ image.

Many companies nowadays are inclined towards staff’s skill training, so that you can deliver your customers with exceptional service.

Process

 

Have you seen how quick McDonalds and FedEx are? This is because they have streamlined the process of delivering service to their customers. Marketing concepts in service marketing relies heavily on processes because how you are delivering your service product is of utmost importance.

The process is also a key element of the blueprint, where before establishing the services, you need to define an optimized flow of processes to deliver the service and maintain consistency.

Physical Evidence

 

One of the last marketing concepts element is physical evidence. However, the impact of customer experience is doubled if a product is associated with your service marketing efforts. At times, physical evidence is a differentiator. Think of a restaurant with good food and good seating arrangement and another restaurant with good food, seating arrangement, and ambiance. Which one will you prefer? Definitely, you will go for the one with good ambiance right? That is the physical evidence of your service. Like a saloon having well-trained staff and the well-designed interior is offering something extra to customers.